discedo Application
OOC INFORMATION
Name: Squiggles
LJ: scarfandjacket
Contact: Plurk
Characters played at Discedo: N/A
IC INFORMATION
Name: Phoenix Wright
Canon: Ace Attorney
Timeline: Apollo Justice:Ace Attorney; post-canon
CANON RESOURCE LINK:
Ace Attorney Wiki: Phoenix Wright
PERSONALITY:
Although he is more famous for his days as a defense attorney, thirty-three-year-old Phoenix Wright has actually lived more years of his life as a piano player (seven years) than he did as a lawyer (three). Since his disbarment in 2019, the man’s personality changed very drastically--or it seems that way, at least, to young Apollo Justice when the rookie lawyer meets Wright in 2026.
It is undeniable that Wright’s demeanor had changed over time. Clad casually (and almost lazily) in a baggy sweatshirt and blue beanie with a faint five o’clock shadow, Wright acts laid back and almost full of humor, tossing (bad) jokes and cryptic answers at Apollo (much to the younger man’s frustration). Because of this, he is almost unrecognizable from the lawyer Phoenix Wright, who had a tendency to be the blundering butt of everyone’s jokes.
However, that is simply a matter of perspective. A majority of the game (Apollo Justice:Ace Attorney) is played through the eyes of the rookie attorney, Apollo Justice (hence the name, you know). Apollo, although an avid fan of the ex-lawyer’s success, does not know the actual person of Phoenix Wright very well. (Not that he can be blamed for it, of course, as he only knew Wright for a few short months, if even that, before he was tricked by Wright into using forged evidence on his very first trial... but that’s a story for later.) On the other hand, players are given a glimpse inside Wright’s mind in one part of the game’s last case, Turnabout Succession, where it is made clear that Wright’s attitude around Apollo and the others does not accurately reflect his actual personality.
Anybody familiar with Phoenix Wright would first tell you about his loyalty and trustfulness. Wright made it his purpose in both his professional and personal life to put full faith in people around him. To be the kind of lawyer who would believe in and defend his client until the very end, even when everybody else has already abandoned them--to defend the weak who couldn’t defend themselves, and to be the ally of those who lost all friends--was Wright’s ideal and ultimate goal. Once Wright promises to trust a client, it is almost impossible to turn him against them. In fact, the only time he had done such a thing, Wright knew for certain that the defendant was guilty.
Furthermore, once he concludes that a defendant is trustworthy and most likely innocent (usually, this is every time), the lawyer Wright would have gone to great lengths to find that last piece of evidence that will prove his client’s innocence and save them from a punishment they do not deserve. Sometimes, he risked his job and social standing (being accused of the very murder he was defending Maya Fey for and having to defend himself as a result). Sometimes, he came close to losing his life (almost getting mauled by thugs, being attacked by a crazy lawyer with a taser). Multiple times (almost every time), he had to stand in trial against a bunch of really talented prosecutors who usually have strong evidence and testimonies to use against Wright and his defendant. Definitely, he has plenty of complaints and utters a considerable number of “Why me?”s in every situation, but he has never looked back on such experiences and truly regretted his actions.
The depth of Wright’s loyalty is immeasurable. (This trait could also be described as persevering, stubborn, or simply lacking in the ability to have foresight, but we’ll call it persevering loyalty for now. He grew out of the recklessness, anyway.) Even if he witnesses a terrible incident or is betrayed in a horrible way, Wright would still believe in the goodness of the people he decided to trust. Among them are Iris (Fey), Miles Edgeworth, and, most significant to Wright’s current canon point, Zak Gramarye.
Gramarye, who hired Wright just one day before his trial, was the last client Phoenix Wright defended in his career, on April 29, 2019. This last-minute trial was riddled with confusions for the lawyer; he was not satisfactorily prepared for the job, and in his haste, he accepted a piece of paper from Zak’s eight-year-old daughter without questioning its source or what is was. Later in court, Wright presents this unidentified piece of paper as evidence, only to be told that it was actually forged evidence. Not only was that (and the resulting disbarment that came after) bad enough, the court concluded that if a defendant would require such a thing as forgery in order to prove his innocence, then it must mean that he is, in fact, guilty.Not only was that situation bad enough, Gramarye decided that this would be the perfect moment to disappear off the face of the earth.
And he did. He vanished from the courthouse right before he was given his verdict, leaving behind many mysteries.
”No verdict was declared. ...After all, the defendant didn't exist. That's how it happened. The trial of magician Zak Gramarye vanished, along with him, for all eternity. The mysteries that remained behind were all solved, however. ...But not until seven years later.”
-- Phoenix Wright, 2019 (Turnabout Succession flashback case)
Wright, at this moment, had almost every single reason in the world to be angry at Gramarye. He also had little reason to believe in the man’s innocence. The disaster of State vs. Gramarye left Wright with a ruined career, a ruined reputation, and an eight-year-old girl with no relatives whose father had just abandoned her. After adopting Trucy Enigmar, and changing the name of his office to Wright Talent Agency (at her insistence), Wright continued to investigate the murder of Magnifi Gramarye, as well as the source of the forged evidence that cost him his badge, for the next seven years.
During those years, Wright did not doubt Zak Gramarye’s innocence. Many rumors pointed the finger of accusation at him; the one evidence that pointed to Gramarye’s innocence had been fake; still, Wright kept faith in his last client. Instead, he turned his suspicions to Valant Gramarye, Zak’s former partner, who was arrested for a short period of time during the trial for tampering with evidence. Although it ultimately turned out that they were both innocent and Magnifi shot himself, it is clear that Wright had, and still does, put an incredible amount of faith in the people he decides to trust.
Now, I believe I will move on from this trust part and continue to talk endlessly about the other aspects of man (I’m sorry, I’m not done yet).
Wright’s trustfulness and loyalty are traits that he has kept since his younger days as a lawyer. However, there are still aspects of his personality that went through some change as he grew older. A trait he picked up over the last seven years, for one, is unfaltering composure.
I have already described the lawyer Wright as a blundering butt of everyone’s jokes. Certainly he was, as he was always being teased by his assistant and friends (especially by Maya Fey and her cousin, Pearl Fey, although Pearl genuinely believed that Wright and Maya were soul mates that loved each other in reality as much as they did in her fantasies). He also floundered in court often: He was never completely ready to take on his opponent, grabbing blindly at every possible answer he could think of and giving the impression he had no idea what he was doing (he didn’t). He would struggle endlessly (sometimes interrogating parrots) until he discovers a final piece of the puzzle that can suddenly connect ALL THE POINTS with logic to solve the case, causing a turnabout and successfully defending his clients. He also reacted dramatically and almost comically to setbacks and unexpected revelations such as evidence and testimonies he failed to anticipate.
Perhaps it should be noted that while Wright often said his skills in anything outside of law is questionable, some people (apparently) said that his skills in law, too, were questionable at times.
However we see very little, if any at all, of that easily-flustered personality when we meet Wright in 2026. He acts carefree and carries himself with a laid-back attitude, cracking bad jokes at Apollo and laughing more easily than he did as a lawyer. He is less tense in general, and he is also less open about his feelings, which he shows very little of to people around him. He never seems to get very excited about anything, responding with not uninterested but quiet answers that do not betray any of his actual emotions; he also laughs off Apollo’s frustrations an sarcastic remarks. His default attitude is a casual and cheerful one that barely bats an eyelash at Apollo’s (and sometimes Trucy’s) fierce emotions. Apollo thinks he is always making fun of them.
Apollo: There's something that, well, it doesn't sit right. I just can't believe you have a daughter, Mr. Wright! And... she's so big! Not fat, but, er, you know what I mean.
Phoenix: Oh, Trucy's still a child.
Trucy: Daddy! How many times do I have to remind you! I'm not a child anymore!
Phoenix: Ah ha ha! But you'll always be Daddy's little baby girl to me, Trucy.
Apollo: (Ah ha ha, my foot! I'm not buying it.)
Wright was a very straightforward lawyer. He was the type to blurt out whatever was on his mind or heart at the moment (whether it be “Objection!” or an accusation or an inspirational word to his defendants), not thinking too hard about the consequences of his words unless somebody’s life depended on it (such a situation happened once). He spoke honestly and straight-forwardly, and preferred people did the same for him (because that made it easier for him during cross examination) (but people usually didn’t).
Come 2026, Wright’s dialogues are riddled with nonchalant and or cryptic comments. Often times, he seems to be doing this to purposely avoid discussions and answering (Apollo’s) questions. He drops hints; he tells (bad) jokes. Sometimes, he offers help to Apollo and Trucy without explaining how and why a certain method would work.
For example in Turnabout Corner, Wright gives Apollo a jar of Fingerprint Power after hearing him explain how a certain detective was giving Apollo and Trucy a hard time, hinting that it would help them but not elaborating why it would. Sometimes, he also makes sudden references to his past as a lawyer, although he never gives away important details about those experiences (“Ah, 'presenting' are we? I used to do a fair share of that myself.”), and he makes no effort to give Apollo any generous amount of wise words.
He has a “learn from the mistakes you know I made, not from the lectures I give you” attitude, you can say. He refuses to talk much about his past to anybody, especially his student Apollo (who knows the least out of everybody he speaks to). This attitude is often interpreted as his “trolling,” especially because players view the game from Apollo’s point of view, empathizing more with his frustration over Wright’s evasive behavior. However, when considering his actions alone (ignoring Apollo’s opinion, in other words), Wright’s deportment is actually reminiscent of that of his deceased mentor, Mia Fey.
Some back story, here. Mia Fey comes from a family of spirit mediums, and is the eldest daughter of the Kurain Master at the time (Misty Fey was succeeded by Mia’s younger sister, Maya, in February of 2019). When Mia was twelve years old, her mother was secretly hired by the police force to aid them in in the investigation of a murder. Because there had been no leads in the case, the police were hoping the channeled spirit would name the culprit for them. However, the named culprit was given the guilty verdict in court; as if to rub salt in that wound, the story of Misty’s involvement in the case, which had been kept a secret initially, was leaked to the public by one slimy douchebag. Shamed, Misty disappeared from her daughters’ life.
Mia Fey left her village to attend law school, with the intention of investigating her mother’s scandal and finding the man who caused the destruction of her family. Although Mia is known to have been a powerful spirit medium back home, she sealed her powers away and did not channel a single soul during her career. Years later, she was channeled by her own younger sister after murder at the hands of Redd White. With Maya as the defendant and her rookie apprentice as her lawyer, Mia still only gave Wright cryptic hints and never took the hundred and one chances she had to tell him: “It was Redd White!” In fact, she had many chances throughout the next three years to give Wright all of the answers to solve his cases. However, she did not because to do so would have been to lure herself, Maya, and Wright into the same trap her mother fell into.
Similarly, Wright avoids giving Apollo any answers straight out, instead nudging and tugging him with subtle hints in the right direction, in order to let the young lawyer grow. Wright could easily have told the truth to Apollo and Trucy. He could have explained from the very start that Zak Gramarye was still alive; that Trucy’s mother, Thalassa “Gramarye” Enigma, was still alive; that Thalassa was Apollo’s mother (they parted ways when Apollo was just a baby), making Apollo and Trucy each other’s siblings. He could have told them, easily, about Kristoph Gavin’s involvement in these cases. He could have told them everything at the very beginning, and, possibly, not have changed the outcome of this story at all.
However he didn’t, because he has seen that an answer that was given, instead of found, can destroy many things (the DL-6 incident and Fey scandal ruined the lives of not only the Feys, but the man who was arrested because of her, and the boy whose father had been killed in the incident). He forces Apollo to investigate every case on his own, searching for answers with his own power, not only to prevent any disasters but also so that Apollo may grow as a lawyer.
To Wright, Mia had been a god of sorts. Mirroring her methods is a show of his respect to her, and it is also a show of Wright’s caring for Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright. He does not wish for Apollo to follow in his, or Mia’s, steps toward disaster (one disbarred, one murdered), and he wishes that Trucy’s life will not be weighed down by the many secrets of her childhood. To give all of the answers would be damaging, yes. However he has no power, without his badge, to reveal the truth himself. Thus he pushed that role onto Apollo and Apollo’s rival, Prosecutor Klavier Gavin--and he does so, again, without giving Apollo any straight answers. Apollo was especially aggravated this time because of the gravity of this responsibility. (State vs. Misham was a trial set up to test the effectiveness of a Jurist System, a new system Wright was trying to install to replace the current bench system of the Los Angeles courts. It was a risky one, because it put power in the hands of normal citizens who did not have explicit knowledge of the law, but the verdict given in this test trial will be just as real as ones given in any other trials. Apollo, as the appointed defense lawyer in this trial, was shaken by the pressure.) Apollo accused Wright of irresponsibly risking the life and freedom of the defendant by, in a way, offering them up as a possible scapegoat.
To this, Wright responded by reminding Apollo that he was the chair of the Jurist System Simulated Court Committee, meaning that he held all of the authoritative power in this project. At the same time that means, he further emphasized, that if something goes wrong, he would be the one held responsible, and will he be the one to pay all of the consequences. As Vera Misham’s trial is deeply connected to the unsolved trial of Zak Gramarye, conducting this simulation was a show of Wright’s continuing loyalty to Gramarye, as well as his undying loyalty to justice that stayed with him even after he lost his badge.
Secondly, the biggest difference between the lawyer and the man Wright is now is the presence of his daughter, Trucy Wright. After meeting him, Apollo joined her on the list of people Wright cares for paternally. As the father and, for a long time, the only existing family of a young girl who has experienced many losses, he feels heavily responsible for her Trucy’s happiness. After discovering that Trucy’s biological mother, Thalassa, was alive and living as a woman named Lamiroir (she lost her memory following an accident), Wright involved her in this story as one of the jurists judging State vs. Misham. Thalassa miraculously recovered her memory while watching the case and met with Wright after the trial was over. In that conversation, Wright confesses to her that watching over Trucy and Apollo had become one of his biggest purposes in life. Besides, he thinks to himself, he has a duty to keep watching over them as well, because he is the only one who knows how much pain and sadness Trucy Wright really feels (she does not, ever, show tears or lament over her own story to the people around her).
I would like to conclude this terribly long ramble about his personality by stating that Wright causes people to misunderstand him, and that is a sort of flaw. His ambiguity and refusal to be straightforward aggravates others (namely Apollo), and that as well as his method of teaching the lawyer is questionable at times. At the beginning of their acquaintance, Wright tricks Apollo into using a piece of forged evidence to corner the actual murderer. Angered upon finding this out, Apollo punched Wright in the face and voiced his disappointment in the lawyer he once idolized, but Wright never explained to him why he did such a thing.
It could be another one of the “learn from my mistakes” moments. Wright lost his badge because he carelessly used an unidentified item, which he received from an equally unknowing young Trucy, as evidence. Therefore, he would plant the same plant for Apollo so that he may learn, from this experience and knowledge of Wright’s past, not to make that mistake. But Wright could have taught that lesson in a better way.
Finally (I swear this is the last one), here are some of Wright’s other points of interest. The first of these is his talent and skill at playing poker. Upon opening the Wright Talent Agency with his then-newly adopted daughter Trucy, Wright’s dilemma was choosing what his “talent” would be. Years later, he is working at the Borscht Bowl Club, a Russian restaurant, as a piano player. However he has absolutely no skill at playing this instrument; instead, his main job at the Club is to play poker. Because he has not lost a single poker game in the seven years he’s worked there, he has become a bit of an attraction at the restaurant.
Wright is also indestructible. His last adventure involved getting hit by a car, flying ten meters, crashing headfirst into a telephone pole... and walking away with a sprained ankle. In the past he has also chewed and swallowed a glass-and-metal necklace that might have had a lethal poison in it; he has survived with just temporary amnesia after being hit over the head with a fire extinguisher; and he has also fallen off a forty-foot cliff into a roaring river that has a reputation for killing people in the middle of February, landing in the hospital with a fever. He has also been attacked by a prosecutor wielding a stun gun, getting ten thousand volts of electricity shot into his body, but he survived that as well.
Although Wright acts as if he cut of almost all ties with his past, he apparently still keeps in touch with his old assistant. When Apollo visited him in the hospital after the car accident, his room was littered with old Steel Samurai DVDs sent to him by an “old friend.”
POWERS AND ABILITIES:
Wright has no supernatural powers or items of his own. However, he owns a magatama which, when Presented to an opponent, will allow him to see the locks (called Psycho Locks Psychelocks) which appear when said opponent is hiding a secret/telling a lie. I am not sure how the chip will affect this power (it can be used by anybody, apparently), but I will trust the modly judgments!
WHAT ITEMS WILL THEY BE BRINGING TO DISCEDO?
While Wright does not carry around any weapons, he does keep the aforementioned magatama with him at all times, so he will have that on his being when he is taken to Discedo whether it is useful or not.
POSTING SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:
He first thinks that he is dreaming. Trucy had persuaded Apollo to watch that horror movie with them, and he thinks he remembers that the movie, too, had a strange and abandoned looking setting like this one. He must be dreaming, he tells himself, still napping on the couch in the office, because he was pretty sure that when he last closed his eyes, the ceiling was lit by a fluorescent light, and it was clean.
So he closes his eyes. He’s dreaming, and he must have been sleeping in his dream. So if he goes back to sleep in this dream world, he’ll probably wake up and find Trucy watering their plant, Charley, and Apollo will be writing in his diary again.
He wakes up to find himself standing. He blinks, disoriented for another moment, his body jolting backwards slightly as if hit by an actual force (but he knows that isn’t true; he was just surprised). He blinks rapidly, taking in the world around him.
It was trashed. It was desolate, like the cities one would see in photos of the aftermath of earthquakes and fires. There was little green, and he couldn’t locate the sun in the sky above. He did, however, hear noises again. They were like soft murmurs, though they sounded strange. Oddly inhuman... as if he was hearing the voices of anonymous people through their voice changers, muffled by cloth. Other moments, the sounds were animalistic.
He didn’t know what it was, but something in his mind told him that staying out here, in the open, was not the best idea in the world.
“This is probably bad, huh,” he mumbles to himself. Looking around for a place to hide, or maybe something strong to fight back with in case he was going to get mugged. At the same time his eyes scanned the area for colors--the flash of a blue cape, a red pant leg, the glint of a gold armband...
Nothing. Trucy and Apollo, if they were here, were definitely not in the area. He wondered if he was alone. He wondered if he wasn’t, if they weren’t in danger. He suddenly realized that he would have to cancel any plans he previously had that involved hiding, if he wanted to make sure that the two of them (or anybody who might be around, if at all) were safe.
“This is probably really, really bad,” he says again. He can feel a slight grin on his face. He’s not looking forward to throwing himself into danger at all, but he knows himself enough to know: He’s definitely not backing out.
FIRST PERSON SAMPLE:
[There are little details. The voice that speaks at the network today, first, is trembling slightly. Not from fear or nervousness, but from the cold. The man--yes, it is definitely a man, perhaps early mid-age--is definitely cold, and the trembling is from his chattering teeth and shivering body. Still, the tone of his voice is warm, cheerful and conversational.]
It’s cold, isn’t it? [It’s not even a greeting, or an introduction, but there’s definitely a smile there.] I thought I’d be used to cold places. After all, I’ve been exposed to some pretty cold people--Oh wait. That’s the wrong kind of ‘cold’ we’re dealing with, isn’t it?
[A pause.]
All jokes aside, now, can somebody explain this situation I’m in? Last I checked, it wasn’t einter yet, and an apocalypse didn’t seem to be so close that the city would freeze over and disintegrate in the time I was napping.
… So how far does anybody think I’ll last walking around in sandals?
LINKS:
Dear-Mun Post