#absolute beast of a textpost jfc

[its-hai-time]

Ok it's time to share my notes about my Apollo Justice 2 au. I have to call it an AU because I do not have the skill or capabilities to make it an actual fangame but I WISH I DID.

The title is still a work in progress so I just call it Apollo Justice 2. Also I'm transcribing these notes from literally 15 pages of physical notes that I wrote by hand.

Fake cover art :)

(putting the cut here because this is going to be even longer than my last post about this)

To reiterate, this takes place about a year after the events of aa4.

So, aa4 gives us an interesting place to pick up from, seeing as the last case of that game was introducing the jurist system.

It's best to explain how I've decided to interpret the jurist system permanently joining the court system because it does change some of the structure.

To fit the jurist system in the courts, some changes had to be made to the way the law is handled. Because a full jury of people is handling each case now rather than one judge, the culprit does not necessarily need to be found. The focus will be entirely placed on the defendant. Your case simply has to win on the grounds of whether or not you've made a good point for your client's favor. This doesn't mean you can't find the true culprit because it wouldn't be an ace attorney game without the breakdowns, but the culprit will be found much more through Apollo's personal inability to stop until a case is fully solved.

This jurist system change was made to give Apollo even more personality regarding his cases, and it also makes it easier to change up the ace attorney format in very meaningful ways.

It also makes the courts seem a little more realistic, although I don't care about that for the most part. I don't mind the plot holes in these games because I enjoy them for their story and characters. I think that the people who get genuinely upset with how the courts work are missing the fundamental point of these games. The jurist change does make sense, but it also throws a wrench into a lot of things and I've made the executive decision to allow that wrench to hang from my strings because it doesn't really matter. This is Ace Attorney. The courts have always been a mess and they will always be a mess. AA4 introduced such an interesting concept and I will play in this space, God dammit!

I also think having to wait on the verdict for the jurists to deliberate adds an extra bit of drama. The stress of not knowing if what you said was enough. It's a fun idea and I like to imagine Apollo and Trucy waiting in the defense lobby stressed out of their minds.

Now, I can move on to the first case of the game.

I think how I'd stage the tutorial in this case is: this is the first case with the jurist system fully implemented and Apollo has to relearn how to go through a trial. The specific changes the jurist system has caused will be explained and I think Trucy would end up having too much fun re-explaining everything ("you can access the court record at any time-" "I know what the court record is!")

I think that in this first case, a true culprit is never found. Thanks to the jurists, the client is found not guilty, but there seems to be a lot of missing pieces. The real murderer is still out there.

I want this case to hang above every other case in the game, and every case in the game to connect back to this one. Seemingly chipping away at the mystery of what really happened. Eventually the final case should wrap back around and solve this case once and for all.

This doesn't fit anywhere so I'll just mention it now: Klavier isn't present during the first couple of cases because he's started his solo career and is currently on tour.

Also since Trucy got the rights to her family's tricks, she's practicing and planning for a huge magic show. Tickets are literally sold out, it's regarded as the return of the Gramaryes.

Our second case has one of Trucy's school friends as the defendant. The victim could be the owner of a bakery that her friend had frequented, and maybe the owner had some shady business that might connect back to case 1.

In this case we meet our new prosecutor.

Prosecutor Destiny Atlas is the prosecution for this game. And she seems to have some sort of connection to case 1 (despite not having been the prosecutor for that case). Each case she heads seems to be an excuse for her to keep chipping away at the mystery of case 1.

The first time we meet her is when she confronts Apollo and Trucy in the defense lobby before the first trial. She's quite hard to read, seemingly stone faced and speaks with a tone that's difficult to discern. She seems to have a lot of connections, enough to already know that Apollo and Trucy had investigated behind the detectives backs (or at least bribed Ema). ("I've gotten word of a couple of rats on my crime scene yesterday." "R-rats!?")

Now the fun thing about Destiny is she actually has a co-counsel. This is because we've never seen the prosecution have a co-counsel and I think it's a good idea to set her apart from all of the other prosecutors.

Her co-counsel is her personal assistant and wife, London Atlas. Apollo and Trucy meet London during their first investigation, she's very bubbly and sweet. Very easy to read and a very good contrast to Destiny. They don't realize she's connected to Prosecutor Atlas until the trial starts.

Here are their designs (if I don't change them up later)

I wanted this au to seem like a genuine game pitch, a game that Capcom might make and release so I limited myself a lot when it came to writing the romance. Klapollo is not canon in this au, neither is narumitsu, and the way I rationalized Destiny and London is by saying that they are very professional and they practically don't get any coupley moments. Not to say I'm shoehorning in the lesbian rep here- they're still very clearly in love and they clearly respect each other and have a very healthy relationship. It's just the nature of the games being told in Apollo's perspective means that we will almost exclusively be seeing these two while they are at work and thus acting professionally.

Another thing about these two, is that they are both visible from the prosecutor's bench. This is because I thought a cute detail might be that Destiny doesn't emote much in court and so London does the emoting for her. Such as if you point out a contradiction, Destiny won't seem affected but London will be the one sweating.

In the second case specifically, I want to establish that Destiny has an insane amount of connections all over LA. This should culminate in her knowing literally all of Apollo and Trucy's evidence before the trial has even started. Apollo and Trucy don't realize that she knows until the end of the trial when they've presented everything relevant and she has had a counter argument prepared for each evidence. This means that Apollo has to scrape through the trial on deduction and argument alone, no big game-changing evidence to flip everything on its side. Apollo has to come to a conclusion fast, and Prosecutor Atlas won't be pulling any punches.

This idea is specifically made to rectify my main complaint with aa4, the fact that everybody else seems to lead Apollo to the correct conclusions rather than him connecting the dots himself. I love Klavier, and I love that he drops the hints for Apollo to find, but I want a case where we get to see Apollo hold his own. The introduction of the Atlas' means that I can finally get my Apollo smart boy case.

The defendant being Trucy's friend allows us to see her a bit more desperate than usual, jumping onto the leads faster than Apollo can.

Her personal involvement here is important, she is desperate to prove her friend innocent, she's seen how scary it is to be tried for a crime you never committed. She's still joking around, and keeping up her sunshiney persona, but she's a lot more keen on investigating than usual.

It doesn't help that London and Prosecutor Atlas seem to know something that they don't. Seemingly pulling Apollo and Trucy along by the strings. They have some sort of motive for taking this case but for the time being they don't know what.

Ema should stay consistent for this case. Prosecutor Atlas doesn't really seem to care if she lets Apollo and Trucy investigate the crime scene, so Ema still gets to help out and give us a forensics mini game. Keeping at least something consistent within this case is very important to keep the right atmosphere.

After the first trial in case 2, Apollo and Trucy get much more secretive about the evidence they've gathered, they managed to get by in the trial that day but just barely, and Apollo would much rather have the evidence on his side.

The first trial should leave some unanswered questions, and something shouldn't be adding up at this point.

During the second investigation Apollo and Trucy should get to talk to London again. She can explain that Destiny doesn't tend to come to the crime scenes herself, so London tends to be the one to oversee investigation in her place. We get to hear about her and Destiny's relationship and how they respect each other a lot both personally and professionally.

Court proceeds as usual, Apollo finds the true suspect and solves the case, awesome!

Prosecutor Atlas doesn't seem to mind losing. Maybe her and London talk to Apollo about any new cases he's taking (none, but the thought counts). London noticeably does more of the talking.

I'm not entirely sold on my concept for case 3 but my heart tells me that this is the one Klavier gets arrested for. He had just gotten home from tour and is immediately behind bars. Talk about TOUGH LUCK!

Calling back to that huuuuuuge magic show Trucy is going to have soon, she's too busy practicing incessantly for it, and so that leaves Phoenix (currently still studying for the bar) to co-counsel for this case.

I enjoy the idea that Phoenix being the co-counsel for this case is a silent way of saying that he doesn't blame Klavier for his disbarment. And also bringing Phoenix on investigations means a lot of good hijinx and the fact that he's so good at being so secretive means that Apollo can get some information to genuinely blindside Prosecutor Atlas.

This case here is an authentic return to form, a true ace attorney case.

Not only this, but Phoenix and Klavier finally get to have the conversation, Klavier can finally apologize for Phoenix's disbarment and Phoenix can finally tell him he doesn't blame Klavier for his disbarment. That he was just a kid just doing his job/ what he thought was right. How his life didn't end the moment he was disbarred, he's studying for the bar again. How he had learned a lot in the seven year gap and even if he wanted the past to change that's just not possible.

During this case I'd really like to get a bit more backstory on Klavier, whether or not he has parents, childhood memories, and just how growing up with Kristoph affected him.

I think Apollo in this case would be fun to explore, because it would be fun to show him caring much more about Klavier's wellbeing than he thought he did.

To reiterate, I won't make Klapollo canon in this. I ship it a lot, and Klavier will absolutely be flirting with Apollo, I just simply want to keep it to a realistic ace attorney game. This means that while there will be a lot more Klapollo moments to work off of, the ship itself will remain entirely subtextual.

As for Ema in this case: I think she would be fun to explore as well, first of all we will finally get her and Phoenix to interact again, and during her mini game I want it to feel a little nostalgic for them both. As for Klavier being in prison, I want to have her be in an even worse mood than usual, especially when the leads are slow. I think she and Klavier have an unlikely friendship and she is genuinely worried for him, not that she'd ever say that.

The case eventually has to tie back to the first case AGAIN, uncovering even more of the mystery. Having Phoenix with us in this is useful too because of just how well and quickly he thinks.

Case wraps up all good :)

The fourth case takes place at Trucy's huge magic show.

Something goes wrong and Trucy ends up in the hospital. There's also a MURDER so Apollo has a case to take. Phoenix is busy looking after Trucy, so who's going to investigate with Apollo???

Klavier Gavin.

It might be weird having a prosecutor as your co-counsel, but look at what Edgeworth did in Trials and Tribulations and tell me that this isn't perfectly in-bounds. Whatever the reasoning Klavier is Apollo's co-counsel and I am so fucking sold on this.

This case should tie back to the first case the most. This also being the case to wrap up Prosecutor Atlas's story. Her connection to the first case can finally be revealed, and it's a huuge thing. Good good prosecutor moment :)

The final pieces to the first case should be found, and the case can FINALLY be solved.

I kind of like the idea of the client from the first case actually having been guilty, there just wasn't enough evidence to prove that they were guilty at the time. I think all of the pieces should fit together within this case and they should finally be caught. Now, I don't think they're the client in the fourth case, but maybe a witness, or maybe they get roped back in by Apollo indicting them on a whim.

This is fun mainly because we've only ever defended a guilty client once before. It's obviously a thing that the writers were previously willing to do, but it hasn't been explored since then. Not in the trilogy because once was enough to get the point across, and not in Apollo Justice because it would have thrown off the formula way too much for a game that was already a huge change.

My theory for why it hasn't been explored since aa2 is that an idea like that died as soon as they started writing Dual Destinies. They wanted a zero spoiler, zero previous plotline, simple story. So they introduced another brand new defense attorney and prosecutor and gave them a story completely contained to that game and let that backstory die as soon as they started writing aa6. They didn't want to take on complexity and nuance in their characters. They wanted to skate by using a well known cast of characters and a bunch of gimmicks.

Another thing about Dual Destinies I am abandoning completely, "the dark age of the law." It's horrible. Literally Dual Destinies did nothing but rely on gimmicks. Fuck you, aa5.

As for if we learn anything about Apollo's backstory, Maybe. We could maybe play around with the idea of Apollo's father, though I'm not quite sure if I want to explore that at all. It could stay up in the air, not everything needs answers.

Apollo and Trucy finding out that they are siblings: also maybe. There is absolutely room in the fourth case for Apollo to piece that together, and I think the drama of a moment like that would be awesome. Many details of this idea are very foggy.

That's honestly true for this entire outline, very basic things to touch on, and literally no details of the cases themselves. A very bare bones structure here.

I think that's all for my Apollo Justice 2 pitch?? This is at least all of the notes I have. Feel free to add on to this in the notes I guess. Send post.