[PREV]
April 20, 2026: 10:45 AM
Okay, no more messing around--this is the first trial with your name on it, and you can't spend it all listening to bad music on your phone!
...also, it would probably be bad if Mr Gavin's friend got convicted of murder. That too.
You straighten your tie and look around the courtroom--it seems as though everyone's gotten really invested in the nuances of poker-playing in the past twenty minutes. Okay. While you've been distracted, several pieces of evidence have entered into the court record, and Mr Gavin seems to be on the verge of a breakthrough. Let's assess:
-It seems that Olga Orly, current witness, was dealing the cards for a poker game between Phoenix Wright and Shadi Smith
-Smith and Orly conspired to expose Wright of cheating in order to maintain a seven-year-long winning streak. By slipping an extra ace into the deck, they would be able to 'prove' this.
-In the photograph entered into the Court Record, however, each player only has two aces in their hands. However, this contradicts the actual preserved cards from that night, which show one set with two aces and one set with three, making five in total
-One might expect, based on Orly's testimony, that it would be Wright's hand with the extra card--but it's Smith's hand that has the extra ace, sticking out like a sore thumb with a bright blue back amidst the red cards
This has got to be it--the breakthrough you've been waiting for! Or at least, waiting for somebody else to think about for you. Not even looking at Mr Gavin, not giving the rest of the courtroom the slightest regard, you bang on the bench like a true seasoned defense attorney and voice your opinion to the room at large.
"The defense would like to formally accuse the witness, Ms Olga Orly, of murder!"
.....
Crickets. Dead silence. You're not quite sure whether this reaction is good or bad.
Luckily, Mr Gavin is always there to add to any ambient tension in a room. "Well done, Justice. We established this ten minutes ago. Do you have any other genius observations to contribute?"
What?
Looking around, you notice that Ms Orly is no longer at the witness stand. Prosecutor Payne is regarding you with the kind of bafflement typically reserved for conspiracy theorists touting their beliefs at an academic conference. Mr Wright just shrugs in your direction, as though he half-expected this.
"Ms Orly had to be removed from the courtroom following her shock at being named as a murder suspect. In the meantime, we've been debating whether to continue the trial today or leave it for a later time," Mr Gavin clarifies. "Personally, I believe we should allow for more time to investigate, but we've hit some...snags, shall we say."
He shifts his icy glare over to where Mr Wright stands. Wright narrows his eyes.
"We can't end the trial here for today, Gavin. Just think! We have all the evidence we need. Don't we, uhh. Justin?" He's looking at you.
"It's Justice," you say, still feeling disconnected from what's happening. He could have bothered to get your name right, considering he allegedly requested you specifically for this case.
"Yeah, that. Look, we alternated between two differently colored decks of cards while playing, right? That was specifically to prevent them from getting mixed together."
It still happened, though, you think, uncharitably.
"It was the blue deck you were playing with in the final game, wasn't it?" you ask, desperate to seem as though you were at least following along with the trial a little.
"Actually, we were playing with red cards." Wright doesn't seem surprised at your misinterpretation, though, even though everyone else in the courtroom seems a little thrown off. You don't know why you had that impression, though--there's just something that's itching in the back of your mind telling you that the cards were blue.
"But a card of the wrong color in the deck means somebody cheated!" Payne screeches from across the courtroom.
"Yep. Except--a card of the wrong color raises a couple questions. When was it swapped...and who swapped it?"
Payne sneers. "Obviously it was swapped before the murder!"
"Was it?" Wright smiles, a little thing that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Apollo, what do you think?"
You don't answer immediately. There's something about Wright's expression that makes you feel that the most obvious answer isn't going to be the correct one--and you need to think this through. Logically, you'd think that cheating would have to happen before anybody got murdered. However...
If the cheater swapped a blue card into a deck of red ones, they'd be found out immediately. There's no way they could swap the cards during the murder--there would have been far too much going on at that point. So it must have happened...
"After the murder. They swapped the cards after Smith was already dead." You don't know why Wright is being so enigmatic about this, but you also know that you're correct about this.
"Ah, but if it was after the murder...who swapped the cards?" Wright still has that expression on his face. You're reevaluating the part of you that's still hanging onto that university-student-idolization of the man, because in-person, he's infuriating.
"It's Orly, of course," Mr Gavin says, seemingly as fed up with this as everyone else. "The murder has been done, the only two left alive are her and Wright. Wright is our client, and furthermore would have no motive to aid his opponent in victory. This is a pointless exercise, and we are wasting the court's time."
"Are we?" Wright queries. "I want to hear what Apollo thinks."
This again! Come to think of it, something's not quite adding up. Wright has no motive to swap the cards, correct, but the added ace had the wrong color back, and Orly was the dealer. She would have known the color of the cards--and wouldn't have made such a careless mistake. If the swap took place after the murder, obviously Smith couldn't have done it. But that's....impossible.
"I don't think there is an answer," you say. "Nobody present in the room at the time would have swapped the cards in the way that they've been swapped. Not only is the card's color incorrect, but...the blue card in the red deck isn't even an ace, though we know there were five of them in play."
The courtroom fills with murmurs of disbelief. You're still reeling, somehow having gone from listening to terrible legal-themed music to having the realization of the decade.
"The person who swapped the cards added in a king to the deck, rather than an ace--they've created a win with a full house, but for the wrong person, and in the wrong way. This could only happen if they were unaware of how the game had progressed--that is, if the person who swapped the cards was somebody besides Orly, Wright, or Smith!"
There's an uproar as the court processes this information. You feel as though the room's spinning, and grip the edge of the bench to keep steady. Distantly, you hear the judge bang his gavel and call for a recess, lecturing both Wright and Mr Gavin on keeping information from the court--and requesting Mr Gavin meet with him in his chambers.
The courtroom slowly empties, and you find yourself--somehow--back in the defense lobby.
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ok so i'm gonna say something controversial
voting. i'm probably still gonna do it this election if i'm given the opportunity (i don't have reliable transportation to polling locations), so don't get mad at me. but like. the vote blue no matter who crowd is.. a bit concerning? people are blaming the average voter for the 2016 election not being a win for democrats, but if i recall correctly, hillary won the popular vote. the only reason trump won was because the electoral college voted for trump, which happened because of swing state loopholes. the conditions we're in right now are not uniquely unprecedented. project 2025 is not going to be stopped by kamala being president. after all, biden being in office didn't stop roe v wade from being overturned, and a lot of the promises of the 2020 biden campaign have fallen through. i don't think it's "doomerposting" or whatever to point any of this out, and i think it's obtuse to pretend like even if dems win this election any of the terrible shit that's being cooked up is going to be prevented.
i find it concerning that people are calling other people selfish and saying they don't care about ""harm reduction"" when they point out that voting is pretty much the thoughts and prayers of leftist action. i find it concerning that people are saying that this is unprecedented and has never happened before, and then coincidentally have never read up on US history outside of what they were taught in high school. i am begging you all to read up, become informed, and hopefully come back with a mindset of community work. no offense, but if you think that voting is the end all be all, i do not think you have read up on US history.
my point is not that you shouldn't vote, just like i wouldn't say you shouldn't think or pray about something. but please, PLEASE, add more to your roster of political activism than putting in a ticket to the polling booth. if you're not sure where to start on us history, i would recommend starting with a people's history of the united states, then go through beacon press's revisioning united states history series, and then go from there. there are free copies of those books/audiobooks online, they're not hard to find. you will learn so much about historical precedent, historical action, and historical community, and i promise that you will not regret learning more.
voting is not the end all be all, and it has never been. anyone who tries to convince you that it is the end all be all is either misinformed or has ulterior motives.
i promise you that you are not the only one that feels upset about the way things are right now. remember: strength in numbers.
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