kiss your enemies on the mouth

We already know that before adopting Trucy, he did some research on her family background to see if she had any living relatives. While the player has to "time travel," Phoenix could very well have learned about Thalassa through much less exciting means. Of course, this makes his 2026 conversation with Brushel a little weird, but what interaction with him isn't, really?

In any case, it's entirely possible that he learned about Thalassa's bracelets the same way without needing to talk to Brushel (at least not the version of the conversation that the player has to go through). When talking to Zak about the Perceive ability, the player knows to present Apollo's profile because we've been playing as him and using that ability, but Phoenix mentions an off-screen event - namely, visiting Kristoph's office (a location the player never actually sees) and noticing Apollo, observing that his bracelet is the same as Thalassa's. For Phoenix to have known that in April 2026, he would have to gather information through different means than the player, and we know that he knows about Apollo's ability in April because he teaches him how to use it during Turnabout Trump.

Back to the 2019 version of Drew Studio. We know that the MASON segment is a non-linear narrative, even within the same year ("Borscht Bowl Club" is contained to April 2026, whereas the other 2026 segments presumably take place in October). It's safe to assume that the 2019 segments are also told in a non-linear manner and that the narration can serve as a clue for the true order of events. We know that "Defendant Lobby No. 2" takes place after Trucy's adoption (in May) because of a line where Phoenix refers to Trucy as his daughter. But in "Drew Studio," the narration states that Phoenix doesn't know what fatherhood is like, suggesting that it takes place before, most likely in April.

Now here comes the interesting part. We have to present (some version of) the notebook page to talk about forgery. The player has to get the true notebook page from the future, but we can assume that Phoenix still has the forged notebook page since it was evidence in the trial. Then we unlock Drew's Psyche-Locks by stating the same thing Apollo did in the day 1 trial, that Vera is the real forger, except Phoenix figures it out faster and more logically based on the fact that Drew didn't actually meet the client. We present the stamp to talk to Vera, and she has Psyche-Locks about her client.

Here's the thing: we can get the stamp into the Court Record from the same room, but we can't do the same to the bottle of nail polish sitting right next to it. From a game mechanic standpoint, it's to make sure we know which person to associate that nail polish with - we have to visit Kristoph in his prison cell in the future to get nail polish into the Court Record. That is entirely for the player's sake so we know to associate nail polish with Kristoph and we're not left to throw out guesses at Vera's Psyche-Locks. But like with Phoenix's knowledge of Thalassa and the Perceive ability, we have to assume he found out through other means. And what could those other means be?

We know that Kristoph was a member of the Bar Association at that time and that he was present at Phoenix's hearing. We know that he cast a dissenting vote, and said it was because he wanted to apologize for Klavier. The hearing itself and any further interactions with Kristoph are off-screen events that might serve as Phoenix's information sources. Phoenix calls Kristoph a "friend" when we present his profile, but we know that based on the nail polish, he can guess at that point that Kristoph is Vera's client, something which is only confirmed when her Psyche-Locks unlock.

We have to remember that the MASON segment is more than just a device to show the player what knowledge Phoenix has. We're not really playing as him during that segment, but as the jurists, who are figuring out the case's development for themselves based on the information Phoenix shares with them. The details about Troupe Gramarye and the Perceive ability are there because it's part of how the forgery incident developed, but Phoenix's actual means of finding this information out are somewhat personal to him and Trucy, so he doesn't share that part directly.

So what does that mean about the nail polish? Clearly, Phoenix had to have made the association between Kristoph and nail polish himself based on their interactions before his visit to Drew Studio. So why not show the jurists that? Why show them Kristoph's prison cell to have them make the association?

A likely possibility is that he wanted to keep things (somewhat) simple. Valant is the only person we talk to on both sides of the 7 year gap, both times with Psyche-Locks, so it's possible that Phoenix purposefully limited everyone else to only one appearance to reduce "noise" from unnecessary conversations. We can be a lot more direct with 2026 Kristoph (and talk about more pressing matters, like his murder of Zak and how it might be connected to the current case) than we could have been with a hypothetical 2019 Kristoph. And it's just a bottle of nail polish, important enough to Kristoph that he has one in his cell, how much is really lost by trimming the 2019 interactions? Not to mention, the jurists would be familiar with Apollo's ability from watching the day 1 trial, so nothing is lost by trimming the encounter in Kristoph's office.

In short, what exactly is presented in the MASON segment and in what order is about what the jurists need to know and letting them (and the player along with them) figure out how the case developed. They don't need to know the details of Phoenix's personal life or directly see Kristoph's "apology" to understand that he was the one behind the forgery. It's also possible that with Kristoph trying to shift the blame onto Klavier, Phoenix including that would risk the jurists suspecting that Klavier was in on the forgery somehow.