Ｇotcha！

✨︎ Hello! It's Lari! I've been roleplaying Apollo on this blog for the better part of the last decade, and as of mid-2026 I will have a lot more time to bum around here for the foreseeable. The AA RPC has been pretty quiet, so I don't often have a reason to post, but rest assured I'm still around and lurking regularly, and I'd love to see this community active again!

"An assassin--?!" Apollo was startled by the woman's entrance but doubtful of the claim. As amazing important as he always believed she would be after her time working for Wright & Co., he had a hard time imagining that a hired killer would ever have a reason to lay a hand on Ms Maya Fey.

But then he spotted the grievous insect-inflicted injury she presented, and immediately took the accusation more seriously. "Yikes!"

"I-I didn't mean it like that," Apollo hurriedly tried to clarify, realizing too late he'd let a thought slip that was a bit too self-deprecating. He didn't usually openly whine or make sad-sack comments, but the truth was that his confidence as a lawyer was shot, and Ms Fey understood enough about their office environment that she was easy to complain about work to.

He'd have to dial it back.

"It's just, I understand why Mr Wright wouldn't want me to stand with him in the courtroom, when he's got someone like Athena." Athena, who had a noble purpose in becoming a lawyer and believed in her clients just like her boss did. Compared to Apollo, who was just desperate to have a job and whose lack of trust had recently nearly destroyed the Agency.

Apollo was leaning far forward in interest towards Ms Fey's anecdotes about her early days working with Mr Wright, until she interrupted his excited string of clarifying questions, and he sheepishly straightened from his diagonal posture. At least she didn't make fun of his exaggerated curiosity, but her ultimatum left him baffled.

"Hold it! My apprentice?! I'm barely cut out for being senior employee around here -- I'm not taking on any apprentices!" He was hasty in refuting her ridiculous assumption, but the hint of an embarrassed smile and warmth blossoming in his chest made it clear enough that eventually being a great enough lawyer to mentor someone else was a futile hope he cherished.

✨︎ Apollo is not even a little bit creative, in most senses of the word. If you try to get him to come up with some sort of fiction, he'll just repeat the plot of the last movie he watched. If you try to get him to draw or make some sort of craft, he will demand very specific instructions for how to make it and won't improvise. Even creative problem-solving, which is necessary for his job and he's forced to engage in regularly, often ends with someone else leading him the answer.

✨︎ Apollo doesn't have a healthy relationship with food, and while it's improved by leaps and bounds since he started living independently and got into law, food is still his guilty pleasure of choice when he's anxious or just wants to feel good. Ice cream and decadent desserts top the guilty list, but he's also the guy who can destroy a whole pan of lasagna by himself if he's in a mood, and then will take it upon himself to finish the leftovers of the person next to him. He definitely regrets it later, but he still indulges much more often than he wishes, and has more-or-less accepted his reputation as a bottomless pit with no willpower when it comes to food.

✨︎ Apollo doesn't really think about his power as having much of an effect on how he deals with people or any of his relationships in particular, besides making him more observant and aware of the everyday ways people can be dishonest overall.

✨︎ Apollo is actually very not-proud of his unwavering dedication to the truth. He's had the concept of Truth idealized as something that is always good and always just and always worth fighting for since he was young, so you'd think that he'd feel noble about fighting so hard for it in court -- but from accusing Kristoph Gavin of murder, to mistrusting Athena, to prolonging a hostage situation to make Phoenix find the truth for him, Apollo's pursuit of the truth has frequently superseded his other values and put him at odds with people he respects.

Apollo gave Ms Fey his full attention, as she seemed to have hit on a breakthrough, and he was hoping that her experience investigating would lead her to something that he had missed.

It was wasted, however. "Uh... did you forget to eat breakfast this morning?"

"Your sister?" Apollo knew of Ms Fey's sister, but not much more than the sparse details that she was a lawyer who had owned their office before Mr Wright had inherited it. He couldn't guess what Ms Fey saw in him that would remind her of Mr Wright's former mentor, so he clarified with one of the few other facts he had mentally filed about her: "The woman who owns Mr Charley?"

Apollo automatically stood a little straighter, when Ms Fey unreservedly called him 'someone reliable'... but he didn't look much like he suited the description while he was blushing and bashfully mumbling something incoherent to acknowledge it. People expressed confidence in him so rarely that he wasn't practiced in the art of gracefully accepting compliments, and especially not ones from someone he looked up to.

But that wasn't the most important part of what she was saying, so he recovered quickly, and gave a half-joking-but-not-really-joking reply: "Depending on your definition of 'trouble', you might have just described my every day at work."

Apollo's brow furrowed at Ms Fey's cavalier brandishing of someone else's money. But that someone else was his crappy boss, and if she had been doing this for that long, he must be okay with it, right?

Or maybe Apollo was just petty, and felt permission to indulge when it was half of the former Wright & Co Law Offices dragging him around.

"The floor is what?" Apollo had missed the boat on most 'real games', given his unconventional upbringing. "Um, I don't think I know the rules to that one, either..."

Apollo kept his arms stubbornly crossed. It was obvious the comparison to Phoenix Wright was not meant as a compliment.

"These days it's still called 'trespassing' in court, where I'm not defending you when you get arrested!" He turned away, so at least he didn't have to watch Ms Fey committing crimes and could pretend he wasn't a witness.

"Used to be?!"

The response slipped out without thinking, and in an embarrassingly offended tone that made Apollo immediately clam up when he heard himself. It was completely understandable that Ms Fey would have idolized Phoenix Wright, and even that she would have wanted to outgrow that mindset, given how well-acquainted she must be with the man's flaws... but if she had succeeded, that meant that it was possible to stop childishly worshipping the legendary defence attorney who had inspired his whole career path, despite Apollo never managing it himself. The comparison made him feel more inferior than Ms Fey had surely intended.