#game of courts

[elbiotipo]

My solution for bloatware is this: by law you should hire in every programming team someone who is Like, A Guy who has a crappy laptop with 4GB and an integrated graphics card, no scratch that, 2 GB of RAM, and a rural internet connection. And every time someone in your team proposes to add shit like NPCs with visible pores or ray tracing or all the bloatware that Windows, Adobe, etc. are doing now, they have to come back and try your project in the Guy's laptop and answer to him. He is allowed to insult you and humilliate you if it doesn't work in his laptop, and you should by law apologize and optimize it for him. If you try to put any kind of DRM or permanent internet connection, he is legally allowed to shoot you.

With about 5 or 10 years of that, we will fix the world.

[alfgifu]

Fic analysis 29. The safe path

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50830963

Word count: 3,482

Chapters: 1

First posted: 14th October 2023 

Summary: 

Conju watched warily as Cliopher demonstrated the correct approach to cleaning and preparing a fish. He had not anticipated the exercise, when he agreed to accompany the Hands of the Emperor on this excursion into the Liaau.

How and why this came about

The prompt challenge theme for 14 October 2023 was ‘dreams and nightmares’ and I wanted to write something that drew on The Game of Courts, which Victoria Goddard had released the day before.

That meant Conju pov, and I wanted to do something that dwelt on his relationship with Cliopher, which is the focus of the last part of GoC. I had always assumed, and had held in the background while writing the Embers fics, that Conju found Cliopher attractive and Cliopher entirely missed his flirtations. GoC made that dynamic canon.

Across HotE and ATFOTS Cliopher seems to think of himself as a man who is only attracted to women, but he shows us a significantly greater focus on and appreciation of male physicality. He describes the best features of his male friends in loving and occasionally thirsty detail and seldom mentions anything at all about the appearance of his female friends or lovers. Between that and the way his sexuality works in canon - unstirred until someone directly propositions him or unless the Moon is groping his boss - it seems entirely plausible that he would take a male lover under the same conditions he has taken female lovers: casual (since his devotion is reserved for his Radiancy), springing from a close friendship, if directly asked.

Conju is high aristocracy and would make overtures that Cliopher is likely to miss twice over - for their subtlety and for being cast in the idiom of Shaian court culture. So I needed to get Conju into a position where he was startled enough to be blunt. Waking after a nightmare, in need of comfort, seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Fortunately, Conju’s life is richly furnished with nightmare fuel, so there was plenty of material to work with.

What worked and what didn’t

Conju’s snippy inner narration is ridiculously fun to write. Conju, on a camping holiday, is pure joy. He’s so prickly about it! But also absolutely determined to do this thing well, because if Cliopher can then so can he. He’s not going to be shown up by any bumpkin.

The part that worked best though was the nightmare. I cheated of course and mixed in elements of nightmares I’ve had myself that left an impression. The imagery of dead gardens and encroaching jungle, and Conju’s history of trauma and addiction, all came together really neatly with how disconcerted he might be to be in a tent near so many trees. And that casts all his earlier prickliness in a new light - he’s not just out of his comfort zone and gritting his teeth, he’s directly confronting some of his worst memories.

I stopped at the point when they’d reached an understanding, mostly because of time constraints - the prompt challenge fics were revealed at (UK time) 8pm each evening and I didn’t have time to think through and write the actual sex or for that matter the moment they’re both back in the Imperial Apartments again and HR casts a doubtful glance between them and tries to figure out if something changed.

On the whole I think it works better to stop here though, it keeps this story focused on Conju and on that moment where he and Cliopher break through their mutual misunderstanding and think - yeah, maybe, this is good.

What I learned from writing it

This was the inaugural Conju/Kip AO3 tag fic which I was honestly surprised by at the time. But I think that’s partly because the canon Conjubook came out so close to the character I’d sketched in Embers. I’d always thought there was an interesting possibility there between him and Cliopher (and I know I’m not the only one) but of course that took on a whole new life after Game of Courts.

I was quietly pleased with myself for having a fic ready to go the day after the book was released - though there were a few factors that made that easier, like the book being a novella, the timing aligning with a day when I had some writing space, and the dynamic being one I’d chewed over before it became canon.

It’s hard to say what I specifically learned from this fic. More about these characters, definitely. More practice in tightening up my prose (through all these prompt challenge fics). A more deliberate structure. But no big eureka moments - I wrote it, was pleased with it, and moved on.

[wrightandco]

the confetti for a not guilty verdict is actually the funniest fucking thing about ace attorney

it’s like they inherently know their system is fucked to the to the extent that they’ve got the celebration confetti at the ready when they don’t wrongfully incarcerate someone

edgeworth never lost a trial until he faced phoenix wright so the confetti goes off and he’s probably like what the fuck ppfthh pffth phhh that last bit is him spitting the confetti out of his mouth

[hamrikaa]

They deserve a good nap 😴

[ultimate-marysue]

Okay, I might be pulling this out of my ass but since that finals match was in Evermore that means the foxes should have been wearing their white away jerseys. Which means: the final match was a game of chess.

Not only are they wearing white, but they have first serve (Dan won the coin toss), and near the end the Foxes' king (Neil, because this is a battle between Riko and Neil) changes positions with the tower (Matt, a defenseman that towers over most people) creating the illusion of a castling.

And right there at the end, Riko attempts to kill Neil because they're in front of each other, but that's not how kings work. In the time it takes him to take that step, Andrew closes the gap and strikes. Check mate.

[xximpeach-nixon-69xx]

[doesephs]

put neil josten in solitary refinement that man needs to learn some manners

[froggisarethebest]

no but imagine being the Palmetto State track team coach and learning about this kid who can run a mile in four minutes and so you go and check it out but surprise surprise the exy coach from the shit exy team has him already so you try to negotiate for the player because he might be the fastest kid you’ve ever seen but the exy coach keeps saying no and no and so you watch this kid that can RUN THE MILE IN FOUR MINUTES become the fastest exy player in history and you’re sobbing falling to your knees because you could’ve had him in the track team winning you gold medals in the olympics but instead you just stare from your campus office as this redhead short exy obsessed kid runs laps around the entire uni campus for hours on end without getting tired and just wishes all hell on exy

[pepeshka]

look at me Jean-Yves

[verdiris]

Post game team shopping trip let's gooooo 🤠

[toramirr]

…Andrew and Neil moved like they were caught in each other’s gravity, in each other’s space more than they were out of it, cigarette smoke and matching armbands and lingering looks when one fell out of orbit for too long…

[oddlylongtelephonecord]

my favorite thing about jean and neil’s relationship is by far the fact that neil has absolutely nothing against jean and views him in a neutral-leaning-positive light but jean views neil as a horror show and the functional human equivalent of all of his problems combined

[nothatsmi]

The foxhole court, chapter fourteen

" A group of people shouldered their way up to the bar counter at Neil's back, pushing him into Andrew. Andrew didn't budge beneath his weight. He was something solid to lean against, something violent and fierce and unmoving. Neil couldn't remember what it felt like to have someone hold him up. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. His life was out of his control now; he was giving it to Andrew and hoping Andrew would keep it safe. "

A classic. A must. Hope it doesn't disappoint the expectations. Planning on doing more little doodles like that until the animatic is finished.

[kohiandie]

soft andreils to channel cozier and cozier days

you can catch wips & progress work on our patreon -- as well as so much more! :-)

[vronoch]

sketches of andrew and neil i made while listening to aftg audiobooks 😳😳

[tbartss]

Underrated moments in AFTG upon reread:

- Allison calling Kevin’s tattoo a tramp stamp

- Seth laughing his ass off upon hearing Riko was on the Kathy Ferdinand show

- Nicky suggesting Allison and Kevin hook up and they both react with intense disgust

- Aaron shrugging to Neil coming back absolutely battered from Evermore

- Kevin wanting to ask what Neil and Andrew talked about at Eden’s twilight after Andrew confessed to Neil, then seeing Neil’s face and being like “you know what? Not my business.”

- Dan, Allison and Renee basically fake dating platonically their first year to defy the sexist guys on their team

- Neil finding math interesting

- Kevin giving Neil the most scathing elevator look that Neil feels shame about his wardrobe for the first and only time

- Dan punching a Raven in the dick after they made a sexual comment about her past

- Matt’s mother being so grateful to Andrew for getting Matt clean that she pays Aaron’s bail

- Nicky calling Kevin a brat

- Wymack making Dan the first female captain despite the rampant misogyny in Exy

- Andrew stroking Neil’s back after Neil stood up for Kevin at Kathy’s Interview

- Wymack and Matt being the original Andreil shippers

- Neil giving Kevin his binder before going to Evermore like HELLO???? That was some INSANE trust