#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 😴

[pepeshka]

look at me Jean-Yves

[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…

[nothatsmi]

The foxhole court, chapter five

First books monsters were something really.

On an aftg reread, which is very useful to survive school these days. Currently into the kings men, i'll make more fanart cause this brings me so much joy (which - idk what it tells about my mental state). If you have suggestions on what I should draw next I'm taking em.

[riceballannie]

Neil's face card never declines I fear🤧

[floretissogay]

everyone: which way do you swing?

neil: ...towards the goal?

[polartss]

The sillies!! they’re athletes! they survive on cigarettes! It’s okay!!

[aftgscenes]

It’s so funny going from Neil’s asexual pov to jeans definitely NOT asexual pov

Neil: Kevin is tall and has a tattoo

Jean: pretty boy with a soft smile and beautiful green eyes

Neil: Renee is a women and has hair

Jean: a force of hope and beauty, an anomaly in a world that’s ugly and bleak. She is the sun.

Neil: Jeremy is the captain of the Trojans and he smiles a lot for some reason

Jean: his bleach blonde hair frames his tanned freckled skin, his broad shoulders and tiny waist give way to his thicc thighs and ass

But also the reverse

Neil: Andrews strong unwavering frame and honey colored eyes

Jean: the tiny goalkeeper

[aysouday]

Not my edit but this is pure comedy

[verdiris]

Post game team shopping trip let's gooooo 🤠

[tscsunlover]

got my rainbow crate all for the game books! Im gonna add the bonus chapters here for anyone who didn’t buy the books cause they were EXPENSIVE

links aren’t working for some reason and you can only add ten pictures to a post so i’m gonna add the next two books in reposts

THE FOXHOLE COURT BONUS CHAPTERS SPOILERS BELOW

[ionlydrinkhotwater]

I said this in another post, but it bears repeating:

Neil is to crime what Andrew is to Exy. Supernaturally talented and unstoppable if he wanted, but due to his general lack of interest nerfs himself.

Everyone should be grateful Neil finds crime boring and uninteresting compared to Exy cause he would have been the Kevin Day of crime, surpassing his father and mother. Nora confirmed in the EC that if the Moriyamas had messed with Andrew, Neil would have carefully and competently dismantled their empire and watched all of them burn. He was practically lab created and stress tested his whole life to fight, outlive, and outsmart criminal masterminds.

My headcannon is Ichirou is secretly relieved that Nathaniel just wants to play stick ball.

[toramirr]

“Say ‘yes, Jeremy’.”

He had the distinct impression Jean wanted to roll his eyes. “Yes, Jeremy.”