(back to ships)

originally pitched 28 august 2023.

so technically this is based off a tumblr post wherein op (a lesbian, to memory) couldn't figure out if another girl liked her or not so she took herself to court inside her own head: her wildest hopes n dreams vs. her deepest fears n insecurities, but it all ended in a stalemate blahblahblah i unfortunately can't find the post rn bc tumblr search functioning is ass.

anyway so a lot of this comes from a rant to star over discord, so there will probably be a little input from her archived here as well down the line!

so i was scribbling out a proper pitch for furina takes clorinde to gay court earlier, but then i was like, "okay well, if all this is happening in the duel zone of clorinde's mind, then how exactly does furina get in there? does that mean that the furina in the fic will just be the furina that exists in clorinde's mind as her subject?"

bc then i was like, "there's technically nothing to have a big dramatic court case over in the actual court of fontaine here, so maybe this all just happens in furina's office or whatever?"

but then i also realized, "okay but furina is like fifteen years old and living for the drama; she's gonna want an audience for all this."

(side note, but i think furina should host a bachelorette show of some sort. i just think it would be so funny.)

anyway, but then i was like, "yeah, but there's still like… in the kangaroo court, there's still some decoration of legal airs going on at the very least; this is not a legal affair, for all is fair in love and war."

but what if fontaine had special rules regarding romance and how it's dealt with in the courtroom specifically bc furina loves drama and romance specifically fuels SO much drama that she made up rules and laws to allow it into the courtroom.

ofc, the idea of this makes me feel kind of bad for clorinde! just having her Everything put up on stage in front of the whole nation like— i'm pretty sure she's a very composed woman, but she also seems rather reserved and reticent, so despite probably not being anxious about having to speak in front of an audience, i'm sure it's not her first choice.

n i'm sure that if fontaine does make a courtroom spectacle out of romantic drama, they've had things go awry as a result of it too, and whether or not furina would have any empathy for tragedies that may arise out of that is a difficult question to answer bc i just came up with a different solution for it anyway.

bc, like, i'm pretty sure that neuvillette would intervene to make it more humane if anyone, like, died over their romantic drama bullshit being aired to the public courtroom bc his whole thing before was like, "i'm pretty sure the human drive to live is more powerful than anything else when it comes to motivating people to tell the truth," so the solution i came up with is as follows:

THEY SHOULD USE FAKE NAMES AND ANONYMIZE THE PEOPLE INVOLVED DURING THE TRIAL SO THAT THE AUDIENCE CAN FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE STORY (as if they are fake blorbos in a narrative so it really does just compound the whole ' what happens in the courtroom is what is most dramatic, not necessarily the truth; but that is what the people believe in the end' thing going on so y'know what i'm gonna call this a W) AS IT'S UNFOLDING, AND THEN AT THE VERY END WHEN THE VERDICT IS GIVEN THEN ALL THE NAMES N STUFF ARE REVEALED FOR THE ~DRAMA~ OF IT ALL, THUS INCENTIVIZING PEOPLE MAKING THEIR OWN THOUGHTS N PERSPECTIVES OF WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABSOLUTELY CRYSTAL CLEAR

bc i feel like it also becomes easier for people to talk about things that are close to the heart if there's also that layer of separation from themselves, like when you're telling a story based off a life event, except they're all aware that it's simultaneously real and dramatized at the same time, but they keep up the act in a sense of like…

if you hear someone say smth abt the character that represents you that misinterprets your intentions, you can then be like, "well what if [character] was actually [insert clarity abt your own motives in that moment]?"
and the other person might still be like, "well [character that represents them] would feel very [whatever], but since they thought it was [misinterpretation], they felt [other thing] instead."

it'd be like those moments when people are like "i'm asking abt a friend here" to avoid talking abt themselves: everyone knows they're actually talking abt themselves, but every also plays along bc it's more fun that way. it's using a lie to tell the truth.

so that's basically the workaround i have come up with for clorinde-probably-not-being-built-for-this-kind-of-courtroom-drama issue! and also clorinde's totally going to declare her love to navia in front of the court at the end when the verdict is abt to be revealed or smth anyway.

and so navia gets this special invitation to spectate on this case, but since i distinctly doubt that she'd find these kinds of Romance Cases to be… not the sort of thing that would line up w/her ideals abt truth and de-dramatizing the courtroom in favor of that truth w/in justice, she just tosses it away w/o much thought lmao.

But, since she is an Importante™ special guest, she gets kidnapped into attending anyway, just like that that one weirdly specific and yet weirdly common pokéspe trope back in the early 2010s with school aus that i think we should bring back. like, just as a treat.

but anyway, so navia's there, lowkey against her will, and she, like, totally knows that it's clorinde up there in the stands, talking about her w/in like, the first thirty seconds (tops!) of the case, but since she was probably gagged for ~* Le Drama*~ of it all, she can't exactly say anything disruptive, esp since neuvillette had threatened her w/contempt of court last time so she's on thin fucking ice as is.

but she also then remembers the case w/her father, and how people don't always say what they mean or declare their intentions outright; some people are simply not that forthright abt themselves. their intentions must be Read, like a story between the lines, from the eyes— and navia can tell from the look in clorinde's eyes (or smth; i'm lowkey imagining this to be some kind of shadow puppet stage to dramatize the court case whilst still keeping it all anonymous) that through all this theatre, clorinde is performing a Truth.

and navia becomes just deeply enamored w/what is clorinde's way of Revealing her Truth and making herself Understood, and navia realizes that she has a Part to play in this theatre of Clorinde's True Self. and bc navia values that Truth, she becomes willing to play that role.

and also bc she's grown from the time when she was young n her father died at clorinde's hands: she couldn't understand the way her father died in that duel bc she couldn't yet read the Truth in his eyes, so she blamed clorinde for it all, so here, by reading the Truth from between clorinde's words n actions, she is demonstrating that growth by showing a willingness to play along with a lie that tells the truth.

and also at the end after the love confession n stuff furina should also declare them married right then n there bc she's the archon!!! No One Can Stop Her!!!!

(the follow-up conversation w/ star:)

• GAY PEOPLE
• YEAH
• OVSESSED. OBSESSED W THSI
• IT'S ABT HOW WE AS PEOPLE ARE BOTH PERFORMERS OF OUR IDEAL SELVES AND AWKWARD FUMBLING HUMAN BEINGS EARNESTLY TRYING AT THE SAME TIME
• the fontch are so dramatic godbless
• clorinde/navia is fun to me bc navia seems to really value straightforwardness out of ppl so i think its rly fun that u have to pay close attn to clorinde to see what shes feeling even tho shes the very blank and blunt type of person… rotating that One part of the fight cutscene in my mind where they make eye contact and clorinde holds her gaze for a min before looking away…
• clorinde is point blank n blunt, but only when addressed
• like how in court, she was like
• "well. i can tell when people wanna die, and i can tell you, navia's father intended to die."
• like girl literally could you not have volunteered that information to navia sooner instead of just going "it was your father's wish for me to protect you" for Three Years
• did you really have to be asked em>point blank in a COURTROOM???
• ABSMHFMDF RIGHT
• i doubt navia would've believed her in that moment tho
• like if it didn't happen Then, in the courtroom
• tbf, it's not like they were close!!!
• and also she probably held some sort of reservations towards interacting w her directly if she protected navia behind the scenes and all that
• yeah

i don't think clorinde is the type to reach out to others. she seems more the type to absorb the things people show her, whereas navia is more the type to reach out from curiosity. the dinner is just the start of their bridging that gap…

i think it's neat that they start getting along already at this point in the archon quest bc it means that we get to watch them possibly develop throughout the rest of fontaine canon <3 i feel like since navia now has the truth abt how her father died, she wouldn't find any point in falsely blaming clorinde n holding a grudge bc that grudge was rooted in falsehood anyway.

in order to maintain her ideals regarding truthfulness n treating people fairly in light of it, of course she'd forgive clorinde n invite her to dinner to open up a new chapter of their relationship. to do so otherwise would be a betrayal of those ideals.

(back to ships)