As Games Are Played

Zine
Title:	As Games Are Played
Publisher:	circuit zine
Editor(s):
Date(s):	March 1993
Series?:	yes
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	The Professionals
Language:	English
External Links:
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cover, artist is Cat Anestopoulo

interior art "Cowley"

As Games Are Played is the third part of The Fox and the Wolf Bodie/Cowley series originated by Jane Carnall.

This story is by Jane Carnall, Nicole Craig, and Ann Johnson. Johnson, however,

It was originally a circuit zine with the first 3 stories published in March 1993.

The Series

• Lest These Dark Days
• This Classical Dilemma
• As Games Are Played
• Woven Patternings

Comments from Carnall: 1993

From the afterword to "As Games Are Played":

It was in 1989 that Ann Johnson and I were watching "Wild Justice" and came up with the idea that grew into "Lest These Dark Days", and, eventually, into this story "As Games Are Played". And this is, more or less, the end of that story; first planned December 1989, finished in December 1992.

As is traditional, however, ‘The Fox and the Wolf" will be a trilogy in four parts; in December 1993 I intend to bring out a final zine set in this universe, of the various bits and pieces connected with the trilogy that were never published — an alternative ending to "Lest These Dark Days", working title "Why Didn't They Have A Helicopter?”, a missing chapter from "This Classical Dilemma", and a couple of stories from "As Games Are Played" which didn't quite fit into the narrative. This zine, Woven Patterning, will also include any other sequels or paraquels set in "The Fox and the Wolf" universe anyone cares to write and send us — 'Atropos' has written two already! — and will be the last zine I ever put out on the circuit. This one had to wait three months for me to be able to afford to publish it.

As Games Are Played begins at the end of "The Ojuka Situation", and takes place at the time of "A Man Called Quinn" and "No Stone". (Broadcast order.)

I'd like to thank Cat Anestopoulo for her wonderful artwork and Nicole Craig for her usual affectionate support and beating me over the head with a cudgel when necessary. Thanks also to Karla Simon, for her generous help with the photocopying, and Eva Reimers, Marina Komahrens, and Frances Tucker for their generous support. Atropos and Wibble, our First Proofreaders, who played Murphy, Liz Walsh, the entire medical profession, the Home Office, Doyle, and Willis, respectively, know what we owe them and will no doubt ensure that we pay. Kari d'Herblay's advice was also valuable; the more so as she is, at the moment, the only person in known space to have read all three parts of the trilogy for the first time in the same week.

Ann Johnson dropped out from the collaboration about a third of the way through; which means, such is our erratic style of writing, that she was involved mainly in the structure of the story and the middle part of it. She wishes it to be made entirely clear that she had nothing whatsoever to do with the tulips and roses sequence.

Comments from Carnall: 1994

Your comment (about Heat Trace really being a Doyle story, not a Doyle & Bodie story) touched a nerve; [N] and I have been muttering to each other for a long time about locs we get which say, effectively, "It was a nice story but there wasn't enough Doyle." The two stories we've mostly had it about have been "Look Through My Eyes" and "As Games Are Played". And simply answering, as we do, that "But the story isn't about Doyle," doesn't help. The fans who complain don't care who the story is about - they want as much Doyle as they're used to getting. One particular loc I got, from a writer who I will not name because the fault is common, complained that there wasn't enough about Doyle in "As Games Are Played"... which I found especially annoying as I'd found character In "LTME" but he isn't a plot device. Two things strike me about this; first, that slash (fanfic generally, perhaps) is, for some fans at least, just not even considered to be on the same level as other fiction - the fans are not so much looking for a good story as a showcase for their favourite actors, and Professionals fanfic is supposed to be a showcase for Bodie and Doyle. Secondly, and related, I resent it that the same writers who never give Cowley any time or bother to develop him as a character complain about Doyle not being the star of a story.

Chapters: From "I Never Cared For You," Lyrics by Willie Nelson

• "I know you won't believe the words I tell you" (1)
• "No, you won't believe" (8)
• "Your heart has been forewarned all men will lie to you" (17)
• "And your mind cannot conceive" (24)
• "So it all depends on what I say to you" (34)
• "And on your doubting me" (41)
• "So I've prepared these statements far from true" (48)
• "Take heed and disbelieve" (54)
• "The sun is filled with ice and gives no warmth at all" (61)
• "And the sky was never blue" (71)
• "The stars are raindrops searching for a place to fall" (81)
• "And I never cared for you" (91)
• "The sun is filled with ice and gives no warmth at all, And the sky was never blue, The stars are raindrops searching for a place to fall, And I never cared for you, I never cared for you" (104)

Reactions and Reviews

[I chose] a Bodie/Cowley fic, and a very hot one, at that, for it’s not other than the “finale” of the “Fox and Wolf” trilogy: “As Games Are Played”. You can’t get more central than this in that universe (I mean the whole B/C batch of stories, not only the trilogy). And after all, today is the last opportunity for me to make it accessible to a wide range of readers, thanks to Caroline (caroveraline_x) and Frances (hagsrus) who both worked hard to have it released on Proslib. (You’ll find at the bottom of this post a link to a Proslib folder that contains all three parts of the trilogy and related art).

I’ve already recced the first part in crack_van, here: Lest These Dark Days, also reviewed by londonronnie here The Reading Room and by me here: Rare Pair, where you can go to know the premises. “This Classical Dilemma" mainly develop them to explore the depths, heights and pitfalls of the relationship, while following very closely the course of events during the successive episodes, from "Slush Fund" to "Discovered in a Graveyard". Volens, nolens, the dangerous and unnatural bond between agent and commander has held through plights and fights, better than either of them had expected but always kept by Cowley in a convenient “what is not said doesn’t exist” status of moral “no-man’s-land”.

It’s in the third part (that goes from "The Ojuka situation" to "No stone") that all the threads are tied up, then untangled for good. All the unspoken is said, all the contradictions revealed with their inescapable consequences and Cowley has to come to term with the painful awareness of his own state of denial and to make a decision eventually: is the relationship real? Is it worth the sacrifice of what he used to deem more precious than his life?

Actually, he’s not as brave as that for the decision is in large part imposed on him by the circumstances and by Bodie’s staunch loyalty and stubbornness. I don’t want to disclose the plot, which is brilliant, especially the interrogation scene and the CI5 operation near the end. It’s not a totally happy ending (there is loss and there is gain) but it’s a likely and realistic one though it may not appear as such to many readers.