summer is miles and miles away (new fic) + notes
Modern AU. Half a year after graduating from Harvard, Lorenz returns to campus for a bit of a reunion-and runs into the last classmate he’d expect.
aka, Lorenz and Claude get third & fourth wheeled together & it’s all very awkward
~8k words.
Here at AO3.
is there a way to write a college AU without being absurdly self-indulgent?
this was self-indulgent on a lot of levels. the biggest struggle was perspective, actually-since the plot’s essentially a pastiche of stories i’ve experienced directly, or heard from friends, i noticed that it was harder-than-usual to stick to a consistent narrative voice. when i wrote the first draft, it was sorta omniscient-third-person-narrator-like, and it just didn’t quite feel like a story. once i figured out how to ground it mostly in Lorenz’s head, it came out better, i hope. (i have known so many people like Lorenz, like Claude, like Ferdinand-i hope it came through how much i love these humans, in all their frustrating complexity.)
i’d like to say that Hong Kong Restaurant is one of my favorite places on the planet, and it’s so beloved by the university that there is a goddamn plaque on campus to honor the restaurant’s founder.
stuff i thought about vaguely while writing:
* “elegy for an enemy” by stephen vincent benet. i think about this poem in a lot of contexts, tbh, because it absolutely slaps-but god TELL ME if this stanza isn’t a whole fuckin’ #claurenz mood:
Rest you, my enemy,
Slain without fault,
Life smacks but tastelessly
Lacking your salt!
Stuck in a bog whence naught
May catapult me,
Come from the grave, long-sought,
Come and insult me!
* "fukai mori" by do as infinity. ironically, i fell in love with this song before i knew it was an inuyasha thing-i looked up a translation on the internet, in my youth, and the haunting implications of that chorus line always struck me:
Go on with our lives and lose those things behind.
Wrapped around in lies, we stand there voiceless.
We want to leave our lives, until we find a way.
Searching for the light for eternity.
voiceless. in every dystopia i’ve ever written, there’s someone who’s mute. if only lorenz could find the words, etc etc
* "don’t trust anyone but us" by ellegarden. probably not for any thematic reason, the lyrics don’t fit, but i was already on the Japanese rock train and damn is it catchy
* this actually extremely excellent turkish bakery in watertown which actually exists
aka, Lorenz and Claude get third & fourth wheeled together & it’s all very awkward
~8k words.
Here at AO3.
is there a way to write a college AU without being absurdly self-indulgent?
this was self-indulgent on a lot of levels. the biggest struggle was perspective, actually-since the plot’s essentially a pastiche of stories i’ve experienced directly, or heard from friends, i noticed that it was harder-than-usual to stick to a consistent narrative voice. when i wrote the first draft, it was sorta omniscient-third-person-narrator-like, and it just didn’t quite feel like a story. once i figured out how to ground it mostly in Lorenz’s head, it came out better, i hope. (i have known so many people like Lorenz, like Claude, like Ferdinand-i hope it came through how much i love these humans, in all their frustrating complexity.)
i’d like to say that Hong Kong Restaurant is one of my favorite places on the planet, and it’s so beloved by the university that there is a goddamn plaque on campus to honor the restaurant’s founder.
stuff i thought about vaguely while writing:
* “elegy for an enemy” by stephen vincent benet. i think about this poem in a lot of contexts, tbh, because it absolutely slaps-but god TELL ME if this stanza isn’t a whole fuckin’ #claurenz mood:
Rest you, my enemy,
Slain without fault,
Life smacks but tastelessly
Lacking your salt!
Stuck in a bog whence naught
May catapult me,
Come from the grave, long-sought,
Come and insult me!
* "fukai mori" by do as infinity. ironically, i fell in love with this song before i knew it was an inuyasha thing-i looked up a translation on the internet, in my youth, and the haunting implications of that chorus line always struck me:
Go on with our lives and lose those things behind.
Wrapped around in lies, we stand there voiceless.
We want to leave our lives, until we find a way.
Searching for the light for eternity.
voiceless. in every dystopia i’ve ever written, there’s someone who’s mute. if only lorenz could find the words, etc etc
* "don’t trust anyone but us" by ellegarden. probably not for any thematic reason, the lyrics don’t fit, but i was already on the Japanese rock train and damn is it catchy
* this actually extremely excellent turkish bakery in watertown which actually exists