Deer Among Cattle (new fic) + notes
Judith is suspicious of the new Riegan heir.
~9.5k words.
Here at AO3.
spoiler-filled notes!
* "it would be very fun to write Claude being a scheme-y bastard to win the trust of noble peeps in Leicester," i said, when planning this fic. then i stared at an empty doc for like three nights in a row before i realized, oh shit, this means i have to write politics, how do those even work, i don't read enough political fiction ahhh????
someone suggested i just go rewatch some House of Cards. so i did. and i gotta say, as much as i'm "meh" on most of that show, it really is a solid example of how, mechanically, to make paperclip-trading work in a narrative context. note: i rewatched half a season of a fucking show before i even started writing words for this nonsense. fanfic takes so long sob why is writing so time-consuming
* leaning into the Ordelia plotline was a revelation. i knew needed something for Claude to fix, a problem that mattered on both a human-emotions level and Claude-could-leverage-it-into-an-advantage level, but i really didn't want to make one up out of whole cloth because god that sounds like work (and also just less resonant in general when you're fanfic-ing), and when i finally realized wait Ordelia has very good cause to be suspicious of outsiders it was a blessing from heaven. thank you Three Houses for giving me just barely enough worldbuilding to work with
* initially this was going to be, theme-wise, the "Claude gets disillusioned with Fódlan, starts thinking about demanding a refund" fic, but uh, then i realized that doesn't marry well with the actual mechanics of the plot i wanted to write, so i wound up changing all the emotional/thematic beats to something else entirely. sorry Claude! you'll have to get disillusioned next time i lose my mind and spend another couple weeks agonizing over you!
* i was sort of annoyed when i realized that the story needed to be mostly told from Judith's point of view but i think it worked out for the best in the end
* i feel i got very lucky with this fic's predecessor, "The Signet of His Lords," in that i had a very strong rhythm in mind for the story i wanted to tell, and while obviously i had to work a little, everything came pretty easily because i had such a strong returning rhythm/beat in mind. i was a little annoyed that i didn't have that for most of the process of writing this fic! but i'm actually mostly okay with how a lot of the rhythms wound up lying on the page in the end; revision worked some wonders (AND ALSO ADDED 2k WORDS, HEY EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUCK CAN I JUST WRITE A SHORT FIC FOR A CHANGE). poke me if you want a whole "lua's rambly thoughts on rhythm as it applies to prose-writing" thoughtdump; tldr i think i'm finally starting to vibe with that annoying fucking Virigina Woolf quote
* ...speaking of which, this isn't even the first fic i wanted to write after finishing "The Signet of His Lords." this is the fic i had to write in order to get access to the fic i actually wanted to write after finishg "The Signet of His Lords." yes! i am going to write yet another fic in this series! this is what quarantine does to me or whatever i guess!
* oh, i also totally stole the bit about casting out the nines from this EXCELLENT blog post, which was so damn fun i wound up purchasing a copy of the Treviso Arithmetic myself. i... actually started writing out some proofs for some other fun tricks in the book, but then i was like CHRIST LUA THIS WILL NEVER MAKE IT INTO THE FIC UNLESS YOU ARE JUST COMMITTING PACING CRIMES, so i dropped it, but uh. math is fun!
and yeah them's the notes
~9.5k words.
Here at AO3.
spoiler-filled notes!
* "it would be very fun to write Claude being a scheme-y bastard to win the trust of noble peeps in Leicester," i said, when planning this fic. then i stared at an empty doc for like three nights in a row before i realized, oh shit, this means i have to write politics, how do those even work, i don't read enough political fiction ahhh????
someone suggested i just go rewatch some House of Cards. so i did. and i gotta say, as much as i'm "meh" on most of that show, it really is a solid example of how, mechanically, to make paperclip-trading work in a narrative context. note: i rewatched half a season of a fucking show before i even started writing words for this nonsense. fanfic takes so long sob why is writing so time-consuming
* leaning into the Ordelia plotline was a revelation. i knew needed something for Claude to fix, a problem that mattered on both a human-emotions level and Claude-could-leverage-it-into-an-advantage level, but i really didn't want to make one up out of whole cloth because god that sounds like work (and also just less resonant in general when you're fanfic-ing), and when i finally realized wait Ordelia has very good cause to be suspicious of outsiders it was a blessing from heaven. thank you Three Houses for giving me just barely enough worldbuilding to work with
* initially this was going to be, theme-wise, the "Claude gets disillusioned with Fódlan, starts thinking about demanding a refund" fic, but uh, then i realized that doesn't marry well with the actual mechanics of the plot i wanted to write, so i wound up changing all the emotional/thematic beats to something else entirely. sorry Claude! you'll have to get disillusioned next time i lose my mind and spend another couple weeks agonizing over you!
* i was sort of annoyed when i realized that the story needed to be mostly told from Judith's point of view but i think it worked out for the best in the end
* i feel i got very lucky with this fic's predecessor, "The Signet of His Lords," in that i had a very strong rhythm in mind for the story i wanted to tell, and while obviously i had to work a little, everything came pretty easily because i had such a strong returning rhythm/beat in mind. i was a little annoyed that i didn't have that for most of the process of writing this fic! but i'm actually mostly okay with how a lot of the rhythms wound up lying on the page in the end; revision worked some wonders (AND ALSO ADDED 2k WORDS, HEY EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUCK CAN I JUST WRITE A SHORT FIC FOR A CHANGE). poke me if you want a whole "lua's rambly thoughts on rhythm as it applies to prose-writing" thoughtdump; tldr i think i'm finally starting to vibe with that annoying fucking Virigina Woolf quote
* ...speaking of which, this isn't even the first fic i wanted to write after finishing "The Signet of His Lords." this is the fic i had to write in order to get access to the fic i actually wanted to write after finishg "The Signet of His Lords." yes! i am going to write yet another fic in this series! this is what quarantine does to me or whatever i guess!
* oh, i also totally stole the bit about casting out the nines from this EXCELLENT blog post, which was so damn fun i wound up purchasing a copy of the Treviso Arithmetic myself. i... actually started writing out some proofs for some other fun tricks in the book, but then i was like CHRIST LUA THIS WILL NEVER MAKE IT INTO THE FIC UNLESS YOU ARE JUST COMMITTING PACING CRIMES, so i dropped it, but uh. math is fun!
and yeah them's the notes