meme!

[meretricula]

ganked from aramley. doubt anyone's interested, but hey, might as well.

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

you can find a list of all my fic here or in my memories. go on, play with me! all of us in the States have the day off tomorrow; you might as well distract me from the sound of my thesis not writing itself.

Comments

[t-lyrical.livejournal.com]

I love, love, love all your stuff, but this is, like, one of my favorite things EVER. I really couldn't pick a single paragraph from that scene, so YOU NEED TO DO A COMMENTARY FOR ALL OF IT.

Leightley's second verse was still soft and self-conscious, but Laurence's pleasure was undiminished: how, he wondered, could he have forgotten music, and how he loved it? He joined Hunt, barely aware of what he was doing, in singing another verse, and paid no notice when Leightley moved back to allow them to sing the whole song through again without her, Hunt's surprisingly rich baritone on the woman's part less jarring that it might have been.

After that, it was only natural to play through the other two songs together, and then a trio which Shadwell laughingly produced, claiming they had long been short a proper tenor and Laurence could not deny them now that they had found him. All in all nearly an hour passed before Laurence came back to himself, at the thoroughly unwelcome awareness that he had just addressed Lieutenant Robbins as Edith.

He could have been at home, for that hour, passing the time after supper with his mother and Edith and their friends. Really it was not such a strange slip to make, and Robbins had hardly been offended; he was not even certain she had noticed. But having realized why he felt so comfortable in the laughing circle around the pianoforte, it was impossible not to follow the realization to other, less pleasant recollections: that he would never see his mother again; that Edith had married Woolvey; that Woolvey was dead. Hunt was beaming at Bell, brighter than the candlelight, and Leightley's grudgingly tolerant expression was belied by the loose clasp of her fingers around Shadwell's wrist; all of Laurence's simple joy in the music was gone, and he was unendurably lonely.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

oh, wow. I'm still just unbearably relieved that anyone liked that fic, because it was a totally self-indulgent decision to use all the weird canon facts I'd made up for Leightley's crew (Victrix is nicknamed Trixie! Shadwell is nicknamed Shadow, because he is Leightley's shadow (lol terrible pun)! Robbins sews and plays piano! Shadwell likes opera! Leightley used to read Latin to Victrix while she was still in her shell!) and put them in something that gave Laurence a little bit of closure. I'm still not it was the best decision in terms of artistry, because Laurence's isolation is such a key part of his character, but it was a really satisfying thing for me to write.

part of my absurdly extensive personal canon for these characters is that Leightley is not artistic or musical. like, at all. she doesn't get it, she doesn't like it, she doesn't want to. but she loves Shadow and she wants him to be happy, so she puts up with it. then I think I was rereading the very beginning of HMD, where it mentions that Laurence loves opera and was so upset at the realization that he wouldn't have that in his life anymore as an aviator, and I was suddenly hit with this image of him in Australia with Leightley's crew, singing around a piano. I wanted Laurence to fit in more with them. because Robbins and Shadwell are rebels with ~culture~. (also I am ridiculously in love with the idea of Hunt as this tiny mousy guy with no apparent spine who has a gorgeous baritone and a lot more guts than meets the eye.)

I think these paragraphs are a pretty good summation of the two things I was going for throughout the fic, actually. Laurence fits in with Leightley's crew, even though he doesn't recognize it: they're cultured, smart, high-class, and loyal to the point of absurdity. but all Laurence can see is that he's excluded as a perpetual third (or fifth, or seventh) wheel, and he never gets that they (and Tharkay and Granby) keep trying to reach out and bring him in.

Edith is really Laurence's personal tragedy, and I'm glad I thought to include her. She kind of brings him full circle, in a way, along with the music, from the Laurence in the beginning of the series who loves opera and his almost-fiancee to the Laurence now, who loves opera and his dragon and just want someone to love him back.

stylistically, Jesus, you can tell I love semicolons, can't you? I am not ashamed of my love! actually one of the best things about Temeraire fandom is that it's totally within the voice of the writing to use semicolons in both narration and dialogue. grammar geekery!