yuletide: "grapes on the autumn table"
Jan. 1st, 2019 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felinejumpergrapes on the autumn table (5187 words) by sternerstuff
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Baru Cormorant/Tain Hu
Characters: Baru Cormorant, Tain Hu, Duke Lyxaxu, Duke Oathsfire, Duke Unexekome
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Background M/M, growing up under empire is no fun!, canon flirtation, found dukes, references to budgets, dubious references to grape cultivation and harvesting, Misses Clause Challenge, Drinking to Cope
Summary:
Spend some time with "Baru being happy for two goddamn seconds!" (It is such a tall order, y'all.) It was a delightful challenge to modify the political frame and their particular personal-political orientations to be remain in character and give Baru the chance to maaaaybe let down some walls. I am very pleased with my dukes-into-common-grape-pickers -- it was very very fun to re-read for bantering dynamics, particularly between Lyxaxu and Oathsfire, who are just a delightful comedy duo even in the midst of revolution.
If you want to give it a shot from out of canon, the background: Baru's home (where the family structure has multiple fathers) is colonized via economics & plague & violent homophobia; she is a numbers/knowledge savant and decides that logically, her best bet to regain control of Taranoke is to rise up in the ranks of the Falcresti empire and destroy it from within.
I am definitely proud, but 50% of what I wrote (and I AM proud of that!), and 50% of what I learned/didn't accomplish/tried to do. I hit a cool point where I wanted to do a complex writing thing, but didn't have the skills to execute it quite. i.e. I am very pleased with my conception of how Baru *doesn't* think about her learned shame around sexuality, and extending that to decadence in general, and with the links she might draw between family, birth and found. I didn't quite manage the multi-layered structure of (1) no shame (2) learned shame (3) shame about learned shame.
I am very very proud of my Lyxaxu/Oathsfire as a mechanism for that -- because I like writing sex, because I think I did a good job, and I think it served a real narrative purpose, although I agree with my beta reader that there should have been more build-up to that crisis. BUT. Limited time, learning, etc.
I am definitely 100% going to write some explicit fucking follow ups, for either Lyxaxu/Oathsfire or Tain Hu/Baru, because wow do I want to explore unlearning shame through partnership. (ayyyy, Black Sails!) and...because...I just...can you imagine...their revolutionary extremely-experienced sex???? the FLIRTING?! the pillow talk!?
Writing an AU of "not misery" was VERY HARD, because have you met canon, but it was also very informative for characterization and drive in a writing-skills way. A bonus: because my gift was also Traitor, I had the delightful experience of picking up all those characterizations in someone else's work and having double appreciation for them.
It was also interesting to manage visual appearance: because it's fantasy, they don't have the same historically grounded racialization, so it's both more and less difficult to depict (less social cues, but also less risk of accidentally ignoring relevant racial dynamics). In canon, Dickinson manages race by comparing Tu Maia or Aurdwynni skin/eyes/noses/hair to the red-haired pale-skinned Stakhieczi—there's not too many actual descriptions of what Tu Maia looks like. Trying to play in that world ended up being very helpful commentary on how we define and visualize difference. ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY: late in edits, I realized I hadn't included anything about Baru's skin, and then went on a research binge about what sun burn looks like on various skin types, and specifically what happens if you press a finger into that sunburned skin (because I am obsessed with my own sunhat scene).Shockingly, there was zero data. Buuuuuut: glad I thought to include it, wish I had done that earlier, am interested in continuing to suss out how I can be better. Also thinking about sensitivity readers and online visibility etc.
(uncutting this text so it can serve as additional Traitor Baru Cormorant rec)
For some wild reason, I thought that writing for Baru would make me less obsessed (I was wrong)—I fucking love her so much. I love her. I have never in my life empathized with a character more: she is logical to a horrible fault, she is canonically gay, she shoves her feelings under numbers and books and goals, she is fascinated by all technology regardless of lethality, she has massively stunted empathy, she fuckin' follows through. It's kind of rare to see a character do that, I think—explicitly say "well...but isn't the [horrible plague] maybe worth it for all the knowledge in the libraries?" I have big gender feelings about her, as well—"the accountant waking inside the woman." Point: it was SO COOL to delve into really deeply into this character who is so, so, horribly fucked up in ways that I, too, am horribly fucked up. Also, lord, I cried so much.
Anyway, this might be a better rec for what it does:
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Baru Cormorant/Tain Hu
Characters: Baru Cormorant, Tain Hu, Duke Lyxaxu, Duke Oathsfire, Duke Unexekome
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Background M/M, growing up under empire is no fun!, canon flirtation, found dukes, references to budgets, dubious references to grape cultivation and harvesting, Misses Clause Challenge, Drinking to Cope
Summary:
“Hello yourself, imuira.”
(Or, Aurdwynn's Imperial Accountant escapes the city for the country)
Spend some time with "Baru being happy for two goddamn seconds!" (It is such a tall order, y'all.) It was a delightful challenge to modify the political frame and their particular personal-political orientations to be remain in character and give Baru the chance to maaaaybe let down some walls. I am very pleased with my dukes-into-common-grape-pickers -- it was very very fun to re-read for bantering dynamics, particularly between Lyxaxu and Oathsfire, who are just a delightful comedy duo even in the midst of revolution.
If you want to give it a shot from out of canon, the background: Baru's home (where the family structure has multiple fathers) is colonized via economics & plague & violent homophobia; she is a numbers/knowledge savant and decides that logically, her best bet to regain control of Taranoke is to rise up in the ranks of the Falcresti empire and destroy it from within.
I am definitely proud, but 50% of what I wrote (and I AM proud of that!), and 50% of what I learned/didn't accomplish/tried to do. I hit a cool point where I wanted to do a complex writing thing, but didn't have the skills to execute it quite. i.e. I am very pleased with my conception of how Baru *doesn't* think about her learned shame around sexuality, and extending that to decadence in general, and with the links she might draw between family, birth and found. I didn't quite manage the multi-layered structure of (1) no shame (2) learned shame (3) shame about learned shame.
I am very very proud of my Lyxaxu/Oathsfire as a mechanism for that -- because I like writing sex, because I think I did a good job, and I think it served a real narrative purpose, although I agree with my beta reader that there should have been more build-up to that crisis. BUT. Limited time, learning, etc.
I am definitely 100% going to write some explicit fucking follow ups, for either Lyxaxu/Oathsfire or Tain Hu/Baru, because wow do I want to explore unlearning shame through partnership. (ayyyy, Black Sails!) and...because...I just...can you imagine...their revolutionary extremely-experienced sex???? the FLIRTING?! the pillow talk!?
Writing an AU of "not misery" was VERY HARD, because have you met canon, but it was also very informative for characterization and drive in a writing-skills way. A bonus: because my gift was also Traitor, I had the delightful experience of picking up all those characterizations in someone else's work and having double appreciation for them.
It was also interesting to manage visual appearance: because it's fantasy, they don't have the same historically grounded racialization, so it's both more and less difficult to depict (less social cues, but also less risk of accidentally ignoring relevant racial dynamics). In canon, Dickinson manages race by comparing Tu Maia or Aurdwynni skin/eyes/noses/hair to the red-haired pale-skinned Stakhieczi—there's not too many actual descriptions of what Tu Maia looks like. Trying to play in that world ended up being very helpful commentary on how we define and visualize difference. ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY: late in edits, I realized I hadn't included anything about Baru's skin, and then went on a research binge about what sun burn looks like on various skin types, and specifically what happens if you press a finger into that sunburned skin (because I am obsessed with my own sunhat scene).Shockingly, there was zero data. Buuuuuut: glad I thought to include it, wish I had done that earlier, am interested in continuing to suss out how I can be better. Also thinking about sensitivity readers and online visibility etc.
(uncutting this text so it can serve as additional Traitor Baru Cormorant rec)
For some wild reason, I thought that writing for Baru would make me less obsessed (I was wrong)—I fucking love her so much. I love her. I have never in my life empathized with a character more: she is logical to a horrible fault, she is canonically gay, she shoves her feelings under numbers and books and goals, she is fascinated by all technology regardless of lethality, she has massively stunted empathy, she fuckin' follows through. It's kind of rare to see a character do that, I think—explicitly say "well...but isn't the [horrible plague] maybe worth it for all the knowledge in the libraries?" I have big gender feelings about her, as well—"the accountant waking inside the woman." Point: it was SO COOL to delve into really deeply into this character who is so, so, horribly fucked up in ways that I, too, am horribly fucked up. Also, lord, I cried so much.
Anyway, this might be a better rec for what it does:
The first words of Traitor were “This is the truth. You will know because it hurts.” The first words of Monster are “If something hurts, does that make it true?”
