DVD Commentary Meme
Snicked from Puel and others.
Pick a paragraph/passage of under 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, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context ( Read more... )
Pick a paragraph/passage of under 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, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context ( Read more... )
So, a huge part of what I was trying to accomplish with this piece was to convey as much as possible about the two of them while writing from a movie-camera perspective instead of a fictional one; you can see and hear their actions and words, but not their thoughts.
I was listening to a very old Evanescence song called "Listen to the Rain" which is sort of church-choral and has the following lyric: "Listen to each drop of rain/whispering secrets in vain/frantically searching for someone to hear/their story before they hit ground/please don't let go/can't we stay for a while/it's just too hard to say goodbye/Listen to the rain/weeping." I happened to hear it on a very rainy morning on my way into work, and the fic pretty much sprang into existence.
She glanced at him. "I didn't come for the view."
"Why, then? It's cold out. You'll take a chill."
"I don't feel it." She gripped the railing in front of her with slim, scarred hands accustomed to wielding a sword. Her cloak hung from her shoulders, sodden and heavy from standing in the rain for the past hour.
"No, I don't suppose you do." He fell silent, looking down on the center of the Empire that Gestahl had built with their skills.
This bit is all about contrast, and also about the fact that they're both being used. It's also sort of meant to show their distance and the way they communicate in as few words as possible; accentuating the parts of her that aren't really human seemed the way to go.
She closed her eyes, cool water running down her face like tears. The rain beat on the metal balcony and the imposing walls of Vector, washing away the soot and smoke that the Empire's industries generated in such quantities. She breathed in the smell of rain, so fresh and clean.
So, Celes led the attack on Maranda, where presumably she killed a lot of people. I find it interesting that a general - and someone clearly skilled in battle - wears a white cloak, purity/snow/innocence. The symbolism works for her on a lot of levels, and I was trying to pull some of that in here. Also, the rain as the tears she won't shed; purification through external means.
"They say you can hear the stories of the slain, if only you listen," she said after a moment.
Echoing back to the song inspiration, and also going back to the idea of redemption; she's not quite sure how to go about atoning for what she's done, and she has no idea how to cope with the fact that she did it without questioning.
"Peasant tales," he replied. "It is a soothing sound."
"Hardly," she muttered.
This is more of me poking at Leo's sense of honour by contrasting their viewpoints. Celes sees guilt; Leo probably would have refused such orders or found a way to implement them more humanely, but she went for the most efficient route.
After a moment, she turned toward him. "Do you ever regret not taking the MagiTek infusion?" She stared at the crisp lines incised on her palms, angular runic designs that let her channel her MagiTek power through her sword.
"No. I serve my liege and my troops are loyal. I know how to fight, and when. I need no more than that." He shrugged.
"It must be so easy," she murmured.
"Your magic helped you succeed in Maranda. Your troops would have suffered far greater losses if they did not have your skills to bolster their attack."
This. Okay. So Leo's life is in some ways very simple; there are some things Gestahl will never ask of him because he is not Magi-Tek infused. At this point he senses that she needs comfort, but he's not sure what to say, and the best he can give her is that her skills slaughtering the enemy meant her own troops took fewer losses. It's a thin, cold comfort and it's not nearly enough, and they both know it, but it's all he can give her.
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