Complete story index:
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five


1. Further Reading
This story is a crack AU of a crack AU, you could say. It's based on The Original Adventures of Judas and Raeger (also known as IoM GAIDEN), which is an AU take on the original IoM project. (Which... is itself an alternate story based on Valkyrie Profile. Don't you love where this is going?) If Lapis Rose doesn't have enough of the characters to satisfy you, there's plenty more to read.

( Also, a short explanation of Illusion of Memory, with links. )


2. Inspiration
I've been reading too much Victorian Lit lately. Also, as noted in the first installment, this was sort of written on request, as per kytha's request in our thread about Hear Reproach No More, which can be seen here.


3. IoM "canon" vs. AU
Although Judas is supposed to be a vampire, I'm kind of ambivalent about that sort of character in general. They feel so cliche. But I liked the character design for the Demonic Barons in Valkyrie Profile, and that's what inspired the character concept; he just ended up in the vampiric category. I'd prefer to consider him, for this story, as just a very powerful sorcerer, because it fits him better.

Lapis Rose is just a big "what if." What if Raeger stayed home and persisted in trying to fit the demands of her aristocratic family? What if Judas won his freedom sooner and had different goals? What if Ragnarok never came about, and the gods minded their own business? Etc.

Judas and Raeger weren't originally intended to have any romantic connections, but it kind of ended up that way over time. I prefer to dance around that, but this was an easy chance for a simplistic romance.



Ultimately, the point was to have fun. I could nitpick and edit, and probably should just to get in practice, but I reached my goal just by finishing it without freaking out about the usual stuff. I feel more comfortable writing Judas and Raeger than any other characters or fics because I don't feel the constraints of others' expectations, real or imagined.

kytha seemed to like the story, I had fun writing it, and it's finished. Those were my goals, so I'm satisfied.

I do have ideas that go beyond this, which are sort of discussed in the comments to chapter five. Any further stories will probably come in the form of scenes or fic snippets, since that's all I have time for right now. I still have to rewrite Famine Stela.


* * *

A list of things in the Summer Chronicle that need fixing. It's pretty straightforward. I'll add to it as I think of more.


Multi-chapter fixes:

• First six chapters need to be completely rewritten.


• Related, a structure for the POV changes needs to be created.


• Pacing to reflect the passage of time more obviously.


• Possibly introduce more locations.


• Sephiran's history with Daein needs to come out more slowly, over more chapters.


• Court procedure needs to be researched and hammered out.

Character fixes:

• Sephiran's motivations need to be consistent. They changed like, five times over the course of the first ten
  
  chapters.


• Soren's motivations need to be hinted at earlier. He's bland at first.


• Ike and Zelgius need to exist.


• Senior senators need to play a slightly bigger part from the beginning, especially from Sephiran's POV.


• Ditto for Amelia, Shirin, and Leveque. The other assistants to a lesser extent.

Background issues:

• Government structure needs to be decided on; considering some form of late Byzantine government.


• Some decisions on the religion around Ashera and the priesthood/church+state need to be made.


• Political relations with other countries need to be clarified.


• Geography (cities for reference, locations, types of climate and crops, etc.).

In general there's a lot of editing to be done. Each chapter after around ten has extra bulk that it probably doesn't need. Some chapters are heavily transitory when they don't need to be, when they could be merged with other chapters-- and two or three are there only because I forgot to add something to the last installment or two. :P I just hope I don't have to rewrite the entire thing. I think a little shifting around is all it'll take in some cases. We'll see.