#it is so hard to describe this in a way that isn't wildly boring despite it being a personal obsession vkajckakcka

[outeremissary]

A Bright and Wicked Thing for the wip roundup?

Hello Crow! This is it! This is a Kingmaker fic! Hooray! I don't remember if you followed me for BG3 or something though so sorry if you expected Someone who wasn't the horrible aasimar who rules my heart. But it would be a little funny.

Anyway, I guess you'd call this my Kingmaker longfic. In my mind I just think of it as "the Balthazar fic," and it's something I've fiddled with on and off for ages now. I'm not sure it's even a project I intend for other people to see, but it is one that I'd like to complete one day, whatever completing winds up meaning to me. Just for my own peace of mind. It's what you'd expect- long fic that more or less follows game events and defines the personal canon there. I guess it isn't very interesting to talk about from that perspective, haha. Makes it sound like a reference document! And maybe it is. But it's precious to me despite that, and I'm the audience it's for.

At any rate, it's the story of how the sorcerer Balthazar Lucienne, disgraced ex-socialite and directionless grifter, successfully trips his way from a hastily stolen identity into a royal title through a combination of charm, luck, standing at the very back of fights, and a lot of lying. It's also a painfully long slowburn Tristian romance that is mostly divorced from the canon romance thanks to being in large part plotted before I knew anything about that. In other part, it is thanks to the fact that Balthazar is a CE bastard who starts out despising Tristian and who is not exactly Tristian's favorite person either. So y'know. Takes some time.

At any rate, it's a fun challenge (though a headache of a challenge) to try to filter things through the POV of Balthazar, who is absolutely not the kind od person who is meant to be the hero (or protagonist) of anything. He's non-confrontational and weak, he's constantly lying or speaking in half-truths and insinuations, and there's a huge gap between how he presents himself to the world (charming, sweet, what you expect from an angel on earth) and the absolutely miserable cynicism that characterizes him on the inside. His view of the world (especially early on) is so fucking relentlessly negative- he views others with contempt and despises practically every situation he finds himself in. And I think that's what makes him fun- he's a usurper in someone else's story, a two bit villain who's making a play for the leading role that even he isn't sure he can follow through on.

There's not a lot interesting to say about plot, I guess, since it is still Kingmaker one way or another. But shifting things away from the kinds of straightforward heroic battles that are the main fare of a CRPG and trying to imagine what things look like with a bit more guile at the center (from diplomatic guile to "how can I make other people fight this fight for me") definitely gives it a distinct feeling to me, haha. I'd try to share an excerpt but um. Last Friday my laptop died its final death, so I guess we'll never know if I could overcome the anxiety to do that!

If you ever see me claiming I'm about to do NaNo in any form chances are I'm back to working on some part of this.