oh my god, I WOULD NOT

Clearly there are not gossip mags in Narnia, especially not during the Golden Age. I mean, it's hard to have paparazzi, when you're so technologically advanced a snapshot is, like, a sketch. "It's Queen Susan! Hold still! I have to copy down every detail of her dress so I can report in on What Narnia Wears." Or, alternately: "It's the High King! He's collapsed! Is that blood? Where's his sword! Nobody move him while I paint a quick picture that will make the front cover of Narnia Us Weekly."

This is brought to you by the current fic in progress, "These Last Golden Days of Summer," where the narrator is an OC and has a little sister that's, like, in lust with Edmund and wants all of Lucy's dresses and has a huge girlcrush on Susan and wouldn't dream of crushing on Peter because he's, you know, the High King. It would be like crushing on Aslan.

Also, I forgot how much fun it is to have a new fandom. Everything is fresh and shiny and full of squee! And there is meta, and fic, and plot bunnies, and people that like you -- I'm serious, ducks, it's been a while. ( For the past eight months my fandom has been my original novel, and yeah, that's great: )

And then Narnia came out. And -- I'd been so excited about it -- "Screw graduation!" I kept telling people. "I'm so excited for Prince Caspian!" -- but I didn't see it for a week. And then I saw it. And I was so excited, because I wanted to write and meta and squee and it was so different from Spaceforce! And I'd forgotten, really, what it's like to be in fandom, because for the past eight months -- for most of my fandom career, actually -- I've been a lurker, and a reader, and occasionally a writer. But I was so happy. And I forgot how wonderful feedback is, because you really do forget, when you're writing original fiction -- and I didn't even get feedback on my novel from the panel I presented to. (Except the vice principal, who apparently now thinks I am, like, next to God. "I can't believe I went through four years without knowing you!" he kept saying. "Sorry, I graduated, I guess you could have failed me.") I forgot how fantastic it is for people to be excited about the same things I'm excited about, and want to exchange intelligent discourse with me, and who don't think I'm over thinking, or that I'm too dark, or wonder why I care.

And I keep thinking -- "Thank you, thank the Gods, thank Walden Media and C.S. Lewis," -- but especially, thank you, for helping me remember why I got into this in the first place, for helping get me out of my own head. I'm reading. Fiction. And I'm writing fic, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with spaceships or the military or special forces, and I can be silly and talk about Narnian celebrity blogs if I want, or about my Aslan conspiracy theories, or why Peter is the High King and Caspian is just screwed, so screwed, and -- thank you so much, because I think I was on the edge of cracking. I was so tired, and now there's light, and I'm refreshed and happy and new again.