the life of me, and meme (gakked from everyone)

[bedlamsbard]

...picked up my cap, gown, and tassel today. Oh my God, I'm graduating in less than a week.
...still thinking thinky thoughts about Narnia; picked up the BBC editions of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and The Silver Chair from the library, but Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader are out. I own the entire series in paperback, and I have the new The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, as well as the soundtracks from both movies and the music inspired by. I do want to see Prince Caspian again, because I'm curious if I'm making this up out of nowhere, or if it's actually supported in the source material. (It's a theory on Peter, the Pevensies and Co., and Aslan. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.)
...graduating in a week! Did I mention that?

Also:

Ask me a question about one of my stories. It can be absolutely anything in ANY fic and I will tell you the honest-to-God answer. Don’t hold back. Ask about posted fic, WIPs, series, or things I've only briefly mentioned, and I will do my best to answer. All my fic is under the fanfic tag.

Comments

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

GOOD RIDDANCE TO HIGH SCHOOL.

I need to go search for your real-life address so I can send you a suitable card for the occasion. :D

Someone on youtube has all of the BBC narnia movies... here we go. (http://www.youtube.com/user/HeathenMaiden) : )

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I cannot figure out whether I'm happy or sad to see it go! Alas!

*clings* God bless the internet's dubious legality.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I suppose on some level I missed high school, but then, after I left public school, things got so much better that there actually was stuff to miss. ;) On the other hand: GOOD RIDDANCE.

Isn't it awesome? :D I have all of them on DVD, but not with me up here (for some reason -- possibly the internet.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm totally ready for it to be summer, but on the other hand - leaving home.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

See, that was one of the best parts to college for me. LEAVING HOME. But your mileage may vary, of course. You'll be okay. Colleges are usually pretty good about keeping freshmen from getting homesick. Or offering activities that'll help. A++ for Mandatory Fun.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

On one hand, I really want to getawaygetawaygetaway! But on the other hand, well...yes.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

It'll be good. And you can come back during breaks and summer and all that.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Although not for Thanksgiving, since airfare is SO EXPENSIVE.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

What's Tulane's going rate for staying in the dorms after they close? Here it's about $25 a night, I think.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

...I have no idea.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Better than trying to travel, at least. I think the first time I went home from college -- at UMF -- I went via the amtrak from portland, which wasn't so bad. $42 roundtrip. Disadvantage to school far away -- airfare. :P

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Especially with airfare the way it is now, which is to say, very expensive and very inconvenient. (No roundtrips between Seattle and New Orleans, either.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Hurrah rising oil prices.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Ha, it would also be helpful if airlines would stop charging for stuff they're now charging for, like checking bags.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Presumably, it's part of a cycle to help them net profits, after airline travel dropped after 9/11 and then oil prices have been steadily rising ... you have to pay employees to load your planes, fly your planes, maintain your planes, staff your planes, the costs of building an airplane is passed on to the airlines, whose costs of running the airline are high, so that gets passed on to the consumer, and seriously, fuck it, can we just go back to train travel? (Trains for regional travel -- through various corridors and between certain major urban areas, like Seattle and Portland or Boston and NYC, probably would be a viable solution, save the air travel for serious distance.)

Screw this whole "travel cross-country 50,000 feet in the air in a tin can" shit. (I do not like flying. Not phobic, but do not like.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Taking trains is so much longer, though. (The last time I was on a train was...must have been the bullet train in Japan four or five years ago. I've been on trains in Europe, too, but not in America; they're not as common here. Oh, wait, I did take a train from Seattle to Vancouver B.C. once, a while ago.)

I've been flying since I was less than a year old, so I'm used to it, but still...man, I could have just gone to Central and lived at home, you know?

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

That is true; but regionally? It's probably not so bad. It's 4 hours, therabouts, from Boston to NY, and 8 from Boston to DC. The key would be -- as with any other transport adjustment -- adjusting the business lifestyle/culture to the differences in transit. But I'm a big fan of having really well-implemented transit systems in general. (public transit -- bus, eletric bus, heavy rail/subway, rail, light rail...)

I have flown probably fewer than 10 times in my whole life. Take-offs and landings make me nervous, although I usually sleep on most of the flight itself, and try to avoid thinking about the whole zomgfuckingtincan aspect. (I will not fly on puddlejumpers or commuter jets, hell no). If you had gone to central, I could have donated my efollett giftcard to the cause as well, since it works there. ;)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like the streetcars of New Orleans. *grin*

I've flown a lot. And I'm doing it again in a little more than a week, too. Argh, trans-Pacific flights = not fun.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I have my own streetcars right here in Boston. Light rail = streetcars, the green line is a surface and underground line. :) (anyway, Toronto's trolleys? Far, far sexier.)

Trans-pacific? Oh, argh.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

But the New Orleans streetcars are so awesome because they're all old-fashioned and stuff!

Yeah, we're flying to Japan. *face*

(Oh my God, I am trying to write the Narnia meta I was fretting about and it's not working because now I'm trying to go off the books. Oh my God, I am so confused.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Ours are old-fashioned if you classify that as some of them as being from before I was born. ;) Anyway, we also have the Mattapan High Speed Line (http://www.weeklydig.com/files/images/FT_TrainsLG.jpg), an extension of the red line that uses old PCC streetcars.

We have the oldest subway in North America. Can we have a transit cookie?

Holy moly. D: I think I would need to be drugged.

(I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet ... I haven't read the book in ages, either, but as I recall the BBC version is pretty faithful to the book, if streamlined. No Bulgy Bears, for example.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

The streetcars in New Orleans were founded a year after Tulane was. (Also, there is not currently a streetcar named Desire, but the Desire Streetcar used to run on Desire Street, and there is a movement to get it reinstated. There is, however, a streetcar named Saint Charles.)

(Prince Caspian is...well. I love it, but here's the thing: it's not faithful to the book, except in the ways it is. I think it's better than the book, but the fact is that things in the movie and things in the book conflict and the movie makes more sense. Oh my God, it violates a law of physics.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that the cars tend to survive better in a place where the temp seems to be relatively stable (vs. New England, where there's a huge difference between summer and winter temps). On the other hand, saltwater/saltwind. *gnaw*. They definitely look well-maintained, but how good is the system?

Also, wait, Tulane can't have been founded in 1922, which is when the streetcar system appears to have been established firmly as a system?

We used to have more in the way of trolleys, but many of the lines were replaced with trackless trolleys -- electric buses that run on overhead wires, and are almost unique in the US.

(I need to read this book again and contemplate. I did like the BBC version, I thought it did make sense, although again -- streamlined so a bit confusing in pieces.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Er, I'll let you know when I'm actually living in New Orleans?

Oh, hey! We have those in Seattle.

(Rereading the books, I am struck with how much I do not like Aslan. Here we go again, Bedlam off on one of her crazy rampages that make no sense whatsoever. The last time I did this it was me going, "But Transformers would be so much better without the actual transformers!")

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Hah. :) I'm just used to Boston and used to its craziness. I'm supposed to be visiting NYC in late June, and I have this sense that zomg, the MTA in Manhattan really is as fundamentally straightforward as it looks. (can't speak for the other boroughs. presume insanity increases as urban planning decreases.)

Aren't they nifty? Ours are weird because they had to be designed with a passenger exit on both sides of the bus, because of how they travel in the tunnels under Harvard station. A few of the buses stop so that if people got off on the right side, they'd basically run into a wall. One of the lines takes people on through the rear left passenger door, and then you pay as you leave.

(Aslan is a bit of a dick, but that's Aslan for you -- he is a deity allegory, and deities can be dickish. *snerk* But then what would it be? Humans running around in a panic? I mean, okay, granted, I get incredibly frustrated with people I know when they totally ignore the fact that the human aspect of a film/book/movie BLOWS CHUNKS in favor of "But it's a good movie 'cause the EFFECTS ARE SIIIIICK.")

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

The Seattle ones run on the street, like regular busses but with the wire on top.

(Apparently my meta has turned into Aslan conspiracy theory. *head to side* Well, it sort of makes sense. If you're me. Oh my God, I am going to get flamed for this meta. Well, that would make the assumption that people read my journal, so maybe not.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

So do ours; but the terminus/start of a couple of the lines is at Harvard Station, and trying to stop buses on the street in Harvard Square is ... um, gently speaking a pain.

(Nothing wrong with an Aslan conspiracy theory. Maybe Aslan is the daydream of a traumatized child in the middle of a war?)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

(My Aslan conspiracy is that Aslan never wanted the Pevensies to rule; they were supposed to come and go and...something, and then they ended up ruling and...I think it boils down to "Aslan hates Peter." Because I am that shallow.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Not like any other sons of adam and daughters of eve were gonna show up ...

I feel like part of the reason why he (Lewis or Aslan) got children to rule -- or at least to fulfill the prophecy -- was because children were going to be the only ones who were malleable enough to have faith in what was not possible.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, but now, see there are actually several prophecies, and this is actually book canon, and the one about the four children on the thrones at Cair Paravel never mentions Aslan.

Then why send them back to England? Why not let them live and reign and have children? Instead, the Pevensies wander back into the wardrobe into England, and Narnia falls into chaos for a millennium, at which point Caspian shows up -- but. But. The horn that Caspian blows summons the Pevensies and not Aslan, and the horn wasn't given to Susan by Aslan, but by Father Christmas. They weren't meant to come back at all, but once they were, Aslan had to make the best of it. And by doing that, he had to get rid of Peter, because Peter was the one who was least mallable.

Okay, I've been reading HP conspiracy theories, it's only right that there should be some Narnia ones too.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Like I said: haven't read books in ages, am made of fail that way. (like, last time I read them I was probably 12 or 13. My memory ain't that good.)

They did live and reign; but who else could they have had children with? Each other? My impression was they grew up, they grew into adults in Narnia the first time, but they had to go back. (This would be Lewis, I think, with a corollary to bringing back the word of God/Aslan, and taking your faith with you to survive the real world). Father Christmas could be, arguably, a servant of Aslan. Aslan, if he's a god/christ figure, really isn't supposed to intervene. So it would summon someone that a) the blower has faith in (wow that sounds bad) and b) is a servant of Aslan.

I would say Susan was the least malleable, though, from what I remember. She was always the one Lucy was saying, "don't act like such a grownup".

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I have them next to me, and I've been skimming while writing up my conspiracy meta.

The lands in the world of Narnia (not the country) that have men in them include Calormene, Archenland, Telmar, Terebinthia, and the Lone Islands. We know that Susan was courted by a Calormene in The Horse and His Boy, and that all four Pevensies visited and made alliances with other heads of state in the world.

But the horn is only blown twice in the entire series: once to summon Peter when Susan is being attacked by the wolf in LWW, and in Prince Caspian, where it summons all four Pevensies.

I think Susan is a feint. Not that she isn't the least attached to Narnia, but I think Peter, High King over all Kings of Narnia from first to last, is the most attached to Narnia. And that is what makes him so very dangerous, because his first duty is to Narnia -- not Aslan. And Aslan can't stand that.

(Seriously, conspiracy theories.)