*squints*

[bedlamsbard]

The story I am writing is not the story I meant to write. I am distracted from the glory of the flowering of Narnia by Peter and Edmund bickering with each other. I mean, amusing as this is

("I only blame you every other time Narnia wakes me up in the middle of the night screaming that you’ve fallen down a well.”

“I have never – oh, that does not count.”

“It was a hole in the ground with water at the bottom, and you were down it. Narnia thought you were dying.”

“It was not a well, I was not dying, Narnia knows when I’m dying, unlike some people here who I won’t name –”

“Oh, I beg to differ, Narnia cannot tell when you’re actually dying and when you’re just being attacked by giant poisonous spiders. I know. She wakes me up for both instances.”)

not really the tone I want for the story. (I put the following exchange up because I'm pretty sure it's getting cut.) Beautiful doomed glory of the Golden Age here, not Peter and Edmund bitching about who's been licking the poison darts. (And whoever gets that fic/fandom reference gets a puppy. Or, you know, fic. I don't think it's that obscure, but what do I know?)

On the other hand, I now know that once, Edmund accidentally got thrown back in time to Narnia during the White Witch's reign, in the depth of the Long Winter. Not a fun trip.

Comments

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing the above as literally, Narnia, as in, the world, not the people, and it's ... unnerving.

Trees knocking at the window. Aslan in the brain.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it is. My Narnia is sentient, and has a, ah, spiritual presence, so to speak. In Peter's head, mostly.

(Look, I said I wasn't writing AUs in this fandom, not crack.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Oooh, see, yes, this makes sense. I mean.

It's Narnia. Of course it talks to its rulers. :)

(this sort of makes more sense than "Narnia" as in "panicky citizens" coming to yell at Edmund that OH HAI LITTLE TIMMY YOUR BROTHER IS DOWN A WELL.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

She talks to her rulers, and by "talk", we mean, "gives Peter a headache."

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Since we're in a fandom with SpyTrees, I don't think Narnia talking to her rulers really qualifies as "crack" per se.

She would, too. Probably like God in Dogma accidentally making heads explode.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

:snerk: sounds like what I imagine it's like for actual psychic characters wandering around historical places : 'If Shakespeare would bloody well stop going on about last night;s football, and Mary Queen of Scots would stop whining about how she has the worst luck with men OMG, we would all get along JUST FINE and my migraleve prescription would be so much less.'

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

THERE IS NO CRACK IN GENRE FICTION!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Do NOT tempt me into writing genderswitch, because...uh, well, I won't do it, but I will taunt you with it. In comments. Little snippets of Petra (Peta? Petronella? Peri? Female versions of "Peter" are kind of not what I'm going for here) throwing Caspian up against walls, and...actually, that just ends in sex, and then I lose my train of thought.

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Genderswitch is not crack! It's the breaking of-indeed, *defiance of*-stereotypical gender roles. Just because we get to enjoy a little domme action with our political defiance is no reason for you to not let Caspian get his ass thrown against walls like he deserves...he's been a bad, bad princeling, he has. *helpfully removes another few feet of track*

I can find redeeming qualities in anything, because there is no crack in genre fiction! *flourishes*

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

...tell me you haven't set foot in Stargate atlantis. You don't know crack until you've been in that fandom.

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

I've toddled along the edges, exploring. My first thought was "Where's all the tentacle porn? What the hell is the use of all this advanced alien technology if there's no tentacle porn?!" *grins*


But then I *have* been accused of being batshit.*eyes ineptshieldmaid*


I still maintain that there is NO crack in genre fiction-only reasonable explorations of alternate uses of things and thorough research of tropes that touch us all on a basic, human level. That is the ONLY reason I instigated that discussion of what Narnians would realistically use for medievalesque lube. *coughs*

Jump on the bandwagon, maybe we can convice bedlam to write us some if she thinks the crack ain't really crack. *clings to the hope*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, SGA. And the sad thing is, in that fandom the crack has stopped being crack. They're like, "Rentboy AU? Sure! Ass-duckling? Sure! Unicorns? Sure! Penguins? Been there, done that, but hey, once more with feeling!"

And I'm nnot even kidding. (I love SGA, by the way.)

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Awww, c'mon-Narnia can flower in humorous, brother-bickering glory, can't she?

Well, at least Edmund gets a look at the White Witch's magical ice dildo that you totally KNOW she has...and might use on him.

*pokes you, laughing at your trauma some more*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, considering that this Peter is the calmest, sanest Peter Caspian's ever seen...at least until Peter breaks a man's neck with his bare hands and retrieves his axes from two separate skulls while Lucy beats another man around the head with a crossbow.

*weakly* I was thinking more along the lines of Edmund sneaking around frozen Narnia while the Secret Police chase him.

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

AFTER Jadis uses the magical ice dildo on him! He escapes, they chase him 'round frozen Narnia...it totally works. *nods*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I just realized that EDMUND is the reason the prophecy about the four thrones comes into play! Because Cair Paravel has been around for a few years, at least, by this point, but no one's managed to get inside the walls, not even the birds or the mice or whatnot. And he accidentally lets slip stories about the Golden Age -- well, it's not the Golden Age then, it's not even the Great Summer yet, it's still the Flowering of Narnia (I, um, like coming up with names?) -- and they sort of...spready. And become legends. And the White Witch is a little annoyed, and captures him, and he barely escapes getting turned into stone.

But there is no magical ice dildo. *firm*

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Well, *that* is no fun! How come *Caspian* gets to time travel and he and Peter get laid, but *Edmund* doesn't? (Ok, granted he wouldn't *want* to in this way, but still. *grins*)

Do NOT even mention Tumnus, ok? I DO have *some* limits.


Ohhhh...!...is Bacchus awake? How the heck long is Edmund going to be stuck there, anyhow?

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

small question : how old is Peter at this point? Are we talking early 20s? late teens like he is in PC?

How will Caspian cope with Susan looking him up and down and going 'pretty, but not actually of any diplomatic/negotiation value, remind me wy I'll be interested in you beyond a bedtoy?' :muses: Also, do we know what the Telmarine attitude to boy-loving is? And how gobsmacked Caspian is because the legends of the High King and the King of Summer do not mention that he had a thing for handsome sailor men and other such competent soldier-types. (ie, not Caspian since he's a twit who can't fight)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Peter's probably about twenty-five, maybe a little younger. About ten years into his reign; I estimate him at fifteen-sixteen in LWW. On Caspian's end of things, it's two years after PC; he's about the same age as Peter here.

Caspian's still going "OHMYGOD GOLDEN AGE NARNIA WHAT I HAVE IS A RIPOFF." *grin*

[swift-tales.livejournal.com]

But Edmund and Peter bitching at each other, really fun. The kind of fun that makes me read dialogue over and over again because it's so good.

The Narnia being alive thing, really perks my interest. It would be kind of cool if she could talk to her rulers, it wouild also explain how she chooses her own rulers. Like, how Caspian was chosen even though he wasn't a Narnian? I think that if Narnia was alive, she'd probably have way more power then Aslan, especially if she choose who ruled and not Aslan. It would explain the Pevensies, wouldn't it?
If Aslan didn't want the Pevensies in Narnia to begin with, like you say in your conspiracy theory, then the only way they would have gotten there was if Narnia herself brought them there. That would also add a whole other dimension to the whole 'Aslan said Peter and Susan couldn't come back', he'd be taking credit for power that's totally not his.

Edmund travels in time? Now that one's interesting, how far back are we talking here? Like, at the beginning of the Witches's reign when people are still fighting? Or later on when everyone's practically given up and they're living on profecies about a Lion who won't show his face and four humans who will arrive from only Aslan knows where?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it has to make sense in context! But if it doesn't go in the draft, I promise I'll post it up here.

Narnia -- doesn't exactly choose her leaders. She's sentient, to an extent -- she's not human in any sense of the word, and she definitely doesn't think like a human -- but her kings are bound to her by blood and magic. (Of the Pevensies, Peter was the only one bound such, and there are some other circumstances surrounding that, but because he's the High King, he's basically got the strongest bond with Narnia of any king in Narnian history.)

We're talking near the beginning, maybe a decade or two in at the very least -- the farthest in will be the very depth of winter, in the middle of the Long Winter. But I think he's going to be the one who starts the prophecy of the four thrones at Cair Paravel, which is, at this point, shiny and new and very, very mysterious.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Have you read The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy? There are aspects of that story that remind me a lot of what you're doing here.

(Uh, I ask because there are parallel themes and it seems like something you'd be interested in, not an attempt at screaming "OMG pleez dun steel!")

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

No, I've never heard of it.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

It was one of Patricia McKillip's earlier works, and her big breakthrough. There are a number of small countries, and each ruler has an empathic connection with the land. When one of them dies, the successor, the "Land-Heir", knows he or she is the new ruler because the connection suddenly switches over.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

As Wikipedia puts it (no spoilers, I think):

In the trilogy, land law resides with the land ruler of each of the kingdoms within the realm. Land rulers are aware of all of the entities within their kingdom. They can sense, it seems, each creature, each plant, each rock. The High One, in McKillip's creation, seems to have the same relationship with the entire realm. When the land law passes on, the land heir suddenly becomes aware of everything in his or her kingdom, or in the entire realm.