And more specifically, how on earth did The Stone Gryphon come about WHOA. LONG comment follows. In mid 2008, my kids weren't playing in Narnia and one of my Star Wars friends started writing fic in Narnia so I followed her links and recs. I had some issues with what I found. I found the Narnia fic was really down on Spare Oom, that the monarchs, and the Kings in particular, were really stupid about women, that the Queens were absent and marginalized, and the vision of Narnia very rigidly formal -- not how I had ever read the books. At the same time, we were landscaping and I learned about the sexual proclivities of holly bushes and reading Prince Caspian with the kids and it talked about the drunken hollies. WE then read Horse and his Boy and Aslan's statement about "I am a true Beast." I started thinking that not only did the hollies get drunk in PC, but if they were really hollies, they also probably were having sex during the Bacchanal. I was also really impressed by the Discovery Channel Boom De Yada commercial -- I love the whole world and thought, well, why don't the Pevensies like this world too? Are they really so depressed and angst-filled until they find Jesus in the Christian Bible and then die? I was also watching a lot of BBC TV and was very impressed with the multi-cultural vision and the American election occurred. I started thinking how nations change and rebuild, how cultural change occurs. We were also moving into the Darwin bicentennial in 2009 and seeing an anti-evolution bias in the Narnia fandom boards. And last, I started watching some old 1970s epics -- The Lion In Winter (and those visuals were very much like how I saw Narnia); Becket; and Lawrence of Arabia. All three star Peter O'Toole and he is cast opposite these men who seem such opposites in terms of looks and personality -- Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, Omar Sharif. Also, I spent a lot of time in some Narnia fan communities and was horrified by the degree of intolerance that I thought was very much in total contravention of the messages I had taken from the books.
So, after years away from fic writing, I couldn't shake the desire to do some fixing. I had the idea of a Golden Age story in which Dryad elders come to invite their young Kings and Queens to the Great Dryad Dance in the Spring -- the first true one that has occurred in 100 years. It slowly dawns on Peter and Susan that "dancing" is not what is contemplated since Trees are trees and so they pollinate and indiscriminately. Peter, being a teenage boy, is all about, Hell YEAH SEX, Sign ME UP. Once Peter gets over his initial enthusiasm, he and Susan have a serious discussion about just how different it is in Narnia and what should they do? Should they try to stop this immoral activity? Or, let it occur? And, it means a great deal to their subjects to have their Monarchs participation. So, Peter does go; and Susan on another night. (This was before I realized that people didn't write fun, consensual sex in Narnia and that I was a degenerate to suggest it).
What happened though is that the smutty romp turned to something more interesting to me, which ran smack into the intolerance rampant in the fandom. If your subjects really were Beasts and Trees, how would that change you and how you dealt with differentness? And how would those changes persist upon the return to a very monochromatic world on the brink of change so profound that in 60 years, America elects an African American as President and England celebrates a richly diverse palate in its media?
And that's where TSG came from. The economy downturned so I wasn't very busy at work and once I got over the, OMG, I'm writing fic AGAIN, I plowed in never thinking anyone would care.
Heh. Long, long answer, but lots that went into this.
no subject
WHOA. LONG comment follows. In mid 2008, my kids weren't playing in Narnia and one of my Star Wars friends started writing fic in Narnia so I followed her links and recs. I had some issues with what I found. I found the Narnia fic was really down on Spare Oom, that the monarchs, and the Kings in particular, were really stupid about women, that the Queens were absent and marginalized, and the vision of Narnia very rigidly formal -- not how I had ever read the books. At the same time, we were landscaping and I learned about the sexual proclivities of holly bushes and reading Prince Caspian with the kids and it talked about the drunken hollies. WE then read Horse and his Boy and Aslan's statement about "I am a true Beast." I started thinking that not only did the hollies get drunk in PC, but if they were really hollies, they also probably were having sex during the Bacchanal. I was also really impressed by the Discovery Channel Boom De Yada commercial -- I love the whole world and thought, well, why don't the Pevensies like this world too? Are they really so depressed and angst-filled until they find Jesus in the Christian Bible and then die? I was also watching a lot of BBC TV and was very impressed with the multi-cultural vision and the American election occurred. I started thinking how nations change and rebuild, how cultural change occurs. We were also moving into the Darwin bicentennial in 2009 and seeing an anti-evolution bias in the Narnia fandom boards. And last, I started watching some old 1970s epics -- The Lion In Winter (and those visuals were very much like how I saw Narnia); Becket; and Lawrence of Arabia. All three star Peter O'Toole and he is cast opposite these men who seem such opposites in terms of looks and personality -- Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, Omar Sharif. Also, I spent a lot of time in some Narnia fan communities and was horrified by the degree of intolerance that I thought was very much in total contravention of the messages I had taken from the books.
So, after years away from fic writing, I couldn't shake the desire to do some fixing. I had the idea of a Golden Age story in which Dryad elders come to invite their young Kings and Queens to the Great Dryad Dance in the Spring -- the first true one that has occurred in 100 years. It slowly dawns on Peter and Susan that "dancing" is not what is contemplated since Trees are trees and so they pollinate and indiscriminately. Peter, being a teenage boy, is all about, Hell YEAH SEX, Sign ME UP. Once Peter gets over his initial enthusiasm, he and Susan have a serious discussion about just how different it is in Narnia and what should they do? Should they try to stop this immoral activity? Or, let it occur? And, it means a great deal to their subjects to have their Monarchs participation. So, Peter does go; and Susan on another night. (This was before I realized that people didn't write fun, consensual sex in Narnia and that I was a degenerate to suggest it).
What happened though is that the smutty romp turned to something more interesting to me, which ran smack into the intolerance rampant in the fandom. If your subjects really were Beasts and Trees, how would that change you and how you dealt with differentness? And how would those changes persist upon the return to a very monochromatic world on the brink of change so profound that in 60 years, America elects an African American as President and England celebrates a richly diverse palate in its media?
And that's where TSG came from. The economy downturned so I wasn't very busy at work and once I got over the, OMG, I'm writing fic AGAIN, I plowed in never thinking anyone would care.
Heh. Long, long answer, but lots that went into this.