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Lhanae had mentioned this in her review and post, so I thought I'd post a few more thoughts about this about men, women, and information in the story
( Men, women, sex and power )
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So, Chapter 14 is up with the loathesome and naked Tarkheena Lasaraleen. Loads of plot, world building, and cross over to the real world, including:
( Here, there, everywhere )
( Here, there, everywhere )
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Really, I'm done with Chapter 15 of TQSiT, and just trying to finish 14 and having a very difficult time of it in the general, I sux mode, why am I doing this again?
So, in the meantime, I give you a new book about the real Mary Anning
( Women of British Archaeology and the Men Who Hindered Them )
So, in the meantime, I give you a new book about the real Mary Anning
( Women of British Archaeology and the Men Who Hindered Them )
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Despite hacking illness and holidays, I managed the first chapter of the next mini story arc, Keep Your Friends Close (chapter 13) and Your Enemies Closer (Chapter 14) to follow. The story begins its wind up after that.
Once again in the category of, I couldn't possibly make this stuff up, the episode involving the stolen pamphlet, its frantic copying, and return with no one being the wiser is taken straight from The Irregulars, sans Gryphon.
Once again in the category of, I couldn't possibly make this stuff up, the episode involving the stolen pamphlet, its frantic copying, and return with no one being the wiser is taken straight from The Irregulars, sans Gryphon.
( From The Irregulars, but without a Gryphon )
It's funny, when I first started mapping this out, I knew I would need a way to record and copy documents, Narnia-style. That problem was solved with the dual action now part of the story. You may also notice that I've stopped signaling the switch between Tashbaan and Washington. I figure the reader is able to slide back and forth as well as Peter is at this point.
So, I hope you'll read and review.
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So, not only have I surpassed Part 1 in Words, Words, Words (ahem, right), TQSiT is approaching 200. To repeat, AACK! Which give how WEIRD this stuff is, says something not easy to interpret about both reader and writer.
( Musings on part 3, Asim, Lucy, Peter, Richard (remember him) and still more writing )( Read more... )
( Musings on part 3, Asim, Lucy, Peter, Richard (remember him) and still more writing )( Read more... )
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So, in my defense for how TQSiT is already and will be considerably longer than Part 1:
At a mere (for me) 5,900 words there is still a lot going on, and as I reflected on this first foray into Lucy's point of view, I realized that in writing Lucy, she most fully integrates Narnia and Spare Oom. The story looks back and around to the other characters floating around this vision, including Sir Leszi (referred to earlier in TQSiT and The Palace Guard), Mr. Hoberry (TSG Part 1, By Royal Decree, and TPG), Rats and Crows (BRD, TPG, and my short, Black As Rat and Crow), Jalur, Briony, and others.
And, why yes, I am hinting at some one else waiting especially for Lucy in Aslan's Country. That too is referenced in previous stories. Twice.
As stated, Lucy has the shortest journey in this particular vision. Further, back in Chapter 2, when we learned that Edmund had heard his Narnia friends, companions, and others from behind the Wall at World's End, readers asked me, well, what about Lucy? Did she sense them too? To which I decided, yes, she did, but that for her, it was not as tumultuous an experience because Lucy lives, very much like Asim, with a foot in both worlds and so Aslan and the dead are always with her.
I wish I could say that back in April when I wrote Edmund in Chapter 3 of BRD saluting his Rats and Crows with the 2 fingered salute to his brow, or when Min23 asked me about how and why Jalur was sworn to Edmund's Order of the Stone Table, that I knew that Peter and Lucy, in the Order of the Lion, would return a salute of fist over heart. Nope. It is appalling how much of this I make as I go along. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, OK?
As for Lucy's future, I think that's shaping up. As I said in Chapter 1 of TQSiT, "Unleashing the indomitable Queen Lucy the Valiant upon an unsuspecting England was a fearsome, wondrous thing to consider."
So, that's my first attempt at the point of view of the Valiant Queen, wherein I learned that it is much easier to have other people say a character is insightful and have that insightful character say amazingly perceptive things when that character is not the point of view character.
- I don't really get to Not Tashbaan until Chapter 4
- And 2 chapters so far are even more superfluous than the rest of it, meaning the Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Brown Not A Chapter and now, Chapter 12, Heart and Mind, subtitled, What Lucy Thinks About All Of This
At a mere (for me) 5,900 words there is still a lot going on, and as I reflected on this first foray into Lucy's point of view, I realized that in writing Lucy, she most fully integrates Narnia and Spare Oom. The story looks back and around to the other characters floating around this vision, including Sir Leszi (referred to earlier in TQSiT and The Palace Guard), Mr. Hoberry (TSG Part 1, By Royal Decree, and TPG), Rats and Crows (BRD, TPG, and my short, Black As Rat and Crow), Jalur, Briony, and others.
And, why yes, I am hinting at some one else waiting especially for Lucy in Aslan's Country. That too is referenced in previous stories. Twice.
As stated, Lucy has the shortest journey in this particular vision. Further, back in Chapter 2, when we learned that Edmund had heard his Narnia friends, companions, and others from behind the Wall at World's End, readers asked me, well, what about Lucy? Did she sense them too? To which I decided, yes, she did, but that for her, it was not as tumultuous an experience because Lucy lives, very much like Asim, with a foot in both worlds and so Aslan and the dead are always with her.
I wish I could say that back in April when I wrote Edmund in Chapter 3 of BRD saluting his Rats and Crows with the 2 fingered salute to his brow, or when Min23 asked me about how and why Jalur was sworn to Edmund's Order of the Stone Table, that I knew that Peter and Lucy, in the Order of the Lion, would return a salute of fist over heart. Nope. It is appalling how much of this I make as I go along. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, OK?
As for Lucy's future, I think that's shaping up. As I said in Chapter 1 of TQSiT, "Unleashing the indomitable Queen Lucy the Valiant upon an unsuspecting England was a fearsome, wondrous thing to consider."
So, that's my first attempt at the point of view of the Valiant Queen, wherein I learned that it is much easier to have other people say a character is insightful and have that insightful character say amazingly perceptive things when that character is not the point of view character.
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Fashion in 1942! And I'll post chapters 9 and 10 as soon as ff.net gets its act together. I am very aggravated this morning.
Fabulous shoes and summer dresses from the 1942 Sears Catalog
The shoes!
The January 1942 McCall's
Susan's Little Black Dress
Evening gowns:
And... really, the British 1942 Vogue magazine. A woman wearing a rationed silk dress... with dinosaurs. It's Mary Anning Russell, except with dark hair, in a dress, and with a handbag
Correction -- those aren't dinosaurs. Those are large, prehistoric mammals. They are quadrupeds and that's definitely a mammalian head. I'd guess an indricothere or giant ground sloth. The smaller, four legged one may be an early equine. Errm... yeah
Fabulous shoes and summer dresses from the 1942 Sears Catalog
The shoes!
The January 1942 McCall's
Susan's Little Black Dress
Evening gowns:
And... really, the British 1942 Vogue magazine. A woman wearing a rationed silk dress... with dinosaurs. It's Mary Anning Russell, except with dark hair, in a dress, and with a handbag
Correction -- those aren't dinosaurs. Those are large, prehistoric mammals. They are quadrupeds and that's definitely a mammalian head. I'd guess an indricothere or giant ground sloth. The smaller, four legged one may be an early equine. Errm... yeah
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Now, amongst all of you, I suspect I am the only one old enough to have recalled the sly, campy show The Avengers with bowler-hat wearing John Steed and his co-hort Mrs. Emma Peel. I am not referring to the dreadful film, but to the TV series of the 1960s. It was part Mission Impossible, part Dr. Who, part X Files, part Man From Uncle, and it was lovely. None of this Tara King stuff. Mrs. Emma Peel, played by the incomparable Diana Rigg was beyond awesome. Smart, funny, sexy, deadly, with these amazing 1960s clothes and car and this whole "can do" bring it on boys sensibility. And it occurred to me as I was thinking about Mrs. Jane Ellis under the desk with Mr. Robert Brown that I have unconsciously been channeling Mrs. Emma Peel in the characterization of Susan in TQSiT. And with that as an inspiration...
So that you too might share in the glory of Emma Peel,
Here's the show's intro -- the Avengers In Color!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0YOlU3SMgs&feature=related
Peel the Reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKKeVtWDEPw
And I found this hilarious remix of Mrs. Peel meets The Kinks, right down to her catsuits, nifty convertible, champagne, and boots. It doesn't give her delightful snarky dialogue, but the look is there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve9N9oaXU18
There's oodles more, but I was so excited, I had to share. Emma Peel behind the couch doing goodness knows what with John Steed is just ever so much awesome.
So that you too might share in the glory of Emma Peel,
Here's the show's intro -- the Avengers In Color!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0YOlU3SMgs&feature=related
Peel the Reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKKeVtWDEPw
And I found this hilarious remix of Mrs. Peel meets The Kinks, right down to her catsuits, nifty convertible, champagne, and boots. It doesn't give her delightful snarky dialogue, but the look is there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve9N9oaXU18
There's oodles more, but I was so excited, I had to share. Emma Peel behind the couch doing goodness knows what with John Steed is just ever so much awesome.
As related in Chapter 7, The Queen Susan In Tashbaan, What's Cooking
If this picture appears in the section on preparation of game meat, this is how you know you've got the REAL Joy of Cooking , from page 468 of the 1962 edition (the cookbook itself goes back to at least a 1932 edition)
Gray squirrels are preferred, as the red are a bit scrawny and gamey.
This is the Cookbook I grew up with and when my mom's old copy finally fell apart, I got a new one as a Christmas gift, but insisted on the Old version, with, yes, the squirrel skinning included.
If this picture appears in the section on preparation of game meat, this is how you know you've got the REAL Joy of Cooking , from page 468 of the 1962 edition (the cookbook itself goes back to at least a 1932 edition)
Gray squirrels are preferred, as the red are a bit scrawny and gamey.
This is the Cookbook I grew up with and when my mom's old copy finally fell apart, I got a new one as a Christmas gift, but insisted on the Old version, with, yes, the squirrel skinning included.
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I wrote this out a few days ago as I was trying to decide whether to insert the conversation between Susan and Peridan in which he dances around the fact that the Shoemaker, a Faun, is probably homosexual.
So, I'm going there. Again. In Chapter 7 of TQSiT.
"Nothing deceives like a document." A quote from the spymaster, Intrepid himself, William Stephenson.
There is some of this that is just plain outrageous. All documented, all true, completely outrageous, even in these days of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
To the point of going there or not, I've really tried to make the cultures of Narnia different from 1942 England in order to provide the basis for the Pevensies being so comfortable with people and cultural practices that are different. I've written of this so many times but in this chapter and the next, it really matters, or maybe that having laid the groundwork, we can leap with them the next step.
Not only has the culture of Narnia made them tolerant, they have also witnessed first hand the intolerance of dissent and differentness in the Witch and Miraz. They have come in, twice, at the end of reigns of terror. Their people have been brutalized for over a thousand years. This HAS to make them more sensitive to evidence of hatred, doesn't it?
So now to underscore the point, I've gone after another sacred cow of Narnia fandom in homosexuality with Queen Susan's withering criticism of Peridan for being an idiot about it. It's not slash, it's not incest, it's not any practice at all, whether Pevensie or someone else. It just is. Susan's reaction is a "so what, and what's it to you?" It's about belief, being slow to judgment that belongs to Aslan alone, empathy, gentleness, and minding one's own business.
So, why do I insert yet more gratuituous sex into the stories? First, does it make sense in the story? In this milleu, the answer has to be yes, for lots of reasons. It can be part of the English boys' public school experience in one way or another (Lewis writes of it, in fact), it's part of the intelligence community of the time, it's part of the animal and plant kingdom, and it's in the lusty mythology of satyrs and fauns.
Second, it's there because I'm preaching. (Sometimes, yes, it's in there because it's fun and funny and gratuituous, or not always.) It's showing that the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual prejudices and injustice that blind other people, that encourage people to look the other way and just not see it, these prejudices do not blind the Pevensies. And that's important in this vision. In this vision, being Narnian and bearing the charge from Aslan, means you cannot look the other way or treat others with contempt and condemnation because they are different.
Anyway, I'll hit send.
So, I'm going there. Again. In Chapter 7 of TQSiT.
"Nothing deceives like a document." A quote from the spymaster, Intrepid himself, William Stephenson.
There is some of this that is just plain outrageous. All documented, all true, completely outrageous, even in these days of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
To the point of going there or not, I've really tried to make the cultures of Narnia different from 1942 England in order to provide the basis for the Pevensies being so comfortable with people and cultural practices that are different. I've written of this so many times but in this chapter and the next, it really matters, or maybe that having laid the groundwork, we can leap with them the next step.
Not only has the culture of Narnia made them tolerant, they have also witnessed first hand the intolerance of dissent and differentness in the Witch and Miraz. They have come in, twice, at the end of reigns of terror. Their people have been brutalized for over a thousand years. This HAS to make them more sensitive to evidence of hatred, doesn't it?
So now to underscore the point, I've gone after another sacred cow of Narnia fandom in homosexuality with Queen Susan's withering criticism of Peridan for being an idiot about it. It's not slash, it's not incest, it's not any practice at all, whether Pevensie or someone else. It just is. Susan's reaction is a "so what, and what's it to you?" It's about belief, being slow to judgment that belongs to Aslan alone, empathy, gentleness, and minding one's own business.
So, why do I insert yet more gratuituous sex into the stories? First, does it make sense in the story? In this milleu, the answer has to be yes, for lots of reasons. It can be part of the English boys' public school experience in one way or another (Lewis writes of it, in fact), it's part of the intelligence community of the time, it's part of the animal and plant kingdom, and it's in the lusty mythology of satyrs and fauns.
Second, it's there because I'm preaching. (Sometimes, yes, it's in there because it's fun and funny and gratuituous, or not always.) It's showing that the racial, religious, ethnic and sexual prejudices and injustice that blind other people, that encourage people to look the other way and just not see it, these prejudices do not blind the Pevensies. And that's important in this vision. In this vision, being Narnian and bearing the charge from Aslan, means you cannot look the other way or treat others with contempt and condemnation because they are different.
Anyway, I'll hit send.
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As the comments are indicating (and just going to show that I can never predict what will resonate with a reader), the Tarot Card readings with Agnes have been remarked upon as being a favorite part of this chapter.
The choice of cards was all the doing of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anastigmatfic . I told her what I wanted -- I need a card for a mentor, I need a card to describe Tebbitt as an intelligence operative, I need cards to show lovers but no love, I need cards for Peter, Edmund and Lucy, and she found them all. She was very impassioned on the subject of the Knight of Pentacles for Peter as portrayed in TSG Part 1, and when Agnes speaks, it is anastigmat's thoughts and analysis you read.
In answer to the question and assumption, I said that I was looking for a card for Asim, to represent for Susan, the guide to come, the Light on Dark Paths. She came up with the brilliant Chariot and Hierophant. The idea of a man of divinity who has harnessed both light and dark in the direction he wishes them to go was all hers.
For Lambert, I wrote out dialogue of the one who waits for Susan and again I received the lovely resting Knight of the Four of Swords and Temperance cards.
So, need to be sure that credit goes where credit is due!!
The choice of cards was all the doing of
anastigmatfic . I told her what I wanted -- I need a card for a mentor, I need a card to describe Tebbitt as an intelligence operative, I need cards to show lovers but no love, I need cards for Peter, Edmund and Lucy, and she found them all. She was very impassioned on the subject of the Knight of Pentacles for Peter as portrayed in TSG Part 1, and when Agnes speaks, it is anastigmat's thoughts and analysis you read.In answer to the question and assumption, I said that I was looking for a card for Asim, to represent for Susan, the guide to come, the Light on Dark Paths. She came up with the brilliant Chariot and Hierophant. The idea of a man of divinity who has harnessed both light and dark in the direction he wishes them to go was all hers.
For Lambert, I wrote out dialogue of the one who waits for Susan and again I received the lovely resting Knight of the Four of Swords and Temperance cards.
So, need to be sure that credit goes where credit is due!!
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Well, it's up, FINALLY!! Tools of the Trade, 9,700 words, and a full two months since the last update. Ugh. I promise I won't start anything new. Really. Well, except maybe this retelling of Horse and His Boy. and inserting the Trickster into the pantheon of Calormene gods.
So fun links
The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck from which Agnes reads
The Astrologer that British Intelligence really regretted hiring
A little bit about Saint Agnes, patron saint of young girls, virgins and rape victims
A little bit about the Trickster, Anansi, and Aunt Nancy
Insofar as De Wohl is concerned, this is an example of the sort of time compression that I use in the story. He was actually most active in the U.S. through December 1941. I'm bumping up their use of him about 6 months cause how can you possible leave out astrologers and Rat and Crow rumormongering in Narnia story? Right?
In fact, the beginning of this chapter harkens back to Chapter of TSG, Part 1, in which Ed and Su are starting to figure some of this out.
( Excerpt from Chapter 8, Lions' Business, Part 1 TSG )
I wish I could say that I knew I was going to do what I just did here when I wrote that way back 6 months ago or whever I posted it. Nope.
As for the lengthy note at the end, yes, I'd like to know what you think. These things are an uncomfortable part of US history; to paint it as normal or ignore it would seem dishonest. Yet, maybe fan fic shouldn't go there at all. My solution was to show things that today would be denounced as stereotypical, yet align them with the positive connotation of Narnia. I do not align Narnia with the frivolity and class-based Washington society in which Susan is also moving.
So, thoughts? Fire away!
So fun links
The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck from which Agnes reads
The Astrologer that British Intelligence really regretted hiring
A little bit about Saint Agnes, patron saint of young girls, virgins and rape victims
A little bit about the Trickster, Anansi, and Aunt Nancy
Insofar as De Wohl is concerned, this is an example of the sort of time compression that I use in the story. He was actually most active in the U.S. through December 1941. I'm bumping up their use of him about 6 months cause how can you possible leave out astrologers and Rat and Crow rumormongering in Narnia story? Right?
In fact, the beginning of this chapter harkens back to Chapter of TSG, Part 1, in which Ed and Su are starting to figure some of this out.
( Excerpt from Chapter 8, Lions' Business, Part 1 TSG )
I wish I could say that I knew I was going to do what I just did here when I wrote that way back 6 months ago or whever I posted it. Nope.
As for the lengthy note at the end, yes, I'd like to know what you think. These things are an uncomfortable part of US history; to paint it as normal or ignore it would seem dishonest. Yet, maybe fan fic shouldn't go there at all. My solution was to show things that today would be denounced as stereotypical, yet align them with the positive connotation of Narnia. I do not align Narnia with the frivolity and class-based Washington society in which Susan is also moving.
So, thoughts? Fire away!
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Mental note -- I need to make it really clear in the next chapter that Peridan does not know how old Susan is. Guy knows, more or less, but he's made a point of forgetting. The Colonel knows. Susan has made a point of presenting herself as much older than she is. This was set up (OMG, back in Chapter 5 of Part 1), and I've slid it in a couple more times since.
Susan is at this point passing herself off as 19 and 20 and married besides and she did so from the moment she landed in America. I've tried to build that up, but I'll come back to it.. "Mrs. Caspian" by the way is not secretly pining for King Caspian X. Susan is channeling my off handed humor and gently poking at fandom convention and expectation.
Susan is at this point passing herself off as 19 and 20 and married besides and she did so from the moment she landed in America. I've tried to build that up, but I'll come back to it.. "Mrs. Caspian" by the way is not secretly pining for King Caspian X. Susan is channeling my off handed humor and gently poking at fandom convention and expectation.
People and Places Key for The Queen Susan In Tashbaan
The Narnians, The Calormenes, The Enemy, Places
The Calormenes
Tarkaan Ahshota
Owner/manager of The Daily news crier service with Tarkheena Lasaraleen. Virulently anti-Tisroc, anti-Galma, anti-Narnia – isolationists
Ahshota is based upon Randolph Hearst and Frank C. Waldrop (editor, Washington Times-Herald) known for anti-British baiting, virulently “America First” policies and profound mistrust of British imperialism.
Tarkheena Lasaraleen
Owner/manager of The Daily news crier service with Tarkaan Ahshota. Virulently anti-Tisroc, anti-Galma, anti-Narnia – isolationists
Tarkheena Lasaraleen is modeled on Eleanor (Cissie) Patterson, an editor/hostess who was also Waldrop’s boss and owned the Washington Times-Herald, and mother in law of Drew Pearson. Also modeled on Evalyn Walsh McLean, a Washington hostess who wore the Hope Diamond.
Tarkaan Anradin
Editor and owner of The Tattler – based on “muckracker” Drew Pearson, writer of the Merry Go Round gossip column
Tarkaan Kidrash
Owner of The Trumpter, pro Narnia, pro-Tisroc, pro Grand Vizier.
Based upon Texas King Maker and newspaper man Charles Marsh, as well as Walter Lippman and other internationalist journalists in favor of Roosevelt and the British.
Tisroc/President Roosevelt
Tisroc’s First Wife/First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Grand Vizier/Vice President Wallace
Tisroc’s War Council
Military Affairs Committee, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress
Tisroc’s Inner Circle
Susan’s designation for anyone else important and in power, including officials in the Cabinet of President Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress
Tarkheena Masikah
An amalgam, but specifically Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce (R-CT).
( The Enemy )
Places
Narnia/Cair Paravel
England/London
Archenland
Susan uses Archenland losely to refer both to the place to which Sallowpad reports (the British Security Coordination Headquarters are in New York City) and Canada, from where William Stephenson and many members of the BSC staff are from
Lone Islands
North Africa
Northen Marshes, north of the River Shribble
Europe generally, France specifically
Terebinthia
Susan’s collective designation for countries under British colonial rule and/or occupation by Japan, including India and Hong Kong
Galma
Russia
( About Dieppe and why I used it )
Dieppe, fan fic, and where we go from here
( When worlds collide, fan fic and real life )
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