Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

Thank you to all who sent birthday wishes. That was very nice. It was a really putrid day, as my birthdays so often are. I mean, starting the day with a fraud alert on your credit card, so very much not fun. Happy Birthday to you from Chase Account Holder Card Services. Fortunately, I had already ordered my peanut butter pretzels and coffee from Amazon so those deliveries were uninterrupted. The weekend improved as it went on, most especially beacause of the Narnia Fic Exchange and Madness reveals. The Main Collection is here (25 stories of awesome) and the Madness Collection is here.

I got 4 madness stories. WHAT??? Also, I wrote one, plus 2 stories for the main exchange and received an amazing gift. So...

What I received
I received a wonderful Temeraire/Narnia cross by the superlative wingedflight21 An Unusual Dragon Situation Returning to Cambridge after a voyage across the Eastern Sea leads Eustace to realize that he is not the same boy who fell through the painting. He has grown in unexpected ways. It's wonderful. I'd spotted the fact that there was a Temeraire cross in the collection and was hoping it was for me and it WAS. As always, Winged's Eustace voice is pitch perfect.

Madness was an embarrassment of riches. edenfalling wrote A boat, beneath a sunny sky, a glorious slice of Aravis and Lasaraleen having a small adventure and brilliant bit of characterization
edenfalling ALSO wrote a wonderful and insightful Polly and Digory story, about the war to come in response to the prompt by several people, How the Skeleton Aches

The wonderful adaese wrote the wry and poignant
A correspondence between Bibi Tarkheena, wife to Kidrash Tarkaan, lord of Calavar Province, and her aunt Latana, High Priestess of Zardeena, being a selection from the Calavar archives, presented here for the edification and instruction of young ladies.
Which explains the whole of Aravis' situation from the point of view of the not-so-evil stepmother.

And I received The Little Sea by Transposable-Element which is a wonderful bit of Calormen pantheon and worldbuilding.

Thanks so much to the generous people who wrote these wonderful, wonderful works! GO! Read and Review!

I had huge problems writing, at first.  I've been incredibly busy with work writing and I've felt that Narnia, its fandom fen, and I are in the middle of an especially messy and painful divorce.  I've really wanted to just chuck it all and go to ground so it was really, really hard to write, at first.  Eventually, I forced myself, word by word and finally came out with three stories.


And what I wrote

I did two stories for the main exchange, one of which was blindingly obvious and one of which was definitely not.
My assignment:
That we may hear the whispers of the gods, for bedlamsbard  (a very intimidating person to write for, let me tell you!)  Anyone who has read some of my musings on the Calormene Trickster god would have recognized this story.  It was a real mess in early drafts and was truly saved by freudiancascade.  Aravis isn't an  easy character for me for some reason.  I really enjoyed Lasaraleen and Hwin in this story.  I'd also wanted to do a much bigger story, hinted at here, of Cor's abduction (again) and Aravis riding off to rescue him.  Also hinted at, but not something I could develop, is that Aravis and Cor have issues, both individually and as a couple, and that Cor's time as slave definitely left its mark.  Freudiancascade asked me during one round of review if I really intended to imply that Cor and Aravis were probably queer -- and I said yep, that was intentional.  I really wanted to play with gender issues and how complicated that was by their personal histories and Archenland politics, but I just couldn't pull it off without it coming out incredibly sexist, so I tossed a lot of that.  The abduction was simply too big a story for the NFE -- this already clocked in at 10K, so I stripped out a lot and tried to focus in on Aravis becoming comfortable in her own skin.  I ended up blundering into sexy times even in one draft.  Egads. 

The second story, a pinch hit, surely a surprise, As Waves Make Towards The Pebbl'd Shore for our NFE  mod and all around only good things should happen to her ever, snacky .  Peter/Caspian is one of Snacky's OTP's and she deserved a story written just for her for all her amazing work as mod and everything else.  So I wrote Peter/Caspian slash!   

A comment or two asked what was going on with the buzzing in Susan's purse.  That, as it turns out, is explained in my madnness story, Susan and Peggy Go Shooting (Again)which is a continuation of my Avengers MCU cross from the NFE  2 years ago.  I'm not sure if this is quite what the lovely aurilly had in mind but I had a lot of fun with it, particularly writing Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, and Col. Chester Phillips. 

That's all! 

Thanks so much!  I’ve been doing the NFE since 2010 and have never been disappointed.  Despite the character-centric match up, the fact is, I’m pretty agnostic as to characters for the NFE. Whatever we've been matched on, don't worry because I like just about anything and what I don't like has to do with tone and characterization, not particular characters.   From my previous prompts, you can glean the following:

What I love:

• UST; witty banter and snark; Politics, finance or military strategy; World War 2; Worldbuilding; Gap-filling; Culture clash (within Narnia or Narnia vs. Spare Oom); healthy, normal, romantic relationship between consenting adults (canon pairing or OC); someone being extraordinarily clever and getting out of a jam; any Narnian (Pevensie or otherwise) observed from a third person point of view.
• A happy ending, delightful characterization, and to laugh at least once
• Pagan and/or mythological influences;
• Adults and old souls in young bodies;
• A Narnia with creaky wheels, the faint smell of manure, grass stains, open windows, and lots of animal hair that everyone is too polite to comment upon
• I prefer humor over angst and sex over violence.
• Cross-overs!  With Bujold universe, either Chalion or Vorkosigan; I’ve also developed an unhealthy focus on Peter and Eowyn, Lucy and Aragorn, and Susan and Eomer.  I’m more agnostic about Edmund and Faramir.  Anyone and dragons.  Lucy as a Time Lord; Susan with Sarah Jane Smith or Peggy Carter.  Marvel Universe is great, too.  Edmund slumming with Barton and Natasha; Peter as a Howling Commando.  Warehouse 13 or Harry Potter.  Polly, Digory, and classic ACD Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. 
•  AU and canon divergence is great too.  A Golden Age > 15 years, so, therefore I'd love an AU look with adult Pevensies, OC consorts, and the next gen.
• Similarly, I’d love a Spare Oom AU with a happily ever after and no train crash
• I did request Lucy or Aravis centric stories but if that doesn't interest you, I love any fem-centric work.  I love Hwin, Mrs. Beaver, Polly, Jill, and Susan as well.  I like the guys, too, particularly Peter, Edmund, Digory and Eustace.  I'm more interested in periods other than the Telmarine era onward and really I'd be very happy if you just ignore TLB completely.

 What I definitely don't want in my fic: it's a short list but pretty strongly held:  explicit m/m (everything else is OK); excessive angst, gore or violence; any dub-con whatsoever (Rilian & Lady of the Green Kirtle (OK); Susan written as "Fallen Away From Narnia because of Lipstick and Nylons"; Lucy sidelined or being protected by her overbearing big brothers and worry-wart sister

 

Nominations have begun for the 2014 Narnia Fic Exchange!  This year it's on AO3 and not double-blinded, so you will know your recipient!!

Thanks so much to snacky  for running it again this year.  It's a great exchange and I encourage you all to check it out!  Nominate!  Sign up!  Read!  Review!  It's lots of fun and the quality of fic is amazingly high. 

If you need an AO3 account, ask around.  I probably have some invite codes and others do too.