all my keysmash are belong to you

I've always wanted to do a fic commentary, and and sometimes you hear the silence speak is kind of perfect for it because the length and subject matter lets me talk about a lot of things e.g. stray plot bunnies, sekrit authorial confessions, a reinterpretation of the role of Judas, the names of winds and sandstorms, book recommendations, etc.

The fic is technically gen, but the commentary is kind of not. It's posted in two parts due to space constraints, because sometimes I just don't shut up.

( DVD commentary: 'and sometimes you hear the silence speak' 1/2 )
Part 2 of DVD commentary

Longest fic I have written ahoy! I have been writing this SINCE THE SUMMER, and it has been informed by a variety of things along the way, including but not limited to 1001 Arabian Nights, Philip Pullman, the big bang, the Eucharist, my sociology class, and my love-hate relationship with economics.

Thank you, Pen, for fielding the initial drabbles and doing thumbs-up. Thank you, Bedlam, for fielding the later drabbles and doing thumbs-up, and also for betareading.

HERE GOES. (Eeeeeee!)


and sometimes you hear the silence speak
Narnia. Edmund, Susan, Jadis. There are shades of Pevencest and Edmund/Jadis here and there, though it is 'technically gen'. PG13.
Edmund and Susan go to Calormen to collect magic. "We are doing this for Narnia, sister, and nothing else."
ETA: The DVD commentary for this fic is here. Some missing scenes are here.

( In the language of the desert tribes, the word for ‘magic’ is the same word for ‘wind’. )

It has been a sulky sort of evening, but when I put my iTunes on random, the first song it played was "Evacuating London" and I was like :-D. My computer totally did it on purpose to make me feel better, I know it.

I have been on an icon-collecting kick lately. I'm looking forward to the release of the Prince Caspian DVD mainly for all the iconpretty people will be making. Icons 2 and 6 from this post make me want to write fic. Y'know, 'cos with #6, Edmund falters or loses his metaphorical footing, and it's not that Lucy saves him, quite, 'cos Lucy knows when to let Edmund fight his own battles. And besides, Lucy has learned by now that you can't make people believe -- in god, in themselves, in love, whatever -- but she is There, and, as Johnny Maxwell, the titular character of the EXCELLENT TRILOGY YA'LL MUST READ, says, "You can get medals just for being there."

The fic for #2 is probably set in Italy, because there is actually a city in Italy called Narnia, and animus_wyrmis was like, "Do you think the Pevensies were ever like, 'Hey, our country and this place in Italy have the same name!'?" Susan would be like, "It's just a name, you know," and waxes boring about how it's actually called Narni now, and it hasn't been Narnia since the Roman empire. And I don't know if all the Pevensies go or just some. According to that fount of knowledge Wikipedia, Narni is "of strikingly medieval appearance, with stone buildings, and narrow cobblestone streets," which totally enables angsting about Narnia. Like, it has the largest Roman bridge ever built, but only half of the bridge is still standing. They stand on the edge of the broken bridge and look down at the water, and it's like that scene from PC. Insert here stuff about ruins and relics and the inexorable passage of time. The town is also home to Blessed Lucy of Narni, who died after 39 years of speaking to no one but her confessor. "That doesn't sound like Lucy at all," says Edmund, and Lucy laughs as she shoves him. So anyway, there is wine-drinking, frolicking on the hillsides, and Pevencest. Pastoral idyll and being in a place that time seems to have forgetten.


INTERNET, DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THIS IS THE ONLY DECENT JOHNNY MAXWELL FIC IN EXISTENCE.


Edit: More from Just William, from when William asks the sketchy man if he lost his ears in the war: "I bin in the wor orl right. Stroike me pink, I bin in the wor and that's the truth. But I didn't get 'em cut orf in the wor. Well, I'll stop kiddin' yer. I'll tell yer strite. I never 'ad none. Nar!"

What the shit is this? It's got something called The Royal Journals, which I'm having trouble not finding cute, but also King Peter's Inbox, which is... I don't even know. Pevensies&Co. write each other emails. I am not even going to capslock that. I will, however, capslock ARAVIS CHATBOT.

Maybe I'll just drabble-dump for a while, 'cos I've a number of them. And I did stay up all night last night comparing and contrasting anomie and alienation for ten pages (anomie/alienation theirloveissodisconnected) AND finishing my stats midterm. That means this afternoon I get to do whatever the hell I want.

So, this next one is from when Bedlam and I commentficced her (not-technically-)AU back and forth. It's a flashback to the Golden Age, so it works on its own. It does borrow her idea of Peter developing an immunity to Lucy's cordial.

Aqua Vitae
Narnia. Peter&Susan in the Golden Age, irritable and worried and faithful. PG.
( Aqua Vitae )

It's one thing to waste time doing something enjoyable and eventually realize you're fucked, but it's that much more frustrating when you're wasting time doing something distinctively UNenjoyable. Like being bewildered at your statistics homework and hoping that staring at it in horror will eventually make it comprehensible. So, ON TO MORE ENJOYABLE THINGS.

Seeing as I have no time to do a cumulative recs post, let's try one rec per post, chipping away at it and such. And All Our Yesterdays is Peter/Susan in England, trying to keep it together and falling apart, as a Peter/Susan in England is wont to do.

I am planning to do a couple of drabble-dumps at some point, but I think this one is long enough to merit its own post.

five times in england when it was difficult to let go
Narnia ficlet for lettersandliars, who knows who didn't start the fire. Pevensies post-LWW. Pevencest if you squint.

( and then they are gone )

I stopped doing anything productive as soon as I got back to the dorms for a late dinner. I should've been asleep a few hours ago and all caught up on Lost, but alas this is not so. TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.

Okay, drabbles! And then I sleep, I swear. All the titles are Sufjan Stevens song titles, because why not? Bed, you have seen these all before.

size too small
edmund, post-lww
( he himself has been the betrayer once )

all the trees of the field will clap their hands
susan, post-tlb
( the past is not preserved in dreams )

we won't need legs to stand
pevensies, knowing aslan by another name
( by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there )

I am in a hotel on Long Island and the hallway consistently smells of weed.

Narnia drabble dump! Actually, these are deleted scenes from previous fics. I have a Notepad file of deleted scenes to be used in future fics, but sometimes they just get dumped in a post such as this.


From to know these songs and to sing them (Peter/Susan, PG13). I didn't initially know how to end the fic, so I kept on drabbling, hoping to meander to some sort of conclusion. This is one of those drabbles.
( they talk about mundane things )


From remember me as a time of day (Anna Popplewell/Susan Pevensie, though this scene is Anna/Will. PG13). I needed to write one more scene in the 'real world' to bridge the Cair Paravel scenes. This was written, and eventually rejected maybe because it wasn't crack enough.
( war-making suits you )


From the root goes deep/on all that came before (Trumpkin, G). I'm rather fond of the Lucy and Trumpkin POVs here. I don't have a special affinity for Lucy and Trumpkin, so the writing's more straightforward and, I feel, tighter. I like the insight their POVs give. This was cut because it would just be unnecessarily belaboring Trumpkin's point, his point being that these Sons and Daughters are full of it up to the eyes.
( try to force the hand of the universe )