The AsCast Jar

For a podcast about Narnia fan fiction, we sure don’t write about writing too much! So here’s a little bit of what’s going on in my little head.

[Nightmare Spoilers Ahead!]

A long overnight bus ride from Chicago to Minneapolis gives a sleepless person a lot of time to think. That sleepless person being me, I was naturally thinking about fan fiction. And I have come to a decision.

You see, I have been in a stalemate with myself for the past couple of weeks, ever since I got my Big Awesome Idea about where to go with Nightmare. I have covered topics from adultery and child rape in HKDS to killing beloved canon characters in COTC. I covered abortion in His Fool. So I’m not afraid of most topics. But there were some parts of my characters that I wanted to bring out in Nightmare that I have been frankly scared of touching.

Why?

Because this is Narnia. We can joke about how hot Peter is and hook him up with dazzling women with lavender eyeballs, but some things are still untouchable because this is a very conservative fandom.

So my dilemma has been deciding whether I want to go there. Whether I am willing to alienate many of my readers. Because I am quite, quite sure that I will.

Outing major OCs as having same-sex attraction—and revealing a long-term relationship—will not make me many friends in the Narnia community. Ripping the Pevensies to shreds worse than I ever have will make people question my mental stability (which may be a good thing to do, but that’s another topic for another time! ). Having a character commit suicide won’t help either.

I can already see the condemning reviews in my head, saying that I have finally gone too far in my manipulation of Innocent Narnia.

But what I decided on the bus in my sleep-deprived state was that I don’t care. Of course, I do care what people think. But this is my story. This is where I was going from the beginning with The Secret Chronicles of Narnia, even if I didn’t know how I was going to get there. So I am going to do whatever the heck I want with my last Narnia fan fiction and take whatever criticism and infamy results.

Let drama beyond imagination ensue. Or end Su. Either works.

I have always said, “Go out with a bang!” That didn’t turn out so well when I said that about graduating from college (*ahem* pole-dancing in front of whole class after senior banquet *ahem*), but what have I got to lose in writing fan fiction?

Exactly!

Nothing.

To infinity infamy and beyond!

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