Ascast, Part The Second & My Reactions Therein
I wanted to do this for the first one, but.. I didn't, because I'm all scatterbrained. So I'm doing it for this one. Wheeee. And since you lot go on, expect this to be a rather lengthy set of reactions.



- I still can't keep y'all's voices straight. Terribly sorry. I have no idea who I'm replying to.

- High-five for Kate's grammar-love and simultaneous use of y'all and fixin'. We can do serious literary conversation Southern-style, yes we can.

- Hanky question: MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHERE WAS MISTER BEAVER HIDING IT?

- & re: Tumnus running: I doubt it. I mean - "some of the trees are on her side," right? He'd get found. Nobody saw him with Lucy, but he got found out anyway. It's a choice between an uncomfortable few days of running and hiding in deep winter (remember Fauns do like their comforts) or just waiting for the inevitable at home. Damn you all, I'm spawning a plot-bunny.

- Movie time with Jadis: I do not write crackfic, so I am not laughing at the ideas this gives me. I'm not, I'm not. (Although an "enemy beaver" is funny in a certain context.)

- Neil Gaiman's take on the wives of Adam - this is in one of the Sandman comics, I forget which TPB but it's the one with all the storytelling - is that Lilith wanted to be on top during sex & Adam would Not Be Having with that, and also that Lilith didn't see herself as subordinate to Adam. Then there was a second nameless wife who was immediately rejected by Adam since she was created from the inside out and he (Adam) was icked out at the sight of viscera. (So, uh, they were vegan in Eden?) Then, third, you got Eve. I can go rummage through my comics and find the story if you're curious. NOW THAT I'VE OFFENDED THE RELIGIOUS FOLK, ONWARD!

- Sewing machine is a notable anachronism, yes. Mrs. Beaver could be trading clothing and/or mending (this would explain her knitting too) for other things, on a barter system. It'd be hard to survive a hundred-year winter. Though -- trading to whom? One could assume that the Dwarves and other human-like folk (uh, marshwiggles?) can care for their own clothing. But maybe they don't want to? Pay no attention to the Beaver behind the curtain! Handwave, move on.

- I handwave art styles by saying art nouveau is just the natural style for Dryads, who do all the woodwork; your Narnia may vary.

- Aslan has opposable thumbs, obvs. Same with the Beavers. (DEWCLAWS. Ha.)

- Good lord, yes, Professor Kirke's house was not the one-way express line from England to Narnia. He had tour groups of very boring historically-inclined grownups who knew better than to shut themselves in wardrobes.

- I have actually had people say "Hi, my name is X, this is my life story." Quite interesting really. Though, I am a strange-magnet. I've had some very unusual day-jobs.

- Purple prose about physical descriptions: ladies, my weapons are your weapons. Just oil and clean them before you give them back. Machete, spear, shovel, about fifty small knives. Take your pick. (You do not need to oil the shovel; half its effectiveness is the Tetanus Upgrade. Took years to get the thing that rusty and splintery.)

- rthstewart does this Imperfect Love Interests thing to brilliant effect with the Princesses Dim and More Dim.

- Narnia probably was pretty pungent. Also re: an earlier comment: someone said that they think of Narnia as being roughly analogous to the Dark Ages. People back then bathed perhaps one time a year. A YEAR, PEOPLE. Romans, on the other hand, wash as often as people today. (rth, feel free to show my flimsy research up here if I'm wrong) Then again -- Narnians would probably go into anaphylactic shock at how perfumed and polluted our world is. It's all what you're used to.

- Tasty, what you're saying is that you Whedon your characters to death? "LOOK, PEOPLE, I CAN KILL MORE OF YOU, THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS." (Cast: "Gurk.")

- I'd be happy with not having to see fics wherein "The entire purpose of this is to have 'character whose actor I think is hot' finds their True Love, who is totally like the author except better." No. Bad. No cookie. I am a damaged refugee from the Potterverse, yes.

- The good LOTR girl-insert fic? What was that? I knew someone who wrote one and it did take about fifty frillion chapters. Wonder if it's the same one.

- Pen names. Mine, I am so sorry for, I don't know what I was thinking. An anastigmat is a sort of camera lens. I'm a photo nerd. I don't know if this is correct, but I pronounce it thus: Anna, like the name; stig, like the guy from Top Gear; mat, like what you wipe your feet on. Although I am thinking of telling everyone that it's really pronounced "Mangrove Throat Warbler."

- Homonyms etc: yes. This is something we should have down before we get out of elementary school. I realize it's not easy for everyone; I can't math worth a damn. But there are spellchecks and grammar checkers. They are not decorative.

- Grammar & punctuation & spelling rules are there to standardize the language and make it easier to understand. It's not a bunch of mean rules. It's so that we don't fall into Ye Olde Middle-English Trappe, Where each Worde is Spelled unto the Waye the Writerre Dessydes. See: Chaucer. See also: Anne Rice.

- HELLO, ELECKTRUM.

- (Note during all of this that E can silence EVERYONE with her wicked & brilliant ideas. I have never heard the Fearsome Foursome be so quiet so much. Cos she's that. damn. good.)

- I can vouch for the TSA thing. True story, E helped me fly the friendly skies. Via email. Yes, Ana, you can take X on the plane. No, Ana, you'll have to check Y. I got there and back without incident or anything being removed from my luggage and it's all due to her. Haven't met her though. Fortunately, my brother - who I was visiting - was accustomed to this business of me knowing people on the internet so I had no issue with popping her a "Hi, I landed, my stuff's all here" email. This was... early 2007, right after that business of No Liquids On Planes, when everyone was really confused about it. Helped me tremendously.

(My brother: "No problem with the new restrictions?"
Me: "Nah - I know someone in the TSA."
Brotherman: "You know someone on the internet who does EVERYTHING, don't you?"
Me: "Yep!")

- References coming from everywhere: YES, GRABBY HANDS. Best way to go. Grab from everywhere! Do not let yourself be limited in what inspires you.

- My preferred Beowulf is the Seamus Heaney translation. For what it's worth.

- With what I know of the subject, I concur re: Jadis & paedophilia.

- The Immortal Game is the one that I'm waiting eagerly for, by the way.

- DEPLORABLE WORD?? OH NO YOU DI'INT. YOU'D BETTER WRITE THAT ONE.

- The Lucy's Not Dead Yet Quest: hoshit, woman. I eagerly await.

- And now I know how people pronounce "Suspian." I didn't need to, but now I do!

- Who has the sniffles? Go get a tissue.

- "If you can't figure out who's talking within three seconds, I'm doing something wrong." WORD.

- Stage directions & "Whosit's point of view" - hate. Will stop reading.

- WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT NOISE AT 95:46 IT'S THE GHOST OF MARY SUE KILL IT WITH FIRE.

- "Chocolate gaze, yum!" [cackle]

- 102:00 - AWW I AM FEELING THE LOVE.

- And, yeah, guilty as charged re: goalies. We really have just sent emails full of photos back and forth.



- If liking that is wrong, I do not want to be right. Oh, and:



- I'll stop there. I COULD GO ON, YOU KNOW I COULD.

- Re: E infecting me and making me write the ideas frantically as soon as I had them: This is what I love about E - her brainspawn is contagious. I actually went through my email account & copy-pasted those into a big Document Of Ideas which all are going to get shuffled into BTB and whatever-else later on.

- You know, when I have a computer that DOESN'T OVERHEAT AT EVERYTHING. I need a word processor to write my words in. I can't compose a novel in Notepad.

- One thing I love about this is learning how people pronounce screen names. I always mentally pronounce Miniver as min-eye-ver, emphasis on the eye.

- BYE, ELECKTRUM!

- I pronounce them arch-in-land and cal-ore-men, too.

- Fauns, mythologically speaking, are total horndogs. (I just mistyped that as "horndongs," which also applies.) In my Narnia, Fauns can and do interbreed with Humans, as well as Dryads, Naiads, and pretty much anything they can sweet-talk into the bushes. I janked that from the Greeks, who invented Fauns and I reckon they're the experts on the subject. As for how everything fits, I don't know. I am sure there are fics out there that will explain this for you in detail, if you want them. I don't need the details. I wrote an Author's Novella on this subject, once. (On the reproduction of fauns, not their anatomy. Although I did have Faun!Sex in a fic once. Drugged Ritual Faun!Sex. Why yes, I am going to the special hell.)

- Y'all really do giggle like a slumber party.

So. There's what I think. Floor's open, y'all.