"Were Not Needed Here Anymore But More Than Anything, I Wish I Had More Time With You, Caspian."

"We’re not needed here anymore but more than anything, I wish I had more time with you, Caspian."

How this scene really should have gone, followed by a kiss of course! :)

I LOVE that you discovered that moment because of my video :D  And that you probably weren’t the only one.  

There’s a cool feature in YouTube’s creator studio that graphs the number of views for every second of a video’s runtime so, if there’s a moment that gets replayed multiple times, then that generates a spike in views for that moment.

While the spike is less obvious now, there was actually a time when there was quite a big spike of views for that scene in my video. So people must have replayed it a lot to see if it was actually Caspian's arm or something :D

Not enough people are talking about this Caspeter scene so I’m just going to fix that right now…

When I realised this brief two second moment is actually Caspian’s arm around Peter, helping him to stand… well it just made me very happy, okay :’)

Why could you not give us a better shot of this scene Andrew Adamson??

This is immediately followed by Caspian giving Peter a friendly bolstering pat on the back but, in my my mind, this scene ends differently. Instead, Caspian’s arm lingers around Peter for a moment once he’s standing, wanting to make the most of this brief moment of closeness before the duel resumes.

Me: my writing sucks and I don't know why I bother.

Also me: *wakes up at 5am the next day, suddenly consumed by an idea for latest fic. Proceed to write a page of said fic, losing a couple of hours of sleep in the process.*

It’s official. It’s now been one year since I rewatched the three Walden Media Narnia movies and sent myself on quite the fandom journey.

As someone who has been in and out of many fandoms over the years to varying degrees, this fandom in particular has become truly special to me and while I’m in a reflective mood, I thought I would post something in honour of my first year in this fandom.

I will probably take this down In future when I inevitably become self-conscious about how much I have shared about myself on the internet but, for now… behold my rambly post about my journey to discovering Narnia, my first year in the fandom and why Narnia is so important to me. And sorry in advance to anyone who actually decides to read this because it definitely became a bit long :)

I’m not sure when my Narnia journey started exactly but I remember reading The Horse and His Boy when I was quite young, long before 2005 when I saw the first movie. I simply picked up that book because it was about a horse and back then, I read everything about horses. :) I don’t remember whether I enjoyed it but I imagine I might have been a bit confused at times since I literally knew nothing about the world of Narnia at the time. I do still have that copy of The Horse and His Boy though.

Sometime after that, 2005 came around and I ended up seeing The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at the cinema with my sister. I absolutely LOVED it and quickly jumped into reading the original TLTWATW novel. I later saw Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as they each came out but I didn’t feel like they were as good as the first for different reasons (I thought PC was too much like TLTWATW in terms of the grand epic battle and TVOTDT was too different from the others with it being set on a ship the whole time). I had no idea about how closely PC and TVOTDT resembled the books they were based on because at that point, I had only read The Horse and His Boy and TLTWATW novels.

I had quite fond memories about the movie series as a whole though and had been wanting to rewatch for a while as I hadn't seen any of them since 2010 after TVOTDT came out. So, at the start of March 2023, I finally sat down to watch all three in the space of one weekend on Disney+.

The timing was important because this just happened to line up with the start of my gap-year (of sorts) from work. Both my husband and I had the great fortune of being able to take all of 2023 off work to focus on hobbies and just destress after our respective last few years. A mini trial retirement if you will. I had grand plans of catching up on various video editing projects through the year but after rewatching the Narnia movies, those plans quickly evaporated.

Not only do I love all three movies equally now (they are just so darn heartwarming), I felt super nostalgic while watching them and loved their messages of personal growth and learning to believe in one’s self (the latter of which, I still struggle with). I also found myself feeling so sad about the endings of Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader knowing the Pevensies would never return to Narnia (a feeling which will become significant later on in this post). Although, that sadness was nothing compared to the sadness I felt once I found out what happened to all the Pevensies (and Susan in particular) in The Last Battle. I was gutted when I found out about that, but I digress.

Anyway, I also found myself feeling super intrigued by the enemies-to-lovers potential for Caspian and Peter and after reading a few fanfics, I quickly became obsessed with Caspeter and the franchise as a whole. I promptly purchased all three movies on Blu-ray so I could try editing a video montage about Caspian and Peter and, as soon as the Blu-rays arrived, I watched all three movies again. Partly for ‘research’ for my video but mostly because I just wanted to live in that world again. I also managed to convince my husband to watch them with me and while he’s not nearly as big a fan as I am, I’m happy to say that at least some of my enthusiasm for the series has rubbed off on him over the last 12 months lol.

By the end of 2023, I had watched each of these movies no fewer than four times each and read all the novels too. While I currently consider the Walden Media movies to be my favourite adaption, I also really enjoyed watching the BBC TV show adaption which I found to be utterly charming. I’m also a fan of Doctor Who, including the classic serials of the 60’s through to the 80’s, so the episodic feel, style and lower budget of the BBC Narnia series just reminded me of the classic Doctor Who serials in all the best ways. I also adored the Focus on the Family radio plays and, while you might think I’d be happy to stop there with the various adaptions… nope, I have now lined up the old animated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie to watch this weekend and I also want to try and get my hands on the BBC’s Narnia audio plays too :)

Back to the Caspeter video montage I mentioned… well, one video was quickly followed by three more but upon finishing and uploading the fourth, a Caspeter reunion video edit, I secretly hoped it might inspire a fanfic writer to write something based on the video’s premise. It quickly became apparent however, that I already had the story in my head. I simply had to write it down.

Thus, my first Caspeter fanfic was born. This was the first time in 20 years that I tried writing fan fiction (although the first fic I wrote was for the Xena fandom which was a one-time thing for a school assignment so it’s barely worth counting). My first Caspeter one-shot was quickly followed by a second and that second one has since been expanded into a 62k word fic. Where that came from, I still have no idea. :) So, between the 6 videos and 3 fanfics (one of which is practically a novel), I think I can safely say I’ve never been more inspired by a fandom.

So, why do I love Narnia? I have been giving this some thought and, while this is not a definitive list, I think these are the main reasons why this series now means so much to me.

Well, to start, the Pevensie sibling I relate to the most is the movie version of Peter. I’m also the oldest sibling in my family and even though I try not to, I often take things personally when my opinions/suggestions are overruled, especially in a work setting. I really struggle not to become defensive in those situations and hate it when things in my life feel like they are outside of my control. But I’m also intensely loyal towards my family and friends and just want fairness and equality for everyone. Basically, I’m a delight. But only when you get to know me and I let my guard down around you :)

I love all the Pevensies though and I especially adore their sibling relationship. Though they may be dysfunctional at times and poke fun at each other, it’s clear they still care deeply for each other. Sadly, the differences in personality between my younger sister and I are too insurmountable at times and often gets in the way of us getting along.

The world of Narnia is absolutely fascinating. I’ve been obsessed with Greek Mythology for as long as I can remember thanks to growing up watching Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys on TV during the 90’s so I love that Narnia is filled with creatures from the ancient Greek myths. And who doesn’t want a talking horse as their best friend?!

As for Caspeter, I can’t help but see similarities in the personality dynamics between Caspian and Peter (well, my head canons of their relationship based on their personality traits in the movies) and my husband and I. My husband is definitely the calmer and more balanced one out of the two of us and while he doesn’t see it this way, I do think he has the patience of a saint for putting up with my emotional tendencies as well as my fandom obsessions (especially this fandom, given how much it has taken over my life lol).

And on a more general note, the stories of lovers being separated and either, finding each other again after a long period of time or being forever separated because of the cruelties of fate, have always resonated with me. So that, combined with my other love of stories featuring enemies-to-lovers relationships, I feel like the Caspeter pairing was made for me :)

I haven't mentioned religion so far, and that’s because I’m not religious, but I still very much appreciate the themes of belief/faith that run through the Narnia series as a whole. And while I don't personally believe in an afterlife, I've always loved the idea of there being a place after death where people can be reunited with their loved ones. Yeah, as you can probably tell from my writing, I fear being without my husband one day.

And lastly, the characters having to go back to their world and being unable to return to Narnia quickly became symbolic for the end of my year off (my personal version of Narnia) and the start of 2024 when I would have to go back to work. And that transition back to full-time work was about as difficult as I expected it to be, let me tell you.

It does feel like my obsession with Narnia came along at just the right time to take on real meaning in my life and I’d venture to say that Narnia/Caspeter has become one of my top five fandoms of all time. Because if I didn't watch those three movies when I did at the start of 2023, I wouldn't have had as much time to spend on making video montages and therefore probably wouldn't have gotten to the point of making that one particular video that inspired me to write fanfic for the first time. I certainly wouldn’t have had the time to focus on writing a fanfic that became as long as it did. And, I probably wouldn't have connected with the franchise so strongly either if I wasn’t experiencing my own personal version of Narnia in real life and if I didn’t have my husband in my life to help inspire my personal head canons of the Caspeter relationship.

So, now I'm back at work, what is next for me?

Well, I sadly won't have as much time to contribute to the fandom anymore and I highly doubt I’ll have the time or patience to write anything as long as ‘Our Hands Are Tied’ turned out to be, but you never know. Before a year ago, if anyone suggested I was about to write any fan fiction at all AND post it online for the first time, I would have thought they were crazy. So, anything is possible :)

That said, Narnia and Caspeter are still very much at the forefront of my mind despite now being back at work. I have two general Narnia videos (one about the Pevensies and one about Susan) that I started last year so I want to try and finish those soon. Plus, I have a few more Caspeter video ideas I’ve been thinking about maybe doing AND I have two new ideas for Caspeter fanfics that have popped into my brain over the last few weeks (one of which definitely warrants a longer word count if I write it). So, we shall see what comes of those :)

So yeah, happy one year Narnia anniversary to me! :) And stay tuned for what else might come out of my brain I guess :)

Happy Anniversary to 'Run To You'!

This video became 1 year old a few weeks ago (original post) and also just passed the milestone of 3 thousand views this week. So, because this one happens to be my favourite of all my Caspeter videos, I thought I’d celebrate by talking a little about it. Specifically, about why it’s my favourite and also do a little deep dive into the lyrics and how they’re represented in the video. 😃

So yeah, this one is my favourite of all my Caspeter videos because it’s a culmination of a series of events that started with me creating this video edit of an Aslan’s Country reunion for Caspian and Peter which then inspired me to venture into writing and posting fanfic for the first time (Live With Me Forever Now) in order to continue the story. Then there was a certain moment of that fic that I’d constantly be picturing in my mind whenever this song was playing (specifically the moment of them running towards each other when the ‘run to you’ lines of the song were playing) which then resulted in this video.

After my first attempt at writing a fanfic for a school assignment 20 years ago not going anywhere, I’d never in a million years expected to write another fanfic. OR that I would write as much as I have done for this fandom. So, the fact that this video in particular is a product of that writing journey, makes this one rather special to me because of it being a full circle moment. 😊

Also, I just adore this song for Caspian and Peter. This song had already made its way onto my regular Narnia playlist because of this lovely video about Lucy and Aslan. But as soon as I started associating the song with Caspian and Peter instead, it quickly started to feel like this song (and therefore the video) perfectly encapsulated the version of Peter and Caspian that live in my head and, at the same time as this video was coming together, it’s those headcanons that were forming the basis of my other fic, Our Hands Are Tied. 😊

So, in short, it seems most of my early Caspeter creations were interconnected and drawing inspiration from each other and I LOVE that!

Also, interesting fact… this is the only one of my Caspeter videos where I’ve tried to show both of their points of view. All my other Caspeter videos have stuck to one character’s point of view per video.

Now, let’s get into the lyrics 😊

‘I would run to you, If you want me to, Just give me some kind of reason’

Caspian POV: I love these opening lines! For me, they’re perfect for Caspian’s feelings about Peter. Caspian knows how he feels and wants to make the most of the time they have. Peter on the other hand is reluctant to proceed with a relationship because of his sense of duty. Towards Narnia and his family. Not to mention Peter KNOWS his time in Narnia is going to be limited. Just like it was the last time. So of course, he’s going to put up walls around his heart to protect himself. All Caspian can do is wait and hope that Peter will change his mind.

‘I'll take the pain, take it all away, Give it some kind of meaning’

Peter POV: And yet Peter has the biggest of hearts. He knows how much pain Caspian has suffered at the hands of his uncle so, despite him holding himself back when it comes to telling Caspian how he really feels, he’d still do anything to take Caspian’s pain away.

‘Let's let go, let it be the start, You know I'm feeling the same thing’

Caspian POV: Peter wears his emotions on his sleeves, particularly where Caspian is concerned, so of course Caspian knows how much Peter loves him. He sees it every time Peter looks at him. But Caspian is patient so he’ll wait as long as he has to for the moment when Peter does finally give in to what they’re both feeling. And that shot of them facing each other after the confrontation with Jadis feels like the best representation of this sentiment. How anyone can look at these two and not see the potential for this ship is beyond me.

‘Let's let go of our broken hearts’

Both POV: The ‘enemies’ phase will always be a defining part of their story. And during that fight outside of Aslan’s How, they both knew exactly the right buttons to push to get under each other’s skin. But they came through it stronger together then they were before and also grew to truly understand each other as a result. Before they could reach that understanding though, they each had to let go of the hurt they felt in that moment.

‘Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine, Just call my name on the edge of the night, And I'll run to you, I'll run to you’

Both POV: Of course I had to use the moment where Peter pulls Caspian out of the pit as well as the moment where Peter puts himself between Caspian and Jadis. 😊 Both are defining Caspeter moments. As for the moment when Peter hands Caspian the sword, though we don’t hear it, I like to imagine that Peter says Caspian’s name in order to invite him onto the duelling ground. And in it, Caspian will hear all the things Peter hasn’t been able to put into words. Also, I feel like essays could be written about the look on Peter’s face when Caspian first arrives at the duelling ground (and the way he walks forward a step but holds himself back at the last second) and the look on Caspian’s face when they’re facing down the Telmarine army from the top of Aslan’s How. They love each other sooo much. 🥰

‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, Gonna make my way to you, Anyway it's gonna take me, love’

Peter POV: Finally, the moment that Peter has feared right from the very first moment he realised his feelings for Caspian were real. He really doesn’t want to leave Caspian behind but he has no other choice. Despite how much he feels like he’s falling apart, it’s time for him to say goodbye so he takes that first step forward and hands over his sword.

‘I run to you, I run to you, Run, run’

Both POV: Yep, it’s this part of the song that kept making me picture all the moments where they run to each other, both in the movie and in my fic. So, if it wasn’t for this section resonating with me, this video would never have existed. And not only does it perfectly represent their need to be closer as soon as they are near one another but also the fact they’ll run into danger to save the other as well run into battle by each other’s side. They are each other’s ride-or-die.

‘Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine, Just call my name on the edge of the night, And I'll run to you, I'll run to you’

Both POV: This is, BY FAR, my favourite part of this video. The mid-duel scene including the shot of Caspian helping Peter to stand was made for this line of the song. If only we had a front facing shot of that moment! And then being able to combine the moment of Caspian using the horn with Peter’s return to Narnia for ‘call my name’… yep, I could not love this sequence more.

‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, I run to you’

Caspian POV: And then because of this video being inspired by the Aslan’s Country reunion video edit and the subsequent fic, I simply HAD to include that reunion sequence somewhere in this video. Putting it here specifically meant I got to mirror, ‘Even if it's gonna break me, love, Gonna make my way to you’ that represented Peter’s departure, by showing their reunion with this line. I LOVE mirroring things and highlighting parallels in my videos when I’m able to and I rather like how this turned out. 😁 And of course, it’s at this point in my fic that Caspian does in fact run to Peter. 🥰

Bonus:

‘Let's set fire to the lonely night, You're beautiful when you look at me, Let's give love another life’

Caspian POV: Though this line from the song wasn’t included in the video, I do rather love it as another line showing Caspian’s thoughts about Peter before they get together. He wants so badly to take a chance on what he’s feeling while Peter is still reluctant.

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So yeah... Happy 1 year anniversary to this video! 😃

At this stage, I don’t have any plans to do other video analysis posts like this for my other Narnia videos. Basically, I just wanted to give this one some attention because I love it so much 😁 But I may reconsider if there’s interest in me doing more? Let me know! I could potentially make a series out of it when I’ve got the time. 😊 Although first, I need to finish my latest Caspeter fanfic. 😉

Also, I’m open to questions about this video—or any of my others—if there are any (either here or via Ask/PM) so feel free to reach out!

Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia Pairing: Caspian/Peter Summary: When Peter is injured while on a scouting mission with Caspian, certain truths are revealed.

Just a quick one-shot that was inspired by the Prince Caspian video game :)