Fandom: The Chronicles Of NarniaCharacter/theme: Susan Pevensie After The Last BattleSong: Keep Us Connected

Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia Character/theme: Susan Pevensie after The Last Battle Song: ‘Keep Us Connected’ by Celia Rose Gooding

I've included some thoughts and a general plot summary below the cut...

I was absolutely devastated when I first learned of Susan losing her whole family to a train crash in The Last Battle. And that Peter, Edmund and Lucy were still so young at the time. That was far too tragic an ending for all of them and I don’t think I’ll ever be over it :(

Right from the very first moment that I heard this song in the musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it immediately made me think of Susan in this stage of her life and I knew I had to make a video with it. Then I proceeded to take a whole year to actually finish it lol

The general story here is that Susan initially has a tough time dealing with the loss of her family. Over time, this eventually turns to acceptance and with it, she also finds her way back to her memories of Narnia and all that she shared there with her family. She goes on to live a long fulfilling life and when she eventually dies, she is reunited with her family in Aslan’s Country. So, the beach scene at the end of the video is meant to be representative of that reunion in Aslan’s Country :)

Additional footage used from: - The Little Mermaid (2018) - The Last Birthday (2017) - Smallville S03E12 - Hereafter

Check out this gorgeous Caspeter fanart that I commissioned the amazingly talented @wannastayugly (aka theviscountjask on Twitter) to create for me.

It is based on one of my favorite scenes that I wrote in my fanfic 'Our Hands Are Tied' (specifically chapter 11) and I just LOVE how this turned out. 🥰

Fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia Category: Gen Characters: Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Song: ‘Goodbye’ by Ramsey

I got the idea in my head a couple of weeks ago to make a manip of Caspian and Peter kissing. I'd still like to try making something that is definitively set in the Narnia universe someday but for now, I give you Caspian and Peter kissing in an 1890's AU :)

Here is a little edit/manip I created of Caspian helping Peter with his armour prior to the duel :)

This is inspired by my one-shot 'Before You Go' and the equivalent scene in my longer fic 'Our Hands Are Tied' :D

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 :)