I want to thank everyone who has donated this year and particularly this month. Every donation is deeply appreciated and helps out. Thank you.
Shut Up!
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[Narnia Content Note: Racism, Violence, Forced Marriage, Misogyny]
Narnia Recap: Shasta spent a night among the tombs and now we get to see what Aravis has been doing with herself.
Obligatory note about racism, intent, and Lewis is here.
The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 7: Aravis in Tashbaan
Hey-o, everyone! I have been simultaneously looking forward to this chapter (because Aravis! and Lasaraleen!) while also dreading it. Because, and I want to make this very clear, I have white privilege--as do a lot of our readers, I think. So I want to move forward carefully here and it might be a good time for everyone to think about re-visiting the Obligatory Note about racism linked above. Right, let's jump in.
WHAT HAD REALLY HAPPENED WAS THIS. When Aravis saw Shasta hurried away by the Narnians and found herself alone with two horses who (very wisely) wouldn’t say a word, she never lost her head even for a moment. She grabbed Bree’s halter and stood still, holding both the horses; and though her heart was beating as hard as a hammer, she did nothing to show it. As soon as the Narnian lords had passed she tried to move on again.
Okay, that's a fairly practical solution. It doesn't really address all the points that have already been brought up about how the horses shouldn't be nearly so easy to disguise as all this, but we have two horses and a girl and they're doing their best here.
But before she could take a step, another crier (“Bother all these people,” thought Aravis) was heard shouting out, “Way, way, way! Way for the Tarkheena Lasaraleen!” and immediately, following the crier, came four armed slaves and then four bearers carrying a litter which was all a-flutter with silken curtains and all a-jingle with silver bells and which scented the whole street with perfumes and flowers. After the litter, female slaves in beautiful clothes, and then a few grooms, runners, pages, and the like. And now Aravis made her first mistake.
I... I'm all about weird coincidences in novels, but we may have crossed a line at this point. Not only did Shasta end up in the right city on the right day at the right moment in the exact right spot to be mistaken for his long-lost twin brother, but now directly behind the Narnians is one of the few people Aravis knows well enough to be able to spot her out of a crowd. I would have put Lasaraleen a few more feet down the road and a paragraph or two later, but what do I know about dramatic pacing.
Shut Up!
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Today I learned that The Toast is closing. I completely respect, understand, and honor their decision while also grieving deeply for a truly great feminist humor site. I know a lot of the readers here also read there, and there was tremendous overlap in interests between our sites. This is a space for folks to grieve if they need and want.
I have a lot of feelings about this, not least coupled with the guilt I feel about my own slower posting schedule. I actually am here--I read all the comments! and love them!--but I'm acutely aware that my "output" has drastically dropped. This is not due to burnout so much as lack of time in the day--I'm writing a lot, but it's "book" writing and therefore not blog-posts. Balancing the two has been very difficult for me; the mental "switching" between the two forms of writing is hard.
I've thought about posting fic on the site just to have content, but the few times I've posted fic I don't think it caught a lot of interest--the overlap between people looking to read nice shiny fic vs. people looking for bookish deconstruction may not actually be 1:1. Possibly I need to just practice switching until I'm better at it and go from there, I don't know. I will try, at any rate.
Anyway. This is a notice to let people know that I'm still here. *hugs* to everyone who wants them.
Shut Up!
