SPOILER ALERT! MEMORIES OF PARALLEL UNVIERSE DISCUSSION
I'm having problems with Memories, and this post is a full synopsis of what I've got in mind for the fic. So that means that I'm going to give away details of the plot and whatnot, so that qualifies as SPOILERS ya'll. But, as a story is more about how it is told than what it contains (in my opinion and experience that is), I'm comfortable discussing the details and getting some ideas and assisstance from ya'll. (God I love that contraction, such a nice, clear plural 'you', even if it is a Southern thing)
I also feel that upon reading the details, that even if that gives away the ending and some of the scenes, it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the story as a whole. But if it does for you, then feel free to turn back now. I'm posting one last SPOILER ALERT here, a nice big SPOILER SPACE as a last warning.
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Okay, so you're here, you want to know how things are going to go and where I'm having trouble? Well, thank you in advance! Any and all thoughts are welcome. Also, this is probably gonna be a little out of order as I'm typing it in the email as things ocure to me. I know, bad author for doin' it that way, but a little stream of conciousness never hurt anyone.
Okay, so to sum up what's already happened and to make a few things clearer:
1 - Caspian is in England, residing in a veterans hospital. It is also an asylum to a degree, but first and foremost it's a hospital containing veterans who're unable to care for themselves currently out in 'the real world' due to injuries, battle fatigue (Post Traumatic Stress), or having become fully unhinged.
2 - England is the Shadowlands
3 - Aslan sent Caspian after taking away his memories of Narnia (Old and New) from his waking mind, electroshock therapy does bring those memories to Caspian in the form of daydreams and dreams. He doesn't remember these things upon coming out of the memory though beyond a set of impressions that are supremely vague. As in when you wake up from a dream and you know you had a dream, and you remember that the sky was blue and that there were people in it - but nothing more.
4 - Susie Fisher is Susan Pevensie, she has taken her mother's maiden name. Susan comes from a nice middle class family, and at that point in time nice middle class girls moved from the workforce that they had participated in during the war years back into the social place that they were before: the sober and important job of being wives and mothers. So, Susan didn't want anyone to know she, a nice middle class girl, was working a real job. That was somewhat low class (as I understand it from my readings) at that point in time. But, Susan does need a job despite her inheratence from losing her family. So she works under the name Susie Fisher.
5 - Aslan provides for Caspian in the Shadowlands/ England to some degree. There is a stipend that shows up in his account, that at that time in post war England was well - not a staggering amount, but a damn good amount. Enough for some people to eye it greedily. I'll get to that in a bit. Things show up in the mail room regularly addressed to Caspian, but no information as to sender or the identity or anything like that. Aslan loves His Children, and He does bend the space/time rules for Caspian in this case, otherwise he'd be entirely defenseless. Basically Aslan is doing what He can to fascillatate Caspian's mission.
6 - Caspian's mission: Yes it's to bring Su back to New Narnia/Aslan' s Country, but how is he going to do that? Especially since he doesn't remember anything? Well he's there to inspire and instill belief in something larger in Susan. To help her live, to renew that spark of magic that so many of us lose as we get older or become cynical. Or in Susan's case, how she denied anything wonderful like Narnia, because she was in too much pain that she shut it all out and became someone 'horrid' as she said. Someone shallow and callous, and while true now she's trying to make amends it's for the reason of guilt. She feels guilt that her family probably thought she didn't love them. So she's trying to change back into herself, but she still doesn't believe . In herself, in others, let alone in Aslan.
Okay, now for where I am at currently, which is ahead of ya'll:
Caspian has come clean to a degree a couple times about his attraction to Susan. He thinks of her as "Susan" more often than not, not because he remembers who she is, he just thinks "it sounds right". They flirt off and on, which is what they've been doing from the get-go, but there's a much more serious undertone to it. But Caspian also feels tied to his past, and all those things he doesn't know, and to the woman Esther (his wife) whom he can't remember at all. In fact the name itself isn't even familiar, he just knows he said it, and that Susan tells him he said it. So he feels guilt over the budding feelings he's got, and Susan won't push him, she's trying to do what's right for him and herself. As she views Caspian as a man who is very devoted to his unknown past and is of a very fragile mental sate she fights with herself to not ever hurt him. Which is in this case to tempt him overmuch, nothing beyond flirting and friendlyness, even if she finds herself inexplicably attracted to him.
No Su doesn't realize who Caspian is, he just makes her feel when she'd been at a disconnect. She's just lost her family, and she's trying to find her way all on her own. Su thinks he looks familiar or more along the lines of her dream man, an idea that sat in the back of her mind that she thought she'd never find. And then there he is, but she doesn't remember him. She also doesn't believe in fate or anything, she thinks meeting someone who fit the description of her perfect prince is utter happenstance. So as drawn to him as she is, she is also wary of him, she doesn't want ot hurt him, and she doesn't want to be hurt. At this point in her life she's in a fragile state as well, and he seems strong, yet vulnerable, and very safe, so she knows that that's why she wants him, but at the same time she's aware he has some serious issues and that there's barriers. So she sits back and does her best to do nothing other than be there for him and help him heal. Even if that means she never gets him - a shadow of the Gentle Queen still exists.
The scene where I'm at has Ten and Susie out on the patio (yes I know there's a very limited venue of places where they interact, but that's mainly because Caspian's not comfy outside of the hospital yet, I'm working on that) and she steals his cigarette from him and takes a drag. Now up until that point, Caspian had only seen men smoke, and seeing a woman smoke - let alone a 'nice' one (as he thinks of her) do something like that weirds him out a little bit. Then there's a comment about how old he seems sometimes, that he looks young and is young (as far as they know) but at times it seems like he draws on quite a bit more experience. (He does, he still is many years old, actually centuries due to having lived for centuries in Aslan's Country, but he doesn't remember the experience actively, but latently. He's still the same person at core, and has the same mannerisms obviously otherwise he wouldn't be so painfully formal all the time while still coming off as fairly personable.)
Now where I want to go with it is to have Caspian ask Su what her story was in a bit more detail, while staying sensitive to her need for privacy.
Then after that I want to get them walking in the garden, and hes' tense but she winds up 'rewarding' him to some degree by dragging him off to the toolshed. Where they promptly start to freak it, but he comes accross her girdle (a very common at the time, and in some jobs required, undergarment) and he's all "WTF is this thing? This contraption keeps you from me! Grr!" and she's all "You really aren't from around here are you?" to which he responds to the effect of "I don't remember! Evil contraption begone! I must get laid now!"
....
....
Not so comical though. But definitely a touch of humour on their combined parts, because he's all "derr". As for other events in the story, I want the veterans hospital to be transitioning into an actual asylum run by the state, while still serving the veterans assosciation. And that the doctors can see how much moolah Caspian is getting in his accounts and the care that he gets - yet they also see that he has no actual family that they know of, so they see him as a great person to fleece as it were. They need to make ends meet, and at that time the UK ecconomy was still shit. Hell it didn't really recover until the late 50's, and even then it was still poo to a great degree. So yes, they think that if they can get a good enough excuse to make it so they can take full custody of Caspian (by like declairing him fully insane or in need of a lobotomy) so that they can get to his money. As he is now there's always the threat that he could leave, or that he could do something with his stipend.
Then at some point I want some 'friends' of Su's past as a bit of a party girl show up at the hospital, because they're visiting a relative who is a vet there. And one of the people, probably a man, is all "I say, Su? Susan Pevensie? How are you! And why are you working here of all places?" etc so that it makes her all uncomfortable, and Caspian all pissy as he's witnessing it. That'll be where he finds out the reason for her name change n'stuff.
Then I want a scene where we find out how Caspian will support himself once he's out of the hospital. He winds up, probably right around the same time as meeting some of Su's old aquaintences, in a fight. And in the fight he's basically doing martial arts, while the other fellow's trying to box. So one of the observers, one of Su's old aquantences, fancies himself a knowledgable sort and is all "So you know how to fight like the Chinese" or whatever, and Caspian's all "Uh, I guess so?" then there winds up being some form of debate about weapons and fighting styles, and someone gets involved who's from the BM (British Museum) or the Royal Armory (y'know the people who have all the cool stuff where they study those suits of armour etc and how they used to fight back in the day etc) and they start asking him questions. Well he can't answer the questions of where he learned how to do stuff, but he can answer all sorts on how to do those things.
But that's all so meandering, but the story is basically the process of Caspian maintaining his own belief in something he doesn't remember and learning to live life without the same massive responsibilities. And also the process of Su becoming not the Gentle Queen once more, not exactly, but becoming Susan again rather than the nasty slag at the end of The Last Battle. So that when they both die they can go to where they belong.
I also have this image of near the end, where Caspian is holding his child's hand as they go through the zoo and they pass a lion. And he pauses, and squats and points and whispers to the curly haird little girl that lions are magical and loving beings. He doesn't know why he says that exactly but his little girl giggles and says she knows, and he smiles and they continue on their way to meet Su who is with the stroller I suppose with yet another little baby in it, and she's sitting there reading some fanciful story to the toddler. And Caspian comments on the book, and Su says that having a little magic in the heart is a good thing and they kiss.
Later, at the very end, they're in Aslan's Country and Caspian is the one to die last (poor guy keeps outliving his wives) and he's all "Uh... oh shit... I've been married twice.. um.. oh craps..." and Su is there, and she asks him why he's freaked out, and he's all "Uh... what will Esther say?" and she tells him that Esther's gone, and points up to the sky and he remembers the last thing he saw before leaving Aslan's Country was a new brilliant star in the sky, and he realizes that Esther only stayed in Aslan's Country for him because he needed her. And cuz she loved him. But she's not human, and her love is a very different sort of thing, and she loved Caspian and her son Rilian as much as she possibly could, but the briefness of their existances - both in mortal flesh and as immortals in Aslan's Country - is still shorter than her infinate lifespan as a star. Complicated I know, but it let's Su stay with Cas in Aslan's Country w/o any rivalry. Then Aslan greets his children, and is all "I knew you'd do it Caspian" etc...
I also feel that upon reading the details, that even if that gives away the ending and some of the scenes, it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the story as a whole. But if it does for you, then feel free to turn back now. I'm posting one last SPOILER ALERT here, a nice big SPOILER SPACE as a last warning.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
Okay, so you're here, you want to know how things are going to go and where I'm having trouble? Well, thank you in advance! Any and all thoughts are welcome. Also, this is probably gonna be a little out of order as I'm typing it in the email as things ocure to me. I know, bad author for doin' it that way, but a little stream of conciousness never hurt anyone.
Okay, so to sum up what's already happened and to make a few things clearer:
1 - Caspian is in England, residing in a veterans hospital. It is also an asylum to a degree, but first and foremost it's a hospital containing veterans who're unable to care for themselves currently out in 'the real world' due to injuries, battle fatigue (Post Traumatic Stress), or having become fully unhinged.
2 - England is the Shadowlands
3 - Aslan sent Caspian after taking away his memories of Narnia (Old and New) from his waking mind, electroshock therapy does bring those memories to Caspian in the form of daydreams and dreams. He doesn't remember these things upon coming out of the memory though beyond a set of impressions that are supremely vague. As in when you wake up from a dream and you know you had a dream, and you remember that the sky was blue and that there were people in it - but nothing more.
4 - Susie Fisher is Susan Pevensie, she has taken her mother's maiden name. Susan comes from a nice middle class family, and at that point in time nice middle class girls moved from the workforce that they had participated in during the war years back into the social place that they were before: the sober and important job of being wives and mothers. So, Susan didn't want anyone to know she, a nice middle class girl, was working a real job. That was somewhat low class (as I understand it from my readings) at that point in time. But, Susan does need a job despite her inheratence from losing her family. So she works under the name Susie Fisher.
5 - Aslan provides for Caspian in the Shadowlands/ England to some degree. There is a stipend that shows up in his account, that at that time in post war England was well - not a staggering amount, but a damn good amount. Enough for some people to eye it greedily. I'll get to that in a bit. Things show up in the mail room regularly addressed to Caspian, but no information as to sender or the identity or anything like that. Aslan loves His Children, and He does bend the space/time rules for Caspian in this case, otherwise he'd be entirely defenseless. Basically Aslan is doing what He can to fascillatate Caspian's mission.
6 - Caspian's mission: Yes it's to bring Su back to New Narnia/Aslan' s Country, but how is he going to do that? Especially since he doesn't remember anything? Well he's there to inspire and instill belief in something larger in Susan. To help her live, to renew that spark of magic that so many of us lose as we get older or become cynical. Or in Susan's case, how she denied anything wonderful like Narnia, because she was in too much pain that she shut it all out and became someone 'horrid' as she said. Someone shallow and callous, and while true now she's trying to make amends it's for the reason of guilt. She feels guilt that her family probably thought she didn't love them. So she's trying to change back into herself, but she still doesn't believe . In herself, in others, let alone in Aslan.
Okay, now for where I am at currently, which is ahead of ya'll:
Caspian has come clean to a degree a couple times about his attraction to Susan. He thinks of her as "Susan" more often than not, not because he remembers who she is, he just thinks "it sounds right". They flirt off and on, which is what they've been doing from the get-go, but there's a much more serious undertone to it. But Caspian also feels tied to his past, and all those things he doesn't know, and to the woman Esther (his wife) whom he can't remember at all. In fact the name itself isn't even familiar, he just knows he said it, and that Susan tells him he said it. So he feels guilt over the budding feelings he's got, and Susan won't push him, she's trying to do what's right for him and herself. As she views Caspian as a man who is very devoted to his unknown past and is of a very fragile mental sate she fights with herself to not ever hurt him. Which is in this case to tempt him overmuch, nothing beyond flirting and friendlyness, even if she finds herself inexplicably attracted to him.
No Su doesn't realize who Caspian is, he just makes her feel when she'd been at a disconnect. She's just lost her family, and she's trying to find her way all on her own. Su thinks he looks familiar or more along the lines of her dream man, an idea that sat in the back of her mind that she thought she'd never find. And then there he is, but she doesn't remember him. She also doesn't believe in fate or anything, she thinks meeting someone who fit the description of her perfect prince is utter happenstance. So as drawn to him as she is, she is also wary of him, she doesn't want ot hurt him, and she doesn't want to be hurt. At this point in her life she's in a fragile state as well, and he seems strong, yet vulnerable, and very safe, so she knows that that's why she wants him, but at the same time she's aware he has some serious issues and that there's barriers. So she sits back and does her best to do nothing other than be there for him and help him heal. Even if that means she never gets him - a shadow of the Gentle Queen still exists.
The scene where I'm at has Ten and Susie out on the patio (yes I know there's a very limited venue of places where they interact, but that's mainly because Caspian's not comfy outside of the hospital yet, I'm working on that) and she steals his cigarette from him and takes a drag. Now up until that point, Caspian had only seen men smoke, and seeing a woman smoke - let alone a 'nice' one (as he thinks of her) do something like that weirds him out a little bit. Then there's a comment about how old he seems sometimes, that he looks young and is young (as far as they know) but at times it seems like he draws on quite a bit more experience. (He does, he still is many years old, actually centuries due to having lived for centuries in Aslan's Country, but he doesn't remember the experience actively, but latently. He's still the same person at core, and has the same mannerisms obviously otherwise he wouldn't be so painfully formal all the time while still coming off as fairly personable.)
Now where I want to go with it is to have Caspian ask Su what her story was in a bit more detail, while staying sensitive to her need for privacy.
Then after that I want to get them walking in the garden, and hes' tense but she winds up 'rewarding' him to some degree by dragging him off to the toolshed. Where they promptly start to freak it, but he comes accross her girdle (a very common at the time, and in some jobs required, undergarment) and he's all "WTF is this thing? This contraption keeps you from me! Grr!" and she's all "You really aren't from around here are you?" to which he responds to the effect of "I don't remember! Evil contraption begone! I must get laid now!"
....
....
Not so comical though. But definitely a touch of humour on their combined parts, because he's all "derr". As for other events in the story, I want the veterans hospital to be transitioning into an actual asylum run by the state, while still serving the veterans assosciation. And that the doctors can see how much moolah Caspian is getting in his accounts and the care that he gets - yet they also see that he has no actual family that they know of, so they see him as a great person to fleece as it were. They need to make ends meet, and at that time the UK ecconomy was still shit. Hell it didn't really recover until the late 50's, and even then it was still poo to a great degree. So yes, they think that if they can get a good enough excuse to make it so they can take full custody of Caspian (by like declairing him fully insane or in need of a lobotomy) so that they can get to his money. As he is now there's always the threat that he could leave, or that he could do something with his stipend.
Then at some point I want some 'friends' of Su's past as a bit of a party girl show up at the hospital, because they're visiting a relative who is a vet there. And one of the people, probably a man, is all "I say, Su? Susan Pevensie? How are you! And why are you working here of all places?" etc so that it makes her all uncomfortable, and Caspian all pissy as he's witnessing it. That'll be where he finds out the reason for her name change n'stuff.
Then I want a scene where we find out how Caspian will support himself once he's out of the hospital. He winds up, probably right around the same time as meeting some of Su's old aquaintences, in a fight. And in the fight he's basically doing martial arts, while the other fellow's trying to box. So one of the observers, one of Su's old aquantences, fancies himself a knowledgable sort and is all "So you know how to fight like the Chinese" or whatever, and Caspian's all "Uh, I guess so?" then there winds up being some form of debate about weapons and fighting styles, and someone gets involved who's from the BM (British Museum) or the Royal Armory (y'know the people who have all the cool stuff where they study those suits of armour etc and how they used to fight back in the day etc) and they start asking him questions. Well he can't answer the questions of where he learned how to do stuff, but he can answer all sorts on how to do those things.
But that's all so meandering, but the story is basically the process of Caspian maintaining his own belief in something he doesn't remember and learning to live life without the same massive responsibilities. And also the process of Su becoming not the Gentle Queen once more, not exactly, but becoming Susan again rather than the nasty slag at the end of The Last Battle. So that when they both die they can go to where they belong.
I also have this image of near the end, where Caspian is holding his child's hand as they go through the zoo and they pass a lion. And he pauses, and squats and points and whispers to the curly haird little girl that lions are magical and loving beings. He doesn't know why he says that exactly but his little girl giggles and says she knows, and he smiles and they continue on their way to meet Su who is with the stroller I suppose with yet another little baby in it, and she's sitting there reading some fanciful story to the toddler. And Caspian comments on the book, and Su says that having a little magic in the heart is a good thing and they kiss.
Later, at the very end, they're in Aslan's Country and Caspian is the one to die last (poor guy keeps outliving his wives) and he's all "Uh... oh shit... I've been married twice.. um.. oh craps..." and Su is there, and she asks him why he's freaked out, and he's all "Uh... what will Esther say?" and she tells him that Esther's gone, and points up to the sky and he remembers the last thing he saw before leaving Aslan's Country was a new brilliant star in the sky, and he realizes that Esther only stayed in Aslan's Country for him because he needed her. And cuz she loved him. But she's not human, and her love is a very different sort of thing, and she loved Caspian and her son Rilian as much as she possibly could, but the briefness of their existances - both in mortal flesh and as immortals in Aslan's Country - is still shorter than her infinate lifespan as a star. Complicated I know, but it let's Su stay with Cas in Aslan's Country w/o any rivalry. Then Aslan greets his children, and is all "I knew you'd do it Caspian" etc...