The inner-northern Narnia hipster AU

[lizbee]

Email from me to weaver, selvage, indeed, piecesofalice:

Apparently it is possible to submit almost 20 fake mortgage applications, and no one, from the banks to the lawyers, has noticed that all your "applicants" are Narnia characters.

Selvage:

…what do they teach them in these schools?!

Weaves:

IRL LOLS

Seriously, how did nobody notice this?

... were the mortgage applications granted, because my good friend Peregrin Took is deeply interested in applying for one.

Me:

IT'S ALL IN PLATO

Apparently Jill Pole is a small business owner in the Dandenongs, and Edmund Pevensie is a sales manager for a software company.

Selvage: I suddenly very much want to read this fic.

Weaves: I almost want him to get away with it because Narnia.

Me: I'm pretty appalled he had Susan buying property in Fitzroy. I think it's pretty obvious she'd go no further north than Toorak.

Weaves: Toooooooooooooooooorak, darling!

Selvage: Definitely. Lucy and Edmund are the hipster young ‘uns.

Weaves:

Edmund grew a red hipster beard and wears brown skinnies.

Lucy would never engage in yarnbombing, though.

Peter is the disapproving older brother who lives in Toorak and bails them out on their rent.

Me:

Peter is secretly into it, though, and fills his house with their found object art and "ironic" portraits of talking animals.

Susan bought a Mumford & Sons CD once.

Weaves:

Peter likes when they come over because his house is staid and grownup and boring, and he secretly envies Edmund’s hipster beard.

I don’t know how Edmund can afford a mortgage though. He’s forever unemployed.

Me: I'm not saying he's dealing Marshwiggle weed, but he's dealing Marshwiggle weed.

Selvage:

The only reason Peter lives in the fancy Toorak house is because the Professor left him the house. Secretly he misses the old bodgy Brunswick sharehouse.

Ed does odd jobs, and works part-time at a bicycle repair shop. Jill is trying to get him a job at her community sustainable development non-profit, though.

Puddleglum works at CERES.

[Then I tweeted about it, and people started telling me how great Susan is, and I had to nopetopus away. Because NOPE.]

Weaves:

Puddleglum totally works in the bike repair shed. He’s rubbish at repairing bikes.

Jadis opened a bar.

Me: It's a rooftop bar that's open all winter with no heating.

Weaves: Edmund liked Jadis’s winter rooftop bar before it was cool.

Selvage: The Turkish Delight cocktail is very popular.

[Relevant to people's interests: the Turkish Delight martini.]

Me: Eustace's local is the Lady of the Green Kirtle. It's pretty underground.

Weaves: I really really want someone to write this. Peter’s so frustrated with his siblings but at the same time he thinks they’re great.

Me: They always invite Susan to their barbecues, but she's always like, "Ugh, you're still living in sharehouses?"

Weaves: Susan’s a nurse at the RMH. She has a proper steady job and a nice apartment and she has her friends over for tea and biscuits and nobody smokes Marshwiggle weed out the back and Susan likes it that way, thank you. Her siblings are regrettable, but they’re family, so what can you do?

(Brighton is suitably far away from everyone she deems unacceptable. Peter is quite close, in Toorak, but Susan considers Peter acceptable company. He doesn’t have a rubbish beard and he irons his work shirts.)

Selvage:

Caspian owns a little coffee shop called The Dawn Treader, but it’s down an alley and hardly anyone knows where it is.

Peter sometimes sets up his laptop there and pretends he’s not a staid office drone.

Weaves:

Caspian and Peter are BFFs. Caspian’s all “Yeah, it sucks thinking like a businessman, but that’s how I’ve gotta run this place if I want to make it,” and Peter’s all “Yeah, I know what you mean, it’s rough,” and then they drink beers and talk about the wacky adventures they had when they were younger.

Me:

AWWWWWWWWWWW, Peter is secretly writing a novel.

It's secret because Susan thinks he should be writing something serious and manly, but it's actually for children and it's full of adventure and talking animals.

And Susan is like, "You're writing for children? When are you going to grow up?"

[Why Susan would have opinions on Peter's secret novel is unclear, but in fairness, I was at work, and also children's literature is the last thing Susan would approve of.]

Weaves:

Lucy knows, and she helps him out and does some editing for him.

Selvage: Sometimes when Peter and Caspian have had too many beers, Caspian reminisces about when Lucy used work part-time at the Dawn Treader and how much of a crush he had on her and Peter’s like EW NO THAT’S MY SISTER STAHP

Me:

Trumpkin is the one who does all the hard work at the Dawn Treader.

And he never lets them forget it.

Weaves:

Not for one single second. Caspian occasionally points out that paperwork and arranging rosters is actually a job that needs doing, too, but Trumpkin gets mysteriously deaf.

Eustace used to live in Toorak with his parents, and they were so mad when he dropped out of school and got a job at the Dawn Treader and grew his hair long and started smelling suspiciously like Marshwiggle.

Me: By the time he organised that sit-in at Experiment House, they just pretended they didn't know him.

Weaves:

It’s all the fault of that girl he was seeing. They should have known.

And that godawful tattoo of a dragon is seriously not okay. Honestly, what was the child thinking.

Selvage:

They’ve always suspected that those Pevensies were a bad influence.

And when Jill started inviting him to warehouse parties, well, that was it.

Me:

IT COULD BE WORSE. Now, they're not racist, but they know what Calormenes are like, and when that nice Shasta boy took up with that disturbingly horsey Aravis ... well.

Weaves:

How does anyone make a living as a storyteller at bookstores anyway? That Aravis girl is up to no good. They’re sure of it.

Eustace would totally be into yarn bombing, though.

Eustace would be into yarnbombing his parent’s house.

Me:

Caspian WANTS to say no, especially when Lucy is so strongly against it ... but he's always wanted to! And it's just a little bit of yarnbombing!

Not like that time they, um, kind of cocooned the entirety of Experiment House. That was maybe going a bit far. Even though they confined themselves to cheap wool from Savers.

Selvage:

Lucy sends Eustace terse messages telling him to stop wasting yarn.

Me:

YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, LUCY, he replies, and then spends half an hour trying to compose an insulting poem on his iPhone.

"Siri, what rhymes with 'barmier'?"

Weaves: Someone ask Siri for real.

Me:

LATER

I feel like I am maybe not giving my full attention to my work...

Which is a problem Peter has, too, because his siblings DO like to include him in their messages and emails, and it's nice to be part of it all, but he is very busy and important, sort of.



Selvage:

The Professor is his boss though, and is somewhat sympathetic.

[YES, the Professor was dead when he left Peter his house in Toorak, but this is much better.]

Weaves:

His company’s put him in this awkward leadership position and it’s a bit embarrassing when Lucy emails him pictures of Caspian making stupid faces or of Jadis smoking on her terrace.

(She’s their archenemy because she kicked them out that one time and they were HARDLY rowdy, GOD.)

Me:

LUCKILY, that old dude who dresses up as Santa every year had an apartment going. He's cool, man.

Is it sacrelige if we decide Aslan is Lucy's cat? He's not a TAME housecat.

Weaves:

He totally fought off Jadis once.

She was the worst landlady ever, to be fair.

Me: Okay, YES, her no pets rule was very clear, and there was that time he kind of dug up part of her creepy statue garden, but he also really liked sleeping on her stone table in the sunlight! Seriously, why weren't they friends?

Selvage:

THAT STONE TABLE WAS AN ANTIQUE

Jadis has very strong feelings about cat hair on her things, okay.

Weaves:

Her threats toward him were entirely unwarranted, and Lucy did not make any move to stop him when he bit her.

They did kind of get evicted. But Jadis still has scars, so Lucy thinks they’re even.

(Edmund was less impressed, but he knows better than to say anything to Lucy about her nomcat. After all, he’s not a tame nomcat.)

Jadis can’t prove Lucy broke the table.

Lucy always swears Aslan did it, anyway.

Me:

And in fairness, Charn Apartments were WEIRD and NASTY. Seriously, Jadis was the worst landlady ever, and they don't care how cool her bar is.

(Edmund cares. A little.)

Selvage:

The Cair Paravel complex is much nicer, but it’s more expensive. Edmund misses the part where he could be a bum and still be able to afford the rent at Charn.

Weaves: But at least it's animal friendly!

Selvage: Peter was very relieved when Lucy and Edmund moved out of Charn, even though he sometimes gets frantic messages from Edmund asking for help with the rent.

Me:

GUYS

I CAN'T BELIEVE WE FORGOT ABOUT TUMNUS

AND HIS BOOKSTORE/TEA SHOP

Which is where Lucy works now, because he's her BFF. And Aravis. I'm no saying they do all the work, but Tumnus reads more than he sells.

Weaves:

YES PERFECT

Tumnus has extremely hairy legs and he’s embarrassed about it, so he really likes the trend for skinny jeans in all weather.

Edmund doesn’t really trust him.

Me:

In fairness, he certainly couldn't have come by that century-old London lamppost honestly. Pretty brazen to make it the centrepiece of his shop.

Also, he's probably the one who told Jadis about the cat.

Weaves:

Really, all of their issues stem from Jadis and that cat.

Peter’s like “The Professor gave us all this house in Toorak, you guys, you don’t have to keep living in ratty sharehouses, you know,” and they all look at him like are you mad. WHY WOULD ANYONE LEAVE BRUNSWICK.

Besides, That Cat scratched the crap out of all the nice wooden furniture in that house the one time Lucy took him to visit.

Me: And that time she went on holiday and left him with Jill and Eustace, when she came back Eustace barely had an un-scratched bit of skin left!

Weaves:

AHAHA YES. Jill was like “He was asking for it.”

Eustace was so sulky. “I was itchy, sure, but not that itchy.”

Me: He was also pretty sulky because he was really into Avatar, and it just stopped being fun after he realised it was all an allegory for Buddhism.

Weaves: He’s got this friend Reepicheep, really short guy with some fancy hipster whiskers, who’s REALLY PASSIONATE about many things, including how annoying it is when things are allegories and how Eustace should fight to be HONEST and TRUE TO HIMSELF and FIERCE

Me: Reepicheep is also into Lucy taking him seriously.

Weaves:

Reepicheep is extremely into Lucy. He keeps telling people he’ll fight them if they disrespect her.

Lucy’s like “dude, no” but Reepicheep is real mad.

Selvage: Tumnus just takes a puff of Marshwiggle Weed and tells Reepicheep to chill and let Lucy get back to unpacking book orders.

Me:

Reepicheep has been banned from pretty much every bar in town. Trumpkin tried to talk to him once about finding alternatives to fighting when people make fun of his height, but somehow he and Reepicheep ended up in the middle of a bar fight, and they weren't even in a bar.

It was a day care centre.

Caspian has never been so embarrassed in his life.

Me, some time later because we all stopped and did some work:

OMG MRS BEAVER DOES PORKO, AND MAKES HER OWN CLOTHES ON HER VINTAGE SEWING MACHINE, AND SHE AND MR BEAVER DON'T REALLY BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE, BUT HE NEEDED A VISA, SO THEY HAD A BIG HIPSTER WEDDING WITH A CHRISTMAS THEME IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER

Weaves:

Jadis wasn’t invited.

She was SO MAD. She totally froze them out next time they tried to visit Always Winter. “Man, that woman’s stare is like Medusa’s,” Mr Beaver muttered angrily.

Me:

No one invites Jadis to anything. Not since she turned up to the opening of CERES' new organic tree of life garden and nicked off with the produce.

"I thought it was a free sample!"

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, Jadis. Sure.

Weaves:

She’s a litterbug. Throwing apple cores around, eating people’s stuff, climbing walls ... She thinks she’s quirky and zany and fun, but really she’s just annoying.

[And then the conversation drew to a close, because we all became rather busy, and it wasn't until Wednesday that I came up with the joke about that cool restaurant, Harfang, being shut down by the health inspector.]

Comments

[such_heights]

This is BEAUTIFUL. *_*

[lizbee]

It was the best Monday ever!

[attackfish]

I can't stop laughing.

[tree_and_leaf]

That is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. I also agree with you about Susan.

[musesfool]

Ahahahaha, this is awesome!

[ellen_fremedon]

This is magnificent.

[sqbr]

I love this :)

[vass]

I laughed so hard I scared the chickens.

Puddleglum works at CERES.

...um, funny story, he actually does. He's in chook group.

[nixwilliams]

Me: He was also pretty sulky because he was really into Avatar, and it just stopped being fun after he realised it was all an allegory for Buddhism.

That's the moment I lost it!

[nixwilliams]

Also, I feel there should be a Melbourne hipsterfic for every fandom I'm in. (Fond memories of Hope's Merlin sharehouse. Oh, and SJ and I never ended up writing our RPF hipsterfic that ended up with the cast of Merlin, Heroes and... there was definitely something else in there at some point. They worked at the Camelot themed section of Luna Park. Good times.)

[aria]

Eustace's local is the Lady of the Green Kirtle. It's pretty underground.

This line was about the point where I started laughing helplessly. SO GREAT.

[sohotrightnow]

:DDDDDDDDDDDDD

[yiduiqie]

I just gasped when I realised you had a conversation about Narnia and I wasn't included in on it. *clutches hipster scrabble tile necklace*

[yiduiqie]

wait i just clutched my scrabble tile for real because i love susan and apparently you don't FRIENDSHIP OVER SO SAD.

[lizbee]

ALAS, I have hated her since I read Prince Caspian when I was seven! In fact, she's my all-time most loathed female character ever, although I don't hate her nearly as much as a bunch of male characters I detest. Except when people tell me how great she is.

[philippos42]

I'm finding it hard to have particularly strong feelings about Susan. I love Lucy--I'd better love her, and Shasta (with whom I identify), Digory, and Jill; everyone else is supporting cast, so it's OK if I care less, right?

OK, I like Corin too. OK, everybody in The Horse and His Boy except Shasta's foster father, who was a bit short of lovable.

Jadis had her moments in ...Nephew. Good characterization, but "love" is a tricky word.

[infiniteviking]

This is an excellent post of excellence. *rofls off into the distance*

[mctabby]

Just a note of belated admiration for this delightful AU vision! *loves* Especially housecat!Aslan, Jadis's bar, and the Marshwiggle weed.

You've also made me slightly nostalgic for my East Brunswick years. :D