Writer's Ramblings 1: The World of Aldarae

Introduction

Hello all,

So, I've decided to do a mini-series in addition to my fiction works that talks about my writing process, specific stories I have up here on Vocal, and potentially some upcoming projects.

I'm starting these Writer's Ramblings with The Hidden Magic of Aldarae. (So beware of spoilers for those stories!)

A Long, Long Time Ago...

The world of Aldarae was something I came up with waaaaaay back in high school (GOD, I'm getting old lol), though it didn't have much in the way of definition until I started editing the snippets that I had written to be published on Vocal. In fact, the world itself didn't actually have a name until I had to come up with a title for the over-arcing set of stories that The Shadow, Legacies, and Seeking Magic belonged to. These three stories were all initially written to prompts I was given in a Creative Writing class; I decided I wanted to try to connect all my pieces to one another, though I didn't expect them to be quite so chronological when I first started writing.

The works for Aldarae that I have published here on Vocal have undergone frankly minimal editing from the original portfolio I wrote at 17--which is why parts of it feel a little disjointed, especially in the early pieces. I wanted to leave most of the writing as-is so that the general feel of it still rings to the way it did when I was initially writing it (though of course I fixed the basic edits and stuff that needed addressing). The most obvious "jolt" is probably the switch between third and first person narrations between Shae, Ciara, and Erryn.

I feel like it's worth mentioning that the entire world of Aldarae was sparked by a very specific creative writing exercise called "The Picture", where we were given an assignment to find a single image and craft a story from it (a picture is worth a thousand words, etc.) I unfortunately have been unable to find the image that inspired Aldarae in my recent searches, but I remember it was a rather stylized painting of a noblewoman in medieval dress, holding one hand out to a ball of light in an otherwise empty throne room.

This image became the basis for the foundational mythology of Aldarae: the story of the Lost Queen, a woman who feared her presence on the throne--and the magic she wielded--had put a target on her back from her own brother. She escaped the kingdom with the help of a faerie, vanishing in the Fae Realm, an action which would inadvertently result in the persecution of magic users in Aldarae for centuries to follow.

The "Illegal Magic" Trope and Queer Identity

So. I guess we gotta talk about this part.

I feel like I can't be the only person who has seen this particular trope of "Magic Is Bad And/Or Against The Law" growing in popularity in the last dozen years or so. Obvious examples would be things like BBC's Merlin, a retelling of the King Arthur mythos wherein the titular sorcerer is forced to hide his magical abilities on pain of death. His traditional adversary, Morgana, has perhaps one of the most poignant lines against the injustice against magic users in the kingdom:

"You don't know what it's like to be an outsider. To always be afraid. To be ashamed of how you were born. To have to hide who you are!"

Ignoring the deliberate irony of this line being delivered to another secret mage, it is difficult--at least for me--to watch this scene and understand how writers could have possibly not expected LGBTQ viewers to latch onto the message, and indeed the underlying message of persecution against mages and sorcerers in Camelot.

Another example, and maybe a more widely-known one: Elsa from Disney's Frozen. The Snow Queen literally has a power ballad about hiding who she is for her whole life until circumstance allows her to embrace her inner abilities. Hell, while Let It Go might be seen as something of a "coming out" moment, Show Yourself, from the sequel, doubles down on emphasizing that what makes the character unique is also what makes her powerful. And I mean there are whole think pieces floating around the internet somewhere about how Elsa is Definitely A Lesbian, so I'm not gonna reiterate that all here lol.

(Also, I see you all rolling your eyes at me, and I will stand by these songs being absolute bangers. It's not my fault the franchise as a whole got Disney-ed and Capitalism-ed into being unbearable.)

Alright, so to the point: Aldarae and This Trend. When I first started writing these stories, I had no idea I was contributing to this trope. When I started going back to reread and edit them as a slightly older person, I had no idea I was queer. It wasn't until this latest pass at Aldarae that I was able to look at it through this particular lens, and realize I might have been, maybe, a little bit, sublimating some feelings.

I won't claim The Hidden Magic of Aldarae is meant to be read as some sort of subconscious LGBTQ fantasy-manifesto, but I do think it's interesting to look at the concept of "hidden/secret magic" in parallel with queerness.

The Future of Aldarae

Now time for the confession: the stories Shadow, Legacies, and Seeking Magic are the only properly written installments of the Aldarae series. However, after rediscovering these stories and putting them out here on Vocal, I do really want to finish the narrative that these shorter pieces started. I have ideas for how I'd like Shae, Erryn, and Ciara's stories to wrap up. Hopefully it'll be interesting--as opposed to just sad lol--to see how my writing has changed since I wrote these first parts!

Alright. Rambler signing off,

M.