cimorene

thanks to

jennaria i've been reading some sizeable gobs of labyrinth fanfiction over the last few days. since it's het, the good end of it still has a tendency to slide into harlequin territory (though usually better executed).

i still haven't found anything worth a rec.

but i've realized what it was that was tickling my consciousness the last time i saw it. besides the sort of anglo-saxon, tam lin type mythology about the realm of faerie, there's a definite *strong* resonance with beauty and the beast and east of the sun, west of the moon (fairy tale and folktale) and the classical descent myths of psyche and eros and hades and persephone. these are all variants of the same story, specialized versions of the descent myth (which takes its name from the persephone version). and this myth, and this constellation of stories, have captured my imagination for more than a decade. they are, in my opinion, the most powerful archetypes in literature.

i'm still struggling with how to do persephone justice with an original novel, in fact.