in lieu of creating indicator variables and interpreting log regressions

[whynot]

Homework sucks. Time for meme.


1. Angst:
In her dreams, Morgana sees them all unravel.

2. AU:
Being the cameraman for Arthur Pendragon, investigative journalist, is harrowing.

3. Crack!Fic:
Surprisingly, Gaius kills the most zombies.

4. Crossover:
Jadis smiles knowingly; she has met men like Uther before.

5. First Time:
The magic flares from Merlin's fingertips and ignites her own.

6. Fluff:
She likes the feel of Gwen's fingers in her hair.

7. Humor:
"Very funny, Merlin. Now change me back. ...Merlin? Hello?"

8. Hurt/Comfort:
"I'm fine," Arthur insists.
Merlin continues bandaging and says, "Sure."

9. Smut:
Morgana gasps raggedly and digs her nails into Merlin's back.

10. UST
"Gwen," Morgana begins, but doesn't know what else to say.

That said, I would give up my firstborn to read an investigative journalist AU and some Uther/Jadis.


In other news, AAAAAAAAAAAHHH I HAVE TRAIL OF DEAD TICKETS AAAAAAAAAAAHHH I HAVE TRAIL OF DEAD TICKETS AAAAAAAAAAAHHH I HAVE TRAIL OF DEAD TICKETS hfksahfkdshfd ZOMG. I've never seen them live before! It's gonna be awesome, and possibly harmful to my health considering how the Manu Chao 'mosh pit' nearly did me in. Maybe I will upload their music for you later.

I was slightly disappointed to find that Dining With Terrorists does not actually have Phil Rees going, "It is the peppers and coca leaves that give the FARC's gruel that special kick." It did make me think of all you guys on my flist writing fics about LA REVOLUCION. So basically zempasuchil ("THE JUNGLE IS THE IDEAL SETTING FOR REBELLION.") and bedlamsbard.

Also, WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THE GUY FROM ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION IS HOSTING THE MUSIC OF RESISTANCE PROGRAM ON AL-JAZEERA. OMG. Possibly to stop my head exploding from awesome?? OMG THE FIRST EPISODE IS ACTUALLY ABOUT THEM (and the BNP and racism in London). omg. you guuuuuuuuyyyyysssss, i almost can't handle it. KEEP BANGING ON THE WALLS OF FORTRESS EUROPE.

I haven't done recs since I got a delicious, but I want to bring attention to

Not listing all my favorites, just the ones I think could use more loving.

When Daylight Fades, We'll Still Be Us - Merlin/Arthur. G. This was written quite early on, before the fandom got really massive, so I think this might have passed below most people's radars. But it's lovely, check it out.

Sentry - PG. As gen as the show. The fic does a great Uther and a great dragon. And that's cool, 'cos most fics seem to dismiss the dragon as silly or annoying. I might have to write some dragon gen in the future in protest or something.

A Life Worth Less. PG13. As gen as the show. Her characterization of Merlin and Arthur are ace, especially of Arthur, capturing the balance between his douchebaggery and his honor.

Crooked Heart. Morgana/Merlin, R. Dude, all the good Morgana/Merlin, let you show me it?

With Your Eyes Half-Open. PG. As gen as the show. (THE FRAUGHT GEN, I love iiiiit.) The push&pull of OT4, POV of awesome Gwen.

Innocent - G. Merlin and Will! I gave her the prompt "five times Merlin and Will almost got in trouble but didn't", and was so thrilled when she wrote it 'cos seriously: there is not enough Merlin&Will (or Merlin/Will) out there. This is their pastoral adventures and being mischievous and looking out for each other and I am just like <33333333 <3333333.

Give Me Love, Give Me Peace On Earth. Hippie!AU. Jesus/Mary M/John. PG13. AWESOME.

I will leave you with this.

Comments

[saucery.livejournal.com]

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST FTW! Baby, how do you do it? :D

The first one sort of broke my heart. "Sort of," as in, with that slow crumbling realization that the destined excrement has yet to hit the ponderously-rotating ceiling fan. I literally felt my heart shrink. Oh, Morgana. Someone should write a fic about the psychological (and perhaps even psychiatric?) effects of her long-term exposure to the future. Don't pre-cogs usually go mad? *shudder* A fractured mind, splintered along the edges of a thousand different futures and ever-growing possibilities, each one tempting or terrifying and palpably real... WHOA. Okay, I have to write this.

Thank you, Lassiter. I now have yet another fic to write. *headdesk*

ZOMBIE-KILLING GAIUS IS WIN. <3

And so is The Music of Resistance! Which reminds me... um, since you sort of liked that Obama crackvid from way back. I was thinking of uploading some of the Obama-crack MP3s I have lying around on my hard-drive, but the reason I didn't is because I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested. Would you be interested? I mean, I don't know if anyone's actually as weird as I am and listens to Obama spoofs on their iPod. Er.

Your rec of Sentry made me imagine Uther/Dragon, for some reason. WHAT IF THE DRAGON COULD TURN INTO A HUMAN. A really hot human. And, and. He met up with a younger Uther and tried to seduce him and stuff, but he got caught or exposed somehow and then ended up trapped underground? (Seriously, I've always wondered how the heck the Dragon got there in the first place. It's like... How did they fit that ship into the bottle?)

OR, OR. Even now, like. The Dragon (who is really quite young as far as Dragons go, which is why he's so silly) decides that Merlin is messing things up WAY too much. So he, er. I don't know, uses the magic he's been storing up for the last several decades (kind of like a magical hibernation?) to turn himself into a human one last time. A human who is a hot young guy - are we seeing a pattern, here? - and who goes aboveground and tries to do his usual I'm-a-charming-and-really-sexy-friend-here-to-help-you-with-all-your-problems routine. Only he does it with Merlin this time, not Uther - all in an effort to control/sway Merlin's actions, or to quietly interfere with Merlin's less productive ideas. He, like, shows Merlin that he can do a little bit of magic and stuff, and they really hit it off together, because man-dragon just seems to know so much about Merlin and seems to understand him so well, and Merlin's like, "Wow, I've never had a friend who just got me! Not like this!" And then Arthur finds out and is all jealous and maybe Merlin's sleeping with the dragon and maybe he isn't, but ARTHUR IS JEALOUS and becomes more and more determined to prove that Something Is Very Wrong with Mr. Clever-Handsome-And-Debonair. :D :D :D :D

God, Lassiter, what do you to to me? It ain't fair.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

I would read the shit out of an investigative journalist AU. I don't know enough to write one. I want like, okay, so as if covering Gaza wasn't harrowing enough, Arthur takes the assignment to go undercover in Myanmar to cover the pro-democracy uprising. Merlin's like DUDE YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH but Arthur is like WHATEVS. "I'm not going this time," says Merlin adamantly, and Arthur says, "Right, okay." So Arthur goes into Myanmar alone on a tourist visa with a handycam. He sends back clips of himself talking in his hotel room, in cafes, in the streets, in the middle of swarms of Burmese protesters, young and old, who talk to Arthur in broken English that Merlin can barely understand, but their anger is palpable and their fire is real. Arthur sends back clips of Buddhist monks throwing bricks at the junta, who retaliate with tear gas. He films that part from the top of the building and stupidly decides to descend to the street, getting on-the-ground shots. Merlin's heart seizes up when the camera suddenly jerks, a sign that Arthur has been apprehended by a soldier, and then there's yelling ("I'm a tourist! This camera has no batteries!" Arthur exclaims, and Merlin thinks Arthur is such an idiot sometimes) and some shoving around, and Arthur is running running running and the screen zigs and zags from the pavement to the sky, with a blur of humanity in-between.

He hears gunshots.

Arthur's red and sweaty face comes into focus and he is saying how he and a handful of protesters are right now taking refuge in an alleyway, and he continues babbling about something or other as he turns the camera on the protesters, who look like hunter and prey simultaneously. He starts asking them questions in English, and they all jump in with answers, though in the end it's just this one guy talking, dominating by dint of his barely checked emotion. He's about Merlin's age, and he's struggling with English. He falls to repeating certain words and just saying them louder, gesticulating wildly, until finally his frustration reaches critical mass and he explodes into rapid Burmese about god knows what. Maybe about how the junta killed his brother, maybe about democracy, maybe about the future and maybe about the past. It's such a familiar story. But not the same story -- don't fall into that trap. If you consider yourself a good journalist or, hell, maybe even just a good person who listens and cares, don't fall into that trap. It's never the same story. Merlin has never covered the same story twice and he's proud of this.

"I'm constantly changing shirts and hats so they won't recognize me," Arthur says into the camera. As if a white person in Myanmar doesn't look out of place. A couple of foreign journalists have already been killed, many more have been attacked.

"Arthur," Gaius says into the phone later. "Come home. We have more than the bare minimum of excellent footage, thanks to you."

"Fuck off," says Arthur. "This thing is nowhere near over. I'm not going anywhere."

Merlin grabs the phone and says into it, "True 'cos you can't go anywhere if you're dead, you imbecile. Get yourself the fuck home."

"Merlin, is that you? Hand the phone back to Gaius."

So when Arthur least expects it, when he is sitting on his hotel bed spattering peanut sauce on the sheets from his chicken and veggie thing that he bought off a street vendor for dinner (he prides himself on never getting 'Delhi belly'), scribbling notes as he plays back the day's footage, there is a knock on the door. Arthur's first instinct is to PANIC because OH SHIT THE JUNTA HAVE COME TO TAKE HIM AWAY. But no. He looks through the eyehole and it's fucking Merlin. It's fucking Merlin with a duffel bag over one shoulder and more bags under his eyes.

"Don't believe Gaius, your camera work is fucking shoddy," Merlin says by way of greeting and explanation.

"Gaius was always full of shit," Arthur agrees, stepping aside to let Merlin in.


ummmm okay i'm just gonna go ahead and press 'post' now and answer the rest in another comment.

[saucery.livejournal.com]

AAAAAHHHHHHH WHAAAAAAAAATTTT. OHHHH MY GAAWWWWDDDD.

How do you. Is that even. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME.

OH MY GOD ARTHUR. HOW CAN YOU BE SO PENDRAGON IN MYANMAR? AND HOW CAN MERLIN STILL TOTALLY BE HIS WIFE. HIS MANSERVANT CAMERAMAN WIFE. GWUH. AND THE PROTESTERS BEING BOTH HUNTER AND PREY AND THE SHEER VISUAL POWER OF THE CAMERA ANGLES AND HOW YOU WRITE THEM AND BY GOD I CAN SEE THIS AND I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THAT YOUNG PROTESTER'S TRAGIC STORY AND THIS MEANS ARTHUR IS A GOOD JOURNALIST AND MAYBE EVEN A GREAT JOURNALIST AND.

YOU HAVE TO CONTINUE THIS, YOU HEAR? OR I WILL EXPLODE INTO RAPID BURMESE IN YOUR EAR, HO.

<33333333333333333333

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

<333! haha, maybe. this was totally fun to write. maybe something about how merlin hates the heat and humidity, this is why he avoids assignments in the tropics. and the sweat makes it difficult for him to hold the camera steady.

maybe we have nimueh and valiant reporting for a rival news organization.

[selfinduced.livejournal.com]

I AM SO GLAD WE SHARE A FANDOM AGAIN AND I CAN REALLY ENJOY THE CRACK BRILLIANCE YOU PRODUCE. *FLAIL*

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

<3333!

MERLIN IS MAKING PRODUCE NOTHING BUT CRACK

was it through BDS that we met?

[selfinduced.livejournal.com]

coming from Stargate fandom, where crack is sort of the norm, i am entirely amused by how Merlin seems to be aspiring to new levels.

and yes, Boondock Saints! oh the days of the angsty incest.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, considering that I then jumped into Narnia, the days of angsty incest aren't so far behind for me. (What a horrifying sentence to take out of context!)

I've heard THIGNS about this Stargate fandom. I love how Merlin has become this huge all-encompassing blob that's all like "ONE OF US, ONE OF US". There's ppl on my flist I haven't shared anything in common with for years, but now we're like "OMG MERLIN!"

[alice-pike.livejournal.com]

JESUS CHRIST, LASSITER.

You could write ANYTHING and I think I'd still read and enjoy it. Like, I want MOAR of this hardcore and I don't even do AU's. Just, *hands* IDEK how you do this, but I am envious. ♥

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

aaaaaahhhh thank you aliiiiiiice! PIKESTERRRRRRRR. crackifying merlin has become, like, my FAVORITE. REAL fic, psh, who needs it?!

[katakokk.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, LASS. I THINK YOU HAVE KILLED ME.

This is so unbelievably EXCELLENT, and Arthur is SO ARTHUR I want to hug him and give him more shirts and hats (Hawaiian print! Every tourist needs Hawaiian print shirts!) so he can continue going under-cover and being such a Pendragon and doing horribly wonderful thing to my heart. Oh my heart.

AND MERLIN. Oh poor Merlin. JOURNALIST/CAMERAMAN = ♥.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Thank you muchly! I've always enjoyed stories about journalists, and documentaries about the journalist crusaders/adventurers (TINTIN ANYONE??) and this was a lot of fun to write. XD

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

What do YOU do to ME?? Maybe epic comment inspires like epic comment.

I have been wanting to sink myself into a good 'Camelot unravels' fic either in the writing or the reading. The prompt that I gave about the Pendragon family breaking apart and complicatedly loving each other is pretty much the first Merlin fic I ever wanted to write, but I dunno, things just never have quite lined up in my head. I get very easily distracted by crack. But augh, MOTHERFUCKING PENDRAGONS, so fascinating! Each so powerful and proud and trying to do the right thing and each misguided in their own way! They love each other and yet sometimes their love hurts each other!

I suppose I would check out Obama crack, sure. (CONFESSIONS: I have two Capitol Steps albums in my music library. My boyfriend constantly teases me about it, but it is one of my happy places.)

HUMAN!DRAGON OMG
\o/!