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Merlin fucks up the booze run

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5000+ words on the college roommates AU and I have no idea where I'm going with it. I don't want one ship to triumph over the other, and it feels anticlimactic for everyone to say "oh let's just be frenz". It's just that I've mostly been writing this thing as cathartic brain-vomit. I don't get into the fic-constructing frame of mind for it. I go with the flow and don't wonder as much if Arthur would really do that. I worry less about allusions and phrasing, more about taking advantage of momentum. It is sort of like my vacation from my usual style? That said, who wants to take a look at it and bounce ideas with me about where it could go. I'm looking for maybe a few people. To entice you: more excerpt, this time from the very beginning--

And so Lancelot ponced off on study-abroad to the Philippines to study environmental sustainability, and Merlin and Arthur had one more bedroom in their three-bedroom apartment to fill. (“Not cool, mate,” Arthur had grumbled. “We’ve already paid the deposit. You’ve already paid the deposit!”

But someone had dropped out of the Philippines program last-minute and Lancelot was bumped up from the wait-list. He celebrated by going out to the mall and buying a Lonely Planet guide and an English-Tagalog dictionary.

“You’re already studying abroad!” Arthur pointed out peevishly. “Last I checked, America isn’t actually British territory anymore.”

Lancelot went through the books highlighting useful words and tourist sites of particular interest. They would have spring break in late March, and he reckoned he would either go to Boracay or Sagada. What did Arthur and Merlin think? Beaches or mountains?

“Beaches,” Merlin said. “Definitely.”

“Who will be our third roommate?” Arthur demanded.

Boracay it was. Hey, didn’t Arthur own a pair of flippers? Would he mind if Lancelot borrowed them for the semester?

“Yes!” Arthur said. “I fucking mind!”)

And this was how Will became their roommate.

I wonder if this is what writing original characters would feel like. Relying more on your instinct rather than nitpicking their motives, that is. I haven't written originals in such a while, I have forgotten. So let's try something: prompt me for original fiction?

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...sorry, my mind's just hung up on the image of Lancelot flouncing around on Borocay. Mmm, sunburn.

He feels guilty haggling for souvenirs 'cos he's like, "Why should I try to get a bigger discount if I can afford it and they can use the money?" And gets ripped off for everything.

I confess, I'm place-suing my various stomping grounds pretty hard.

I really, really cannot wait to see more of this au (or of any of your projects, for that matter!) I say go with a Merlin/Will/Arthur threesome. Has that ever even been done in this fandom?

<3!

I'm sorely tempted to go the route of the threesome. I haven't seen one, though if you do you should throw it my way. I guess between training villagers and sulking at your ex's new boyfriend, there isn't a lot of time for that. XD

Do it do it do it! The Merlin fandom needs more threesomes.

I guess between training villagers and sulking at your ex's new boyfriend, there isn't a lot of time for that. XD

I definitely lol'd irl when I read that, trufax. But it just makes his death even more tragic, when you think about it. Dead before he even got a chance at a threesome. RIP, Will, RIP.

i still want someone to write the au where will survives and follows merlin to camelot, and hijinks ensue.

Imagine Will meeting Uther. Now cower.

Epic. Let their mutual undermining begin!

I saw it as less "epic confrontation" and more "Will mouths off before Merlin can reach over and cover his lips, Uther puts him in a stocks at least once a week while Arthur rolls his eyes at Merlin a lot to try and get attention back, and then finally in a hit of rage Uther has Will beheaded and then stands glowering at everyone in the courtyard while wearing his leather pants."

:( Oh no, Willdeath! I can see Will being snide to Uther in an underhanded sort of way, but overall I think he's too cowardly to continually confront Uther directly. He's unwilling to fight against those who would actually kick his ass. I mean sure, Arthur could totally kick Will's ass, but Arthur wouldn't, so Will gives him shit quite freely, but he's all "Run away!" from the evil brigands.

Uther and Will would immediately have a relationship full of animosity, but maybe Will is weirdly protected because Merlin likes him and Arthur likes Merlin and Uther likes Arthur, and it's like this weird chain. And Will is a little smug about it. And the way that sometimes Arthur has to handle Merlin because Merlin is a spaz, I think Merlin would end up handling Will this way. And Merlin lets slip a small complaint about it to Arthur, who then gets smug and says, "Now you know how I feel." And secretly Arthur is jealous of Merlin and Will's camaraderie, because sure, destiny is destiny, but best friends since childhood is best friends since childhood.

So where do you think that Morgana and Gwen and their blatant shipping fit into all this?

I can see Gwen as being calm and wise and advocating friendship with everyone, although she'd haul Will back in line by the power of her disappointed glare at least once.

Morgana would tell Arthur that Merlin is definately going to leave him for Will, and that he'd best start training up a stable boy or something

Yes yes! I see Gwen and Will having a brother/sister type relationship, looking out for each other. Maybe she takes him under her wing because she sees through Will's facade of not being overwhelmed by the city and not missing Ealdor. Will's not like Merlin, who seems to have this strangely amazing luck following him around like tail. So maybe Will then tries to be the big brother and protect Gwen out of some misguided notion of masculine/feminine roles, which amuses Gwen, 'cos she's totally handier with a sword than Will is. Morgana and Gwen practice often, you see.

Her relationship with Will is unique - new but strangely comfortable. Morgana loves Gwen truly, but Gwen is always aware that Morgana is of noble birth, no matter how much it seems like Morgana prefers to pretend to otherwise. Arthur is a prince with the weight of the world on his shoulders and Merlin is off in his own world most of the time. Gwen and Will are peers in practicality and "Sometimes I think we're the only sane ones in this kingdom," Will said to her once.

Haha, totally, Morgana would very much tease Arthur about his Will jealousy. I also have a Will/Morgana theory, most of which is contained here (http://allothi.livejournal.com/18384.html?thread=253648#t253648) (and more of it in this thread (http://lassiterfics.livejournal.com/89256.html?thread=1452712#t1452712)). I have possibly spent a liiiiittle too much time contemplating the "Will lives!" AU.

I love your Will/Morgana theory and want to have it's snarky and argumentative little babies. Will would totally be the kind of guy who, while telling Morgana she's ten kinds of idiot with a side of naivete, would also be opening doors and whatnot for her. The thing where he's an ass but does remarkably polite things out of random habit. And Morgana wouldn't notice any of it because everyone does that for her, but Arthur would, and that's why he doesn't intervene in his brotherly/potential paramour way.

You can bounce ideas off me if you'd like. Though my idea of how love triangles should go is possibly influenced by Kdramas and involves the word RHOMBUS (though thankfully not CANCER except with the precursor, PLEASE NO).

I've started something about the four doomed sorcerers from To Kill the King. It's great. I barely have to worry about canon at all, their canon personalities are that they hold swords, Tauren likes his shiny stone, and they all get killed.

...

Barric! Ector! Rion! Why did ya do it, Merlin? WHY? Mr "My destiny does not involve murder! Pow! Kaboom!" :(

prompt me for original fiction

Missing chocolate? Bread-making? A vegetable garden? Iranian-style rice?

Er. I should probably eat lunch.

Cool, I'll send it to you sometime soonish. It's weird, this kind of feels like the first real slash fic I've written in a while, I've been so caught up in the whirlwind of multishipping and crack. Even 'Doing It Wrong' was written more for the dialogue than the slash.

Aha, so Tauren IS derived from Arthuriana! I never knew that.

You mean I'll get to find out what kind of a writer you were before Merlin turned your grey matter fluorescent orange?

Is he? Wait, what? He's in the series, but I swear 'Tauren' is something I remember my brother talking about on World of Warcraft. Which doesn't preclude his being Arthurianan, I suppose, but still.

Haha, sort of. It was Narnia and Merlin that pushed me to write characters that were a little more graceful and self-possessed, and to have a cohesive theme beyond youthful angst, so this AU is kind of regression and progress at the same time. Progress because I am trying to write something different, but regression because that means I'm reverting to things like the pettiness of youth who are kind of self-absorbed and don't have the responsibilities of ruling/saving kingdoms to inspire selflessness in them. They're kids in college, and they want to party and get laid.

I dunno, didn't you say up there he is a character from The Once And Future King?

Well, but on the other hand -- deep in a fic about woe about responsibility and killing that progresses 300 words at a time and feels like it'll never be finished -- I do kind of feel like those things are just cheating. Insert terrible responsibility, instant angst.

Fuck, I'm now obsessing over what kind of alcohol they'd all drink. I have this awful feeling Merlin and Will would be like these guys I new who built a WALL OF EMPTY TENNANTS CANS in their kitchen.

I did? If I did, I didn't mean to. I don't have any familiarity with TOAFK, my only exposure to Arthuriana is through Sutcliff.

As opposed to youth + hormones = instant wangst! There's a lot of pouting, sulking, and petty grudges in this fic. But I'm having fun ~~vicariously reliving~~ writing about shitty triple-deckers and the college student's love/hate relationship with PBR, woo!

HAHAHA THEY WOULD BE. I also had friends who made pyramids out of beer cans, and we were the apartment that had a bunch of empty liquor bottles full of cigarette butts on the balcony because no one wanted to deal with them.

Ahhh, the memories. That whole year of will-we-won't-we. That time I walked seven miles out of town and ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere, and had to walk a further mile or two to find a pub where I could call a taxi. The falling asleep in lectures. The falling asleep in bars. The falling asleep in coffee shops. The falling asleep on other people's beds at three in the afternoon.

...my experiences may have been atypical.

What is PBR? (I googled, and it came up with Professional Bull Riders.)

It was so horrible! Tennents is just so foul, and they blocked out a huge window! I mean, looking back, it was the perfect symbol of much of the undergrad experience, but that's probably half the reason it hurt me.

The skipping of lectures! The "naw, I can smoke, my next class is music anyway"! I want to squeeze in something in the fic about the bureaucracy surrounding the F1 visa status of international students, but the occasion hasn't come up yet. What did you walk seven miles out of town for??

PBR is Pabst Blue Ribbon and it is shitty shitty beer. But very very cheap! A staple of the American student experience.

Well, I tend to go on long-ish brisk walks for exercise, to try to keep my stamina up and stuff, but sometimes I get lost in thought and stop keeping track of where I'm going. And, er, yeah. One minute I was walking down this same old pretty path, and not-actually-the-next, I was in a field that looked exactly the same as all the other fields around, and I couldn't see any identifying landmarks in any direction. I did actually find a farmhouse fairly quickly, but no one answered the doorbell. So I just kept going until I got into a village.

I did the same once on a holiday, managed to find a tourist information place, and they gave me free tea and biscuits and drove me back to the youth hostel. My superpower is looking very fragile, so people want to take care of me.

Which reminds me that lecturers used to email me to ask if I was okay when I skipped. And worry about me if I fell asleep while they were talking. And one of them told me I was breaking his heart. :/

Ah, so PBR = American equivalent of Tennents. Which should probably have been obvious.

SUTCLIFF. <3

Sorry, carry on...

I love her so much! I adored her books as a kid, and I've just been rediscovering recently. <3 <3 <3

She is made of SO. MUCH. WIN. *squees* I found her a couple years ago and periodically reread them because eeeee! So good!

*nod* I know.

Heyyy, I don't suppose you could rec your favourites to me, could you? It's been such a long time, I really only just started rereading, here and there, and I can barely remember what I liked best first time around aside from The Eagle of the Ninth.

AHA that's why her name sounds familiar! We had to read Eagle of the Ninth in seventh grade! But all I remember is that the soldier gives his cloak to the girl he likes and she says something to the effect of "I like your coat, it's so warm and snuggly." And at the time, we were like, "...Isn't she kind of young?"

No no, you should go read her stuff again. It's really, really good. REALLY GOOD. *squees*

Mmm. Let's see - I really really liked Mark of the Horse Lord (EPIC WIN), and honestly, anything to do with the Aquila family makes me squee in delight. This includes (the ones I've read) Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, The Lantern Bearers (which is also the prequel to Sword at Sunset, one of the best serious interpretations of King Arthur I've ever read), and then his very far distant descendants in Sword Song and The Shield Ring. The two I haven't read are Frontier Wolf and Dawn Wind, which I would imagine are just as good as her other stuff.

And if only my library had Song For A Dark Queen. Just the title makes shivers run up and down my back - I really want to read it. D:

(Also, pretty icon!)

*makes notes* Thank you! Eee! Hey, I read Sword Song recently, I had no idea Bjarni was descended from the Aquila family. *wikis* Ah, the seal ring. I did wonder whether that had some kind of significance. I wish publishers would mark this kind of thing.

Yeah, my library has very few, but I was thinking of getting hold of some second hand next time I have money.

(Thanks!)

First of, haha I want to read the whole thing now! Ehehe.

Secondly, original fic-wise - erm, I don't know any of your characters or anything, so I'll go with situations. XD Locked out of the house. Piano lesson gone awry. "Damn it who called the police/guards/military/figures of authority?" If any of those can work, lovely. If they won't, give me the basics of the world-type and I shall try again. <33

I don't have any original characters or an original universe. What non-fannish writerly things do I have inside of me? I dunno. I guess the purpose of this is to make me have a feel for original universes and characters, so this works for me.

I don't tend to write original fantasy/scifi, though I am open to the idea. I sort of have this idea for a world set in the future where machines and technology have become mythical in the way that gods and folktales are mythical now in our times, though I don't have anything else beyond that premise.

XD I shall encourage you in this endeavor to write original fic! It is fun! And sometimes really really frustrating but we'll just skip that part, yeah? *eyes Holland* I've been having a dead-end block for the most part on my original fic until just last week actually, at which point I wrote 5K in two days and somehow fished up an actual plot and characters to go with it from the general idea of colonial fantasy and two families living next to each other in a colony named Happenstance Harbor.

Anyways *coughs*, moving on from rambling about my own fic, that sounds pretty interesting! My prompts still stand for whatever madness you come up with original-fic-wise. Also, it's surprising how much character-firming one can come up with browsing TV Tropes. 'Huh, that's funny... I hadn't realized Holland was a Chessmaster but she IS. And of course Adam's A Father To His Men!'

I appreciate the encouragement! I love fic, it's great fun, but I really do want to expand into original fiction. I've got these thoughts and observations I want to express that I can't through a pseudo-Old English fantasy world, MERLARNIA. I want to write about other countries and colonial baggage and globalization fhlsdfdj I don't even know. Just, things that are important to me, but not to any of my favorite characters. Arthur doesn't care about immigration. He waves around Excalibur and is like, "Bitch, this is all the visa I need!"

I love fanfiction, but for me it really serves more as a resting point for a bit. I have an urge to be writing something most of the time, and when I'm in the corner quibbling over plot points and such in original fic it's wonderful to be able to go 'WHAT THE HECK LET'S WRITE NARNIA WOOT!'

At the same time, I find that if I write too much fanfiction I fall into that pattern of mind and it ends up reinforcing my fear of commitment, which makes it really hard to work on anything longer than a few thousand words. Yuck.

I know what you mean. Though I do suggest not writing just to write issues. You probably already know that, but yeah. :P It's one of my pet peeves (LEWIS). Mehehehe, Arthur. Merlin slips around corners and pretends he's just always been there. "What, me? Yeah, I totally grew out of this wall just now."

.... apparently original fic talking makes me ramble like MAD. Huh.

Fanfiction totally reinforces a certain state of mind for me. Occasionally it gets bad enough that I start shipping real people. my boyfriend/his best friend otp, dude D:/:D (D:) (XD!)

See, I have homework-writing mode and fic-writing mode and LJ-posting mode, but I'm trying to rediscover none-of-the-above mode. So, I figure I'm just gonna go wherever my gut wants me to until I find something that fits.

O.O haha!

YES. THIS. It's like a frame of mind and I'm finding myself completely unable to get out of it (though this might have a lot to do with my fear of any sort of commitment). *cheers on* I shall be on the sidelines, waiting to see what comes out! I'm fairly certain it'll be gorgeous.

Occasionally it gets bad enough that I start shipping real people. my boyfriend/his best friend otp, dude D:/:D (D:) (XD!)

This could be far worse. I sometimes find myself shipping me/my best friend. In a sort of 'if life were a film, I would be completely, wildly in love with the way those two are so obviously wildly in love' sort of way. And then I get really confused.

Hahaha, stop ruining us for life, fandom!

Original fic prompt: conference calls, and ways to make them slightly less mind-numbing. Let the corporate hilarity ensue.

I don't know much about corporations, but I'll see what else I can come up with in terms of conference calls. I almost wish I can make this a short video or something, where they are doing a video conference call and there is something wacky and outrageous going on outside the boss's window, all sorts of visual gags, and it's almost impossible for the employee to focus.

Sometimes when I have nothing to write I say, "What did some author get WRONG?" and then I write original fic on that. So what does Narnia get horribly wrong that you could write about? Like, what would really happen if you/someone normal stumbled into a magical world? Or back out? Or can you make True Love At First Sight work out?

Also, fairy tale retellings are fun 'cause they're sort of in between, you know?

As for your fic, I say go with a threesome. Or go with no relationship really, but kinda sorta there being one with the three of them. Uh.

Totally, the wood between the worlds. That place is so cool and weird, and completely underutilized. I have thought about what if the LWW story happened to kids from another culture? Like maybe some kids from Indonesia fall through the wardrobe and they end up in a world created from the feathers of the Garuda, who is at constant war with Nyi Roro Kidoel, who is Queen of the South Seas. They befriend Hanuman the trickster monkey and Cepot the dopey everyman from the wayang golek puppets. And I don't want it to be about binary morality, but a cycle of necessary opposition.

The idea of a threesome is becoming increasingly appealing. I swear, Will/Arthur: the ship the world doesn't know it wants. In the fic, Will and Arthur are already kind of playing tug of war with a flaky Merlin as the rope, so fandomlogic dictates that Each Other's Antagonists = Each Other's Lovers. Maybe when Merlin discovers the Will/Arthur, he would be both relieved and peeved. Hmm. 'Cos I'm not sure how I would simmer things down to a 'Not Really A Relationship But It Sort Of Is' thing when there has already been making out. Okay, maybe I could, in a "the big tragedy about real life is that there are no big tragedies -- sometimes things just fizzle and fade like you never loved them at all" sort of way.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. *is clearly not working on her stats assignment*

I would read that story. 90% of the fantasy books I've read about people finding new worlds happen to British characters who haven't hit puberty yet, so anything that breaks that up? Awesome. If you wrote it I would read it.

Dude, if you aren't sure you're going to get Merlin, the obvious thing is to share him so that the other guy doesn't get Merlin! Hrm. Friends with benefits? Or an all-out relationship. I would love to see the emails to Lancelot (from Gwen? Merlin? Arthur?) about this.

Psh, homework.

Me too. More people should write stories based on Indonesian folk tales :(. I wrote a story when I was younger about gods/spirits/creatures vacationing in Bali and then these two local gods would complain about the tourist gods. One god was the god of the kiddie pool at a Legian beach resort and the other was the god of the tourist shop in the lobby ('cos seriously, gods were EVERYWHERE, everything had a spirit, every tree, every fountain, and I kept on accidentally stepping on the offerings). I wish I still had it, but I fear it is lost forever.

HAHAHA YOU ARE PSYCHIC. This is the most recent addition I've made to it:

To: l.dulac@albion.edu
From: a.pendragon@albion.edu
Subject: fuck this shit

can you die of being sick of someone’s shit? he may not eat my food (you still owe me spinach dip and at least two bags of bagel chips, hobo), but he loves to bogart the television and he has terrible taste in tv.

*snickers*

Oh, Arthur.

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