whynot | Fic: "A Lever and a Place to Stand" (Arthur/Merlin, R). And further down: SPN inanities.

yue_ix made me my mafia!Pendragons. I KNEW IT, BB, I KNEW IT. <33 XD

Here's what I wrote:

A Lever and a Place to Stand
Merlin. Arthur/Merlin + ensemble. Rated R. Warnings: canon deaths, drug use. Thank you to

zempasuchil and

mrinalinee for the beta.
Summary: When a peaceful march for the equal rights of magicians ends badly, Merlin is forced to hide out in the apartment of law student Arthur Pendragon. ~12000 words

All Arthur wants to do is zone out on the sofa and watch reruns of CSI: Mercia, because after an entire day of reading case studies about the various legalized injustices carried out against the magical population, he can really go for a dose of predictable crime-solving and pretend that’s what the world is really like.

Writing this fic was annoying, but in a good way. I was initially going to write the Arthur/Lancelot part of my recipient's prompt, but then I looked through her LJ and she was clearly jonesing for the Merlin/Arthur, which is a ship that I don't find as exciting anymore. But it's Solstice, so okay, whatever. I'll Merlin/Arthur for Solstice.

And it was because of Merlin/Arthur that the fic became so long. Because I was less inspired by the romance, I started throwing in other things to keep my interest that I could write about. Sure, let's set the fic in faux New York. Let's give Arthur grad student angst. Let's talk nonstop about how much Will is missed. (NAME-DROP JAVA. SCRABBLE GAMES. Wade-Giles and LexisNexis and Muggle jokes, etc.) This eventually led to a series of frantic emails to Z wherein I wondered, "DO YOU THINK THEY ARE IN LOVE ENOUGH??"

Suddenly, this fic that was supposed to be a few thousand words long became TWELVE THOUSAND WORD SLONG (!! haha I will not fix that typo), and I got an extension, and two betas, and then... my recipient drops out.

LOLZ I could have been writing Arthur/Lancelot THIS WHOLE TIME (this whole tiiiiime), but if I had been, this would have been a much different fic. And even with twelve thousand words, I didn't end up unpacking as much as I wanted to, especially wrt Arthur's idealism and privileged position in society. For the purposes of this fic, Arthur and Merlin's idealism were championed, but I think introducing a more cynical perspective to deconstruct their "HURRAH REVOLUTION!" attitude would also have been interesting. ~~Maybe in the sequel.~~

Another thing I would've wanted to do if I had more time is include 'excerpts' from Arthur's textbooks or thesis a la Sea Change or Forms & Foundations. Gwen in her speech quotes Marx's 18th Brumaire, and Uther does too when he's talking about religion. Max Wechsler's Druidic Ethic is of course supposed to be Max Weber's Protestant Ethic, and the Wizard Manifesto is guess. Also, Merlin misquotes Arthur C. Clarke with the whole science/magic thing.

In the end, I am glad and grateful, ex-recipient, for the challenge. I would not have written it if not for you! A MERRY SOLSTICE TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.

And now: Supernatural! My SPN-watching has been jumping around as per the orders of my id.

Reactions thus far to 5x04:

THIS ISN'T FUNNY, DEAN. THE VOICE TELLS ME I'M ALMOST OUT OF MINUTES. <333333

...I'LL JUST WAIT HERE THEN.

~*IF YOU DON'T SAY YES TO MICHAEL, SARAH PALIN WILL BECOME PRESIDENT*~

DEAN KIND OF LIKED IT WITH THE PINK PANTIES

WHERE IS THE FALLEN!CASTIEL/DEAN FIC SET IN THIS ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, WHERE. I wanna know all about fallen!AUCastiel.

omg Sam's white suit of facepalm hahahaha

Dean cries more than I thought he would.

AND ALSO, "CHANGING CHANNELS", I WAS LIKE WHAT. WHAT IS THIS, HOW IS THIS EVEN OMG WHAAAAA. DO YOU NEED MORE CRACK SHOW OH I GUESS YOU DON'T, WELL CAN I HAVE SOME OF YOURS THEN, YOU CLEARLY HAVE TOO MUCH <33

ALSO: THE FACT THAT SOMETIMES, DURING APOCALYPTIC ALTERNATE UNIVERSES, THERE ARE TWO DEANS. Twoooooooo. Count 'em, two! This show knows what's up. \o/

I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE "CHANGING CHANNELS" EXISTS HAHAAAAA

Where does Castiel go when he's not stalking the Winchesters? Off fomenting rebellion elsewhere? What does he do when he's looking for God? Is he collecting intelligence? Making shady deals in back alleys? Or just... standing still on roadsides waiting for Dean to wake up?

How EVIL was Show for showing us Castiel drinking those shots in 5x10 with Jo and Ellen, but then opting out of a drunk!Castiel scene. I FEEL CHEATED. WAY TO TOY WITH MY HEART. "I think I'm beginning to feel something" indeeeeeeed.

Castiel is SUCH A ROBOT. Switch 'angel' with 'robot' and it's the same shtick, what with being programmed to be obedient but beginning to feel feelings. Feeeeelings. C3PO emotes more than Cas does. By odd coincidence (or perhaps the law of averages), I found the AU fic where Dean finds robot!Castiel in the scrap heap. Then when I thought of Arthur!Dean and Merlin!Castiel, I found the art manip! Ah, the joys of well-established fandom! Everything is out there already, and SOMEWHERE OUT THERE is the Dean/Castiel fic that will break my heart to a million pieces, I WILL FIND IT.

BECAUSE SRSLY. The two-parter in S4 where Anna made out with Dean at the end? And Castiel made goggly-boggly eyes at them, a ~*significant look of vague longing*~ and I was like, "IS THIS HOW WE ARE PLAYING IT, SHOW???" KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT ~*CROWLEY*~ AND HOW NOW I AM INCAPABLE OF SEEING THIS AS NOT A GOOD OMENS CROSSOVER??? Also, the whole thing with Lucifer and Michael makes me think this is a Lucifer crossover/fusion. Fair enough, all these stories deal with the same mythos, so intersections are bound to happen, buuuuut if Castiel occasionally hung out with Aziraphale, wouldn't that make your life so much better? (Yes.) They can go around being repressed and socially inept together, sauntering downwards.

I feel for Sam and his inner demon, I do, and I think he's got interesting stories to tell. The whole 'mere vessels' premise makes for some nice parallels, but TO BE HONEST I am so much less interested in that when CASTIEL WILL DO ANYTHING FOR DEEEAAAN and Dean, y'know, wants to make sure Cas is alright (<333). I think there's a compelling story about the end of the world going on somewhere in this show, but I can't tell through all the personal space invasions!

Speaking of which, 5x03: ONE OF BESTEST?!

And may I say how unexpectedly delighted I am at finding Britishisms in SPN fic! This must be how Brits feel when people Americanize in Merlin or Harry Potter fic. Suddenly Dean is like THE BLOODY THING IS BROKEN or Sam is like LET'S GET SOME TAKEAWAY and sometimes they have a ROW, and I'm just like, "...AWW, WOULD YOU LIKE SOME CRUMPETS AND TEA?!??!" <3333 BLESS YA'LL, how delightful. XD

So, just out of curiosity, if you could rec someone a Dean/Castiel fic that would brutally rip your heart to shreds via either of them wrestling with duty and realizing each other's role in their respective worlds... which fic would you rec? WHICH DEAN/CASTIEL FIC MAKES YOU ACHE, FANDOM, WHICH.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jimmy suffers from the "woman who stands between them" syndrome
lol, funny 'cos it's true. Wait so what's the deal with Jimmy when Castiel takes his body? He says he doesn't remember much about vesseling, so is it just like missing time, or being roofied for months on end. I wonder if Jimmy is conscious during the act but forgets once he is conscious, only to arise in dreams and odd flashes of deja vu. I'm not sure if Castiel would care about Jimmy's feelings, just because he doesn't know how humans work, and I'm sure Dean would just try to not think about it.

SPN is one of those fandoms that attracts ships like crazy.
Haha, is it really? I already have Merlin for that. I COULD ALWAYS USE MORE MULTISHIPPING THOUGH. Frex, Sam/Castiel also sounds interesting, in that 'displaced emotions' sort of way.

Well, not so much attract multiple ships as inspire instant and passionate, undying loyalty to ships that fans insist are screamingly OBVIOUS, can't you see it, you MUST see it, 'cause if you can't see that their love is so EPIC, you must be OBLIVIOUS, or worse, a Samgirl.

Apparently SPN does suffer somewhat of a tinfoil hat fandom. Misha's apparently okay with it (he's harnessed it with his quixotic minion thing) but Jared and Jensen are more wary - it doesn't help that they've been tackled by crazed fans at conventions before. And SPN is also the only fandom I've seen where people are honest-to-god engaging in RPS with the main stars, openly insisting that Jared and Jensen's friendship and respective engagements to their girlfriends are only a cover-up for their luuuuuuurve. Nobody really knows the truth, and yet the J2 shippers won't shut up.

Re: Jimmy. I'm not entirely sure about being awake. I've seen different treatments from different authors and hey, it's all good. I think it's also been confirmed that Jimmy wasn't killed off, he's still present and will show up in some future episode of season 5.

Pray tell, what is a Samgirl!

Man, I've heard such terrible things about the SPN fandom, from tinhatting to breaking Twitter to getting their hate on at the drop of a hat, or something. I heard it on the grapevine.

where people are honest-to-god engaging in RPS with the main stars
What do you mean? Like co-writing it with Misha? Or like that dude from Inglourious Basterds who found the IG kink meme and loved it, and like... started chatting with the fans about it.

Samgirls and Deangirls - the names for the respective sides of fandom who take their preferences for one of the brothers a leetle too far.

J2 RPS - like, whenever an item pops up on a gossip site regarding Jared or Jensen, the comments will always be full of shippers insisting how in love they must be with each other and sort of...treating them like fanfic characters caught up in a shipping war.

Inglourious Basterds and IG kink meme? What?

Wossname, Eli Roth? I think he's the guy who plays the Bear Jew on "Inglourious Basterds". He found the fic porn and was like "QUENTIN, CHECK THIS OUT!" and then Roth started, like, chatting with the fans, all raunchy-like, and everyone was into it.

WHICH DEAN/CASTIEL FIC MAKES YOU ACHE, FANDOM, WHICH.

This one does:
And I Wake Up Blind, Like My Dreams Were Too Bright

It's Dean/Castiel, Jimmy-centric, wrenching, and almost physically painful for me to read. What happens at the end can be in no way construed as a happy ending. :( I was still sobbing when I left a comment and while I definitely memoried it, I haven't gone back to reread.

Fic: "A Lever and a Place to Stand" (Arthur/Merlin, R). And further down: SPN inanities.

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