Blame it on the vile and despicable influence of gid_hanasheh and motherlessguns, but when camelot_fleet threw a still-ongoing poetry jam, I ended up writing pre-series Pendragons fanpoetry. idek. The Noble and Ancient House of Pendragon, man! Powerful families full of hubris, doomed to fall, tugging you into a position where the only right choice is betrayal. <3333 Pendragonnnnsssss

Yeah, I dunno. I don't usually write poems, so maybe this is just a fic with weird line breaks, idk. I'm kinda nervous about it, ngl. Two poem recs before we get going: "How to Tell a Story" by Shira Erlichman is about the storytelling and appropriation discussions fandom's been having. "Ginsberg" by Julia Vinograd is about how Allen Ginsberg is a dick.

Okay.


This Ancient House
Merlin. Arthur, Morgana, Uther. G. Warnings for Arthur being a transparent douche.

( with your helm on her head, with your sword in her hand )

[originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/28223.html | comments]

For Merlin Artword.

Title: The Family Business
Author/Artist: whynot & gwen
Fandom: BBC Merlin
Characters/Ships: Arthur, Morgana. AU fusion with season 1 of Supernatural.
Rating: PG13
Summary: When Uther disappears on a case, Arthur comes for Morgana at Oxford, and they fall back into the life she tried to leave behind. ~2100 words
A/N: Thank you very much to hivesofactivity and netgirl_y2k for the beta and Britpick.

Teaser:


They drive up the M1 with the windows down and Morgana snoring gently in the passenger seat.

Dear my camelotsolstice anonymoose,

This is all your fault!

<3,
Lass

PS: Marry me.


Knightfellas
Merlin. Arthur, Morgana, Merlin, Gwen (Uther, William, Alvarr, Lancelot). PG13. 3841 words inspired by this mafia!Pendragons AU art. Warning: canon death, violence. Thanks to bantha_fodder for betareading!
Three things that aren't supposed to happen at Gaius's birthday, Pellinore's funeral, and Leon & Forridel's wedding. Scenes from a mafia AU.

( There are a lot of things you can store in a meat freezer. )

A missing scene from Just Lie Back and Think of Camelot (Merlin, Arthur/Merlin, R-ish).

223 words, rated PG.

( what does mugwort do anyway? )

Another thing allothi said I'd never write: "Hardyesque tragic melodrama. Morgana and Merlin fall hopelessly in love but society would never tolerate their class boundary-crossing romance, woez. So they get sekritly married and end up in horrible, angst-ridden situations when, for example, Arthur finds Morgana hiding in Merlin's chambers, jumps to the almost-right conclusions, keeps the secret to preserve Morgana's name but fires Merlin, WOEZ. Merlin leaves to be a starving peasant farmer. They turn out not to be married after all due to a confusing plot twist. Someone (probably Merlin) gets life-threateningly ill after sleeping all night in the open during a Terrible Storm. Morgana goes to nurse him back to health, reputation be damned! If they have had a Tragic Bastard Child at any point, it probably ends up hanging itself. Merlin starts to fall for Gwen at just the moment acceptance for his and Morgana's relationship is beginning to seem like a realistic possibility. Everything Morgana owns is destroyed in an act of god. She agrees to marry Arthur. Merlin goes mad with jealousy. Many people die. Possibly all together, by drowning, in the raging waters of the overflowing river. Survivors are psychologically scarred for life. But the scenery is exceptionally romantic and interesting-looking."

She remains correct. Having never read any Hardy, I wrote this instead.

~*The Ties That Bind*~
Merlin. 1476 words. 19th-century star-cross'd lovers AU. He was a punk, she did ballet. He from the lower class, and she from the upper. MELODRAMA ENSUES. Merlin/Morgana, Arthur/Morgana-ish. PG13.

( One isn't friends with the help. It isn't done. )

allothi listed a few things I would never write. One was "King Arthur and Queen Gwen conquering the rest of Albion because those other monarchs obviously don't treat their people the way a civilised leader should." Well, I sure showed her!

Land & Bread
521 words. Rated PG. Warnings: a head on a pike?

( They execute the king in the center of town for all his people to see. )

puff/pass
An AU vignette written for marycontraire in which Merlin and Will smoke Arthur up for the first time. PG13? 218 words. Warning for recreational drug use?

Also, how badass is this icon. <3 Gaius.

( suddenly he's hacking his lungs out )

Written for the crackfest, originally posted here. 263 words.


( Barack is awful at swordfighting. )

What is this, senioritis? Spring semester blues? I'm well on my way to being overeducated and dehumanized and it makes me feel spiritually bloated, but also empty. But then I'm like, if these are my problems, then I'm doing pretty good. Don't cry, emo Lass! :(

Writing what I know: I haven't been doing it. Which makes me think hey, what about a fanfic writer AU? Y'know, the one where Morgana is a university student, and she and Gwen have debates over lunch about the finer points of LJ comm posting etiquette ("Post it to a few, sure, but I don't need the damn thing popping up on my flist eight times!"), but they also worry about summer internships and absent-minded thesis advisers who never return your emails on time.

But what show would they fic?! What epic bromantic story can serve as an adequate parallel to 'Merlin', that most unparalleled wonder of ahistorical crack? I toyed with 'Harry Potter' because it's such a mainstay, and Achilles and Patroclus (in which they are not cousins), and Plato and Socrates (in which they are the same age). And then, LIGHTBULB: the show is about Karl Marx (played by Colin Morgan, heretofore known for his stagework) and Friedrich Engels (played by Bradley James, heretofore known for his abs), in the springtime days of youth. Before they were revolutionaries, before the Manifesto and Capital and those horrific beards, they were just Karl and Friedrich, engaging in bar brawls with Prussian loyalists and other such rakish things. They are also trying to win the heart of Jenny von Westphalen (played by Angel Coulby), a young woman of bourgeois lineage whose beauty and kindness ignites both their passions. So, Karl and Friedrich have jealous spats disguised as accusations of hypocrisy! Anthony Head stars as Friedrich's father, the textile tycoon who disapproves of all things non-capitalist and from whom Friedrich steals money to support his BFF Karl. Katie Morgan plays the quick-witted barmaid with a thirst for revolution, and Joe Dempsie plays one of Karl's many former BFFs whom he eventually dumped for being ideologically unsound. It is a show about LOVE and FRIENDSHIP and FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS.

Okay, so that's the show. In the throes of fannish glee, Morgana tells her stepbrother Arthur about it, which doesn't end well because he is an economics student (to please his father) and he just scoffs all over her face. "There are so many things wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin," he says, but Morgana retorts, "You're missing the point!"

"Which is...?"

"Friedrich/Karl, the OTP that ate fandom!" she crows. "Gwen already had to reformat her laptop because she got adware going on sketchy websites trying to find the newest episode. Thank god she backed up her Friedrich/Karl porn fic. We spent ages hashing out the characterization for that one."

"Oh Christ." Arthur holds up a finger. "First of all, I never want to know. Second of all," he holds up a second finger, "why would you worry about characterization in porn?"

"Because--"

"Third of all: see 'first of all'. If you put half as much effort into your studies as you do into historical porn--"

"Stop it, you sound like Uther."

Another time, over drinks, Gwen says to Morgana, "If we were a TV show, who would people ship?" Her favorite game. "I think quite a lot would ship you/me."

Morgana shrugs. "Probably." And tries not to smile like an idiot when, later, on their way back to their apartment, Gwen slips her arm around Morgana's waist to steady herself, giggly and warm and affectionate.

"I can capslock about you until the comments collapse," Gwen declares, and Morgana kisses her cheek, replies likewise.


And I don't even know what these next set of drabbles are. They've been sitting on my hard-drive for an age. Again, I was feeling like I never write what I know, but that I can't write original characters anymore, so I guess these are sort of a stepping stone. I can perhaps call them the 'directionless 20-something living in New England' AU. Perhaps there will be more in this 'verse, who knows.

( Weymouth and Tilton are on the same commuter line to Boston, so Merlin and Will had made all the usual promises to stay in touch. )

What has two thumbs and is off to the dining hall. That's right!

I have a feeling I'll be selecting moods based more on the animation rather than as a true representation of my feelings. Look at those keys go!

Anyway, ineptshieldmaid was asking for ficlets about love (or not love) and FIVE THOUSAND WORD LATER. Man. In conclusion, commentfic will be the death of me. My reaction to slashdragonsays was "Awesome!", quickly followed by "No, Lass, BACK AWAY. YOU KNOW HOW YOU GET."


The Ink Still Drying
Merlin. Merlin/Morgana, Arthur/Merlin, Morgana/Gwen, Arthur/Gwen. Rated R. Thank you to stealingpennies for her beta; all remaining fail are mine.
Futurefic in which Merlin begins to remember the future, Morgana reaches for her destiny, Arthur is kind of dense, and Gwen isn't an idiot.
ETA: The awesomeness that is zempasuchil has done an erasure of this fic, entitled "Then Sing". Click here to read it.
ETA 2: DVD commentary now available.

( The Ink Still Drying )