rosie_rues

Title: A New Low (1/2)
Words: 15000
Pairing: Arthur/ Merlin, background Gwen/Morgana
Disclaimer: This is written purely for entertainment, and I am aware that I do not own the BBC's version of these characters.
Summary: Written for this prompt at kinkme_merlin, which asked for diabetic!Merlin stuck in a lift with Arthur. It grew from there.
Warnings: An odd bit of swearing. If I was some other author, I might imply that this was sweet enough to cause a chronic metabolic disease. I'm not that author, but this is pure romantic comedy of the fluffiest sort.

( With all his heart, he wishes that the lift would move, so he can get to that chocolate cake and then everything will be okay. )

Title: Shake Your Windows and Rattle Your Walls
Pairing (one-sided Arthur/Merlin UST)
Rating: PG
Words: 3113
Warnings: Nothing but a generous helping of angst. Spoilers for series 3 characters existing, but nothing else.
Disclaimer: I do not own this variation of the characters, and have no intention of profiting from this fic.
Summary: They're all at Oxford in the 1960s, and Arthur's infatuated.
Notes: OMG, I'm going to write a happy sequel to this right now. My fluff-loving little heart can't believe I wrote it. That said, for context - homosexuality wasn't decriminalised in the UK until 1967, and the first Tory MP to voluntarily come out did so in 2002 (MPs from other parties and ex-MPs had done so before then).

( Gwaine thinks port tastes better from wineglasses )

First of all, my thanks to AlexElizabeth for A Conversation in Hollywood, to tagalongcookies for postmarked (a study in contrasts, to bookchan for Different Dreams and to katayla for Wintle's Wonders All Grown Up. So much love for this fandom this year, and all of these stories explore the girls' future in brilliant and satisfying ways. Thank you, wonderful writers all :)

( Now, for what I wrote: Chrestomanci (of course ~_^); Gearworld; Earthsea; Invisible Cities )

So, I haven't got very far with my traditional reading from the end of the archive, probably because there's just so much good fic there. Here are a few favourites, including Yuletide Madness as well as the main archive.



( Fandoms S-Z: Scarlet Pimpernel; Spirited Away | Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; The Sopranos – Alan Warner; Spindles End; Six Swans; Swallows and Amazons; Tortall; The Tough Guide to Fantasyland; Twelfth Night; Ursula Vernon; Valdemar; Young Wizards )

Eeeee, Yuletide! I was lucky enough to get three Yuletide fics this year (and a treat yet to be revealed), all for Noel Streatfeild's Wintle's Wonder's. I'm pretty sure all these were written at the last minute, as I saw my request come up on the pitch hit list, which makes the high quality of them all even more awesome. They all explore different future relationships of Rachel and the others, and all speculate about the girls' future in an interesting and thoughtful way. All had spot-on characterisation.

A Conversation in Hollywood has Hilary making an unexpected visit to Rachel and an exploration of how their futures may be subtly different from what they expected.

Postmarked (a study in contrasts) shows how, despite the seeming differences in their lives, Rachel and Hilary never grow apart, with lots of lovely little details about their respective lives, and a really vital, lively Hilary.

Wintle's Wonders All Grown Up is about Rachel and Dulcie as adults, forming a tentative friendship as Dulcie tries to decide what she wants for herself. This has a really interesting persepctive on Dulcie.

Thank you, all my anonymous authours. You're wonderful. :)

And I also then received a Madness fic in the same fandom: Different Dreams is all about Hilary and a possible future for her.

I wrote these for kinkme_merlin a while back and finally remembered them and decided to cross-post to AO3. I actually rather like all of these, not least because they were the few little bright sparks of fic I wrote in a long, long period of writer's block.

Firelight - Arthur/Merlin pre-slash, PG - The crackle of the fire was the loudest sound in the chill of the night. Above them, the sky was clear, stars blazing in the darkness, and the frost was biting down. It was too early in the year for snow, but the earth was like steel beneath Merlin's feet, so cold he could feel it through the thin soles of his shoes. The wood he had piled up before dusk was already glittering and he was getting quite proficient at throwing it into the fire really fast, so the frost didn't have time to melt all over his bare fingers.

Solace - Arthur/Merlin pre-slash, teen - It's a long time after the battle before Arthur has the chance to sleep. There's walls to be secured in the captured fort, captives to be imprisoned and questioned, wounded men who need to see their commander still standing and the dying who need a hand on theirs as night falls. By the time things are starting to calm down, he's swaying on his feet.

Per Ardua Ad Astra - Doctor Who Crossover, Arthur/Merlin, Amy/Rory, long years of waiting, PG - Merlin knew about the others, of course, about all the sleepers: not just Arthur, but Drake snuggled down in some Sussex hammock, the nameless king under Alderley Edge, and the sleeper under Cardiff's rift (who had also been a memorable back alley shag in 1873, but that was time travel for you).

Huh, I wonder if my telly even still works. I may be watching this episode off iPlayer.

*goes to apply fist to side*

camelotsolstice reveals are up! I wrote Days of Old and Days to Be (Regency AU, R, 18100 words, Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Lancelot).

I'm going to answer comments and talk about it in a little more detail at the weekend when I have a bit more free time (I've been aching to talk about the challenges of historical AUs for weeks and weeks now), but for the moment I'm just going to say that I've been flailing gleefully over the response to this for weeks. This fandom just keeps astounding me.

I was also delighted with The Woes of Kings and their Advisers which pasty_pants wrote for me. <3

Awoke after slightly less than four hours of sleep to find the Archive open. I have two stories, both for Catherine Christian's The Sword and the Flame / Pendragon. I really thought that this was the little fandom that would defeat even Yuletide. As I said back in November, I was regarding the nomination as a chance to spread some love for a very good book. Whoever wrote this story has gone out and written for something they didn't offer *loves*

Yuletide Author, you are amazing. You went above and beyond the confines of Yuletide. Whether you knew the book already or read it for the first time to write these, you are brilliant. I'm already wildly excited about the stories and I haven't even read them yet. I'll leave you a proper, coherent comment later when I've got through the first bit of the day and woken up enough to read and comment thoughtfully, but know you've already made this a very good Christmas.

And for the odd Catherine Christian fan on my flist, they're here:

Three Things Worth Holding, three vignettes, two slash, one femslash.

Calling the King, Gen, Ygern-centric.

^____^

Merry Christmas all.

Holy fuck, that was tight *just posted her Yuletide story with 5 minutes to spare*

So, I went to stay with my sister this weekend, thinking, hey, we'll drive back on Monday, I'll have all of Monday evening to finish it off and post it. Tight, but not quite a crisis. Except it took us 9 and a quarter hours to drive from Huntingdon to Guildford (just under 100 miles). Why? Because the UK is allergic to snow.

We got to my parents just after 11, where my mum kindly announced that she was putting us all up for the night and I went, "But, but, but, Yuletide!" because the story was on my laptop in my flat the next town over and I don't drive.

Luckily, I had a print out of the whole thing that I'd been handwriting the final scenes on, so my dad, who is a hero, lent me his laptop and scanned the first fifteen pages for me. I've spent the last three hours editing out scanner burps and adding a really flabby final scene, but it was done on time. I did not default.

(Not that I'm happy with the story, but I'm never happy with things written to a deadline and sometimes you get to a point where you just have to stop. I'd have needed twenty years to tell that story well enough to satisfy myself).

And, hey, no more imminent deadlines. I can watch Merlin tomorrow ^_^