merlin

[cimorene]

So I've started reading Merlin fic. At first I was thinking I might watch the show, but then I caved and read some without watching and now I'm not sure whether I'll want to or not - I have peculiar preferences about historical and historically inaccurate media that don't really make any sense, although it's possible there's an internal logic I haven't bothered to articulate; and I have definite preferences about the King Arthur legend, which I'm very fond of because it's my mom's Favourite Story-Thing!! the way that the Persephone/Hades - Inanna - Cupid/Psyche - East of the Sun, West of the Moon constellation of myths is mine. Since I share much of my mother's taste in literature, I've read most of her books on the subject.

(This entire paragraph is going to be a digression, but I just can't go by without talkiing about my favourite Arthur legend literature - I love that Saberhagen incorporates it into his Dracula novels, but I'm not too keen on the way he actually handles it there; on the other hand I adore Merlin's Bones. And I really like the incorporation of the legend, as completely and utterly silly as it is - cosmic Quiz Bowl LOL - into The Dark Is Rising. I really hate The Mists of Avalon, which is actually my mom's favourite because it's all feminist~. I mean, I'm a big fan of feminist myself, but I just can't stand anything MZB's ever written. I've never read The Once and Future King because I didn't get around to it, or Le Morte d'Arthur partially because it was boring but also because my parents told me that whatsisface wrote it while in prison for the rape of a teenaged girl, and I refused to read any more after that. But my favourite literary treatment is one I got from the Science Fiction Book Club in high school, and it was a reprint of something from the 50s or 60s I think, not by anybody particularly famous or anything, and I honestly can't remember who it was by or what it was called. Hopefully I'll be able to find it some time when I visit my parents. Failing that... cleolinda's King Arthur in 15 Minutes.)

Anyway, when my delicious network page was suddenly full of Arthur/Merlin bookmarks, it was quite difficult to resist, especially because if I didn't I'd have to go hunting for things to read further afield. Easier by far to follow links from established link-ers. The fandom's in that young, playful stage where most of the fiction is short and really gay and full of enthusiasm, too. I'm getting the impression that the show is really, really gay, even more so than you'd usually think from reading slash as an introduction to canon. Which makes quite good reading! And it's highly accessible to non-watchers, I think, which is always a plus in fandom.

It'd never have occurred to me to slash Arthur with Merlin, as it apparently did to the show's creators/writers, so that's something. Although really, the two of them are a bit gay in The Dark is Rising too, albeit in a kind of weird, We're-Both-Gods-Or-Something-And-Anyway-It's-Like-Slashing-Gandalf-With-Gandalf way.

Comments

[copracat]

When two handsome young men who share "a destiny" are sleeping side by side and head to toe and one young man bats the other young man gently in the face with his really quite attractive and remarkably-clean-for-the-Middle-Ages foot? There's really nowhere else to go.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I think the show's writers, and not the legend itself, are responsible for that, so again... um... props to them!

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

i have to admit, the flood of fic is why i started watching the show. (that and i'm caught up with criminal minds.) i can't really recommend it (especially since you know you have particular hang-ups) because it is not just silly but on occasion annoyingly so; at the same time, it's earnestness and total devotion to its own ridiculousness is really endearing. XD

haha. gandalf/gandalf. XD

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, that is the impression I've been getting from the fic!