keeping the fun parts

[cimorene]

For this poll, no real knowledge of Merlin, the new tv show and its associated fandom, is necessary. (In fact, that's kind of the case with the whole show and the whole fandom, too: no briefing required, dive right in!)

[Poll #1346855]

I kind of love that the popular choice, for question #2, is to slash Gwen with Morgana in the young and shiny Merlin fandom. And then there's OT4, which hadn't occurred to me, but I kind of love that someone did that, too.

Comments

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

When I first saw a bit of Merlin promotion here, I started to get my back up 'blah blah, Merlin is an old guy, Guinevere is not a servant, blah blah canoncakes', and then remembered how much I love the concept of Smallville (not the execution, yikes) and how fabulously malleable the Arthurian legend is anyway.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! Canon hasn't been so much discarded as torpedoed and raided for (smoking, blackened) parts.

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the Homoerotic booty that they picked up, too!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

But did they pick it out of the wreckage or was it an after-effect when they went about putting the bits together?

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

With the Amount of homoerotic undercurrents in the very idea of Chivalry as portrayed by typical Arthurian legend? Definitely part of the wreckage, just less obscured now that Gwen is a servant and the age thing is sorted. :D :D :D like washing the mud off of a found coin!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

But since Merlin himself (like all deuses ex machina) stands outside the traditional medieval courtly power structure as well as the knightly culture... really I think the whole 'devotion' and 'genius behind the throne' and stuff like that is more suggestive, as elements of Arthurian legend go.

[bluesbell.livejournal.com]

There is no tickybox for Guinevere/Lancelot!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

That is also canonical, but I suppose Guinevere/Morgana isn't anymore or less of a solution...

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

I vote Gwen/Morgana AND She's their Beard! :D :D :D

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I knew I forgot something!

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

Me also. :)

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

i see show-based gwen/morgana as its own thing, not just a solution. i also consider the show really bad, tacky, hilarious and yet awesome arthurian legend fanfiction. i am not bothered by that in the slightest.

[bluesbell.livejournal.com]

i see show-based gwen/morgana as its own thing, not just a solution.

Yes. Exactly.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I would have to have some experience of the show to have an opinion about the idea of G/M from the angle of its internal merits or whatever, but from the angle of "reading a lot of Arthur/Merlin" from people's bookmarks it... doesn't seem to have much of a separate, not-a-b-plot existence. Which is sadly common even with quite beloved secondary pairings that have nothing to do with the main one, in most fandoms. They usually have to be pretty big before they outgrow monoshippiness.

[lexandros.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm just not getting what you're saying here, but wouldn't it be expected that in Arthur/Merlin fic the Gwen/Morgana element is written as secondary to the main pairing? The gwenmorganabbc is quite active if one is looking for 'proper' femslash.

As for the actual show, I don't think I've enjoyed watching a femslashy pairing on screen as much since Xena and Gabrielle.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

yeah, of course it's going to be secondary if it's in a fic that's primarily arthur/merlin. but even in those fics, it's not usually a device to get gwen out of the way. there is definitely some gwen/morgana show-canon support and there are many devotees to the pairing and many primarily gwen/morgana fics. no, not nearly as many as there are a/m, but i've been kind of pleased to see how much love there is for the lady-pairing in this fandom so far.

[lexandros.livejournal.com]

but even in those fics, it's not usually a device to get gwen out of the way.

Yes. I think one aspect of the show that really appeals to me, and which I think is true of most of the fic as well, is that all relationships, whether Gwen/Merlin, Morgana/Arthur, Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Arthur or Merlin/Morgana (and then of course there's Lancelot who goes with everyone *g*) are presented in such a way that they don't exclude other characters or other relationships or are antagonistic towards them. And this of course sets the scene for the OT4 (or OT5 if Lancelot gets to play too) readings of the show, as well.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I would still say that in most of the stories I have read with Gwen/Morgana B-plots, even if the literal/plot-level events of the story did not have the purpose of taking Gwen out of the equation - which isn't necessary since I gather that there is no proper romance with her and Arthur in the show yet - it's still the primary, or one of the primary, meta-functions. How much merit or popularity the pairing has on its own and how it functions in canon, or in individual stories, is not the same as how it functions in the fanon of Arthur/Merlin, which is what I was talking about.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I'm saying that it's funny that the Arthur/Merlin meta-fanon way of dealing with the most potentially het-threatening female character is to make her lesbian. I wasn't and am not saying anything about the canonical or fanonical nature of Gwen/Morgana (except perhaps "haha, that's cool" by implication, if you squint).

However, it's not automatically expected that one pairing will be secondary in a multi-pairing story unless the fandom is hugely dominated by another pairing (at least, if you search by pairing tags, and not via shipper communities). If I'm browsing for, say, Ray/Bob or Sam/Teal'c or something, in most stories they're the side-plot to a Frank/Gerard or Jack/Daniel story. But if I'm browsing for Fraser/Kowalski, results where they're the side-pairing and the A-plot is Vecchio/Stella are going to be rare.

[copracat]

Someone's just posted a boy!Morgana/Gwen story which strikes me as relatively rare in non-Anime fandoms. Femslash seems to be very much established relationship schmoop and porn. I'm looking forward to reading it.

There's also pretty much at least one new Morgana/Gwen story every day which is relatively prolific.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

That prolific, really? That's pretty cool!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The insistence on youth in both canon and (predictably) fanon saddens me every time. So I ticked 'Merlin's age' but out of annoyance and not because it's an obstacle to their slashiness (no! no! spring/winter, yes please - Elijah/Christopher Lee, bring it on, and so forth) but because it seems to be an obstacle to pretty-obsessed fans.

*end of rant*

*goes back to ogle some more pretty and be inconsistent*