Came Across This On The Cover Of An Old Magazine At Work Today. It Was Published In Epic Magazine In

2 genres of fanfiction:

1) put that guy into situations

2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST 

Allow me to offer you all merthur fanart… referenced from La belle dame sans merci, 1893 by John William Waterhouse… I love them so much

I need to do more merthur fanart soon 🫶

A 5200-year-old pottery bowl from Shahr-e Sukhteh bearing what could possibly be the world's oldest example of animation. It shows 5 images of a wild goat leaping, and if you put them in a sequence (like a flip book), the wild goat leaps to nip leaves off a tree. Museum of Ancient Iran

Day 1

Dear Hunith,

your son has safely reached Camelot, which I think is most unfortunate. I am plagued with questions over your reasoning for sending him here. He's betrayed his secret with me five seconds through the door of my apartments; had there been a patient there, I would be writing you for arrangements for his remains. He also seems, from bits of our conversation, unaware of his father's identity but that seems too odd to be true to me, considering you of all people should know very well what sleeps underneath the castle.

I shall try to keep his as safe as possible, but please, call him back home. My heart could hardly take much more of this,

Gaius

Day 2

Dear Hunith,

Your menace of a son is in jail.

Merlin/Arthur | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 500

Emotional Hurt/Comfort | Survival | Injury Recovery

For @merlinmicrofic with the prompt "starting over"

Merlin and Arthur find refuge in a small broken down cottage

☾ ☾ ☾

Before Arthur knew what was happening, his hand was on the hilt of his sword. He almost evicted Merlin from the mildewed thing they called a bed. 

Cold hands found his neck, his face in the dark. “It’s just thunder, Arthur.”

He lay back down and Merlin lay on his chest. Their hearts slowed together. The rain on the broken roof went on.

“I’ll work out the spell, I promise.”

Gone, for now, were Merlin’s entreaties for Arthur to return to Camelot. They would face whatever came next together.

Arthur drifted, until water dropped down on his forehead. He groaned.

Arthur strode across the small, disused field, carrying a hare by its ears. It was dusk and ahead of him was their temporary salvation, a little lopsided cottage, with a field of its own taking root on what was left of the roof. 

When he let himself inside Merlin was there to greet him, making no secret of the fact he had been peering anxiously though the little window. 

“I caught a hare,” Arthur told him.

Merlin grimaced but nodded. “I heard it screaming.”

They needed more than the meagre meals they had made of fried hazel catkins and cleavers.

Merlin was making use of a sturdy ash rod they had found while they were still running, the burns on the outside of Merlin’s right leg and his feet were still healing and the tightened skin gave him a limp. But he was dispelling any illusions Arthur had of his frailty, advancing on him now like a storm.

Arthur dropped the rusted hoe he’d been using.

“I told you! There’s no use in planting when we’ll just have to run again!”

“Your spell...”

“There’s no spell!”

“There could be if-”

“If I try? You do it, if it’s so easy!”

The ground was uneven here in the green wood. Merlin told him that this place had been used by a charcoal maker, he had no doubt that the earth here had once smoked hellishly. He checked their traps. The woods went on. But where was Merlin? Where did he leave him? Feelings of temporary safety, images of holding Merlin in a suntrap somewhere fled from him. He panicked, called his name.

Then an answer. “-thur! Arthur!”

He saw him, ran, caught him.

“Arthur! I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” he soothed, then he grinned. “My spell worked a little too well, then?”

Their little shelter was golden with the morning sun and so, just for a moment, were Merlin’s eyes. Arthur found he couldn’t let go of his hands, feeling they might just fall to their knees in relief otherwise. They were safe, anyone who tried to find them now would be gently guided away.

“Promise me this isn’t forever, Arthur,” Merlin beseeched quietly. “Promise me we’ll return and you’ll be king.”

“We will return, when the time is right, when you’re healed and we have a plan.” He pulled him close. “Until then…”

“Until then…” Merlin’s eyes fell to Arthur's lips.

I also love how audio fiction has always been a highly experimental medium, and likely always will be.

Financially, it has a low barrier for entry, a low point of diminishing returns, and a relatively small potential market. It's basically impervious to being taken over by giant studios - even the "big" networks like RQ would be considered indie in the film or game dev industries. With the exception of the BBC, they tend to dip their toes into audio fiction, figure out quickly that, although it's beloved by its fans, there isn't that kind of money in it, and proceed to leave us alone forever.

Then there's the fact that it propagates largely by word of mouth. Audio dramas owe everything to obsessive nerds forcing nearly everyone they know to listen to that podcast they just discovered.

So it's more about the thing being actually good, plus a decent amount of luck and persistence.

There's no optimally marketable success formula being relentlessly enforced by gatekeeping jellybean-counters because they don't exist here. So people make whatever they want. So it draws people to it who are looking for something different. And the cycle feeds itself, and the medium gets weirder (in a good way).

It may very well ALWAYS remain the wild west of storytelling.

So listeners tell your friends about that podcast!

And creators, make the weird thing! There are no rules! It can be an hour long or Breaker Whiskey short, or Re:Dracula all over the place length. It can be another tape recorder framing or another voicemail framing or basically just an audiobook. It can be any genre or blend of genres. This creative space gives us the opportunity to be our own target audience in a way rarely found elsewhere.

If you enjoy the thing you're making, odds are somone else out there will enjoy it too. I've already found this to be true, and my time as an audio fiction creator is still just beginning.

Peace and love on every planet, y'all!

life is so ruthless so i must love you as hard as i can. basically

"You don't know me. I'm not the same person anymore."

"That's okay. I'll get to know you again."

arthur’s death