Beyond the Neon Trees Masterpost (Big Bang 2011)
Title: Beyond the Neon Trees
Fandom: Merlin
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Merlin, with a side helping of the Knights, Hunith and Uther.
Rating: R
Warnings: Modern!AU; Mentions of underage drinking, drug abuse, gang violence, verbal domestic abuse, minor character death.
Final Word Count: 56,645
Summary: Merlin’s life isn’t perfect, he drinks, he steals and even has a few puffs of the good stuff just to get by some days. He has his friends, his art and his mum, who has to juggle three jobs just to make ends meet. He also has Arthur, who brings with him a whole new heap of problems. Falling in love with your best friend is never easy; especially when you’re living in the deadbeat rundown Holly Street Estate in East London.
I wanted to make a brief note to highlight that the area this story is set was once real in East London. The council estate I have the boys live in has since gone under a huge amount of refurbishment, but for the purpose of this fic the old setting of Hackney has been used. I like to hope the atmosphere will be put across well in the story but if anyone’s interested, a brief overview/pictures of the area can be seen here
Disclaimer: Merlin and it's characters are owned by the BBC and Shine. Sadly they are not my playthings that I can smoosh together.
Art Work: The gorgeous viennajones made some truly beautiful graphics which are embeded throughout the story but which you can also view on her journal here
Notes: I can’t believe this mad spin of a story is finally complete. This has really been a labour of love and a pain in the ass in equal measure. I really didn’t expect it to snowball to this size but it has a been a brilliant journey never the less. A huge part of this story being posted at all is down to the amazing viennajones who has not only been the most epic of cheerleaders but was the biggest sweetheart for stepping up last minute and becoming such a wonderful artist! She has pushed me and encouraged me to keep going even when stresses of Uni took its toll. Your help and advice and suggestions have been invaluable hun; I honestly couldn’t have done it without you holding my hand the entire way! Plus your graphics; cover art and scene breakers are utterly gorgeous, everyone should go see her wonderful creations and go shower her with praise now! art
To my amazing betas blue-eyed-1987 who’s speedy brilliant skills has made this process so much easier - you have been such a great soundboard for my whinging indecisions over scenes so thank you! And to bananahater336 for scouring over this with a fine tooth-comb and pulling me up on many embarrassing errors. Any mistakes left in here are totally my own.
Also my dear dear zeldona who is not only a truly beautiful friend to me, but a master of Photoshop who has made me some absolutely stunning cover art for the accompanying fanmix - Unsurprisingly I listened to plenty of achingly beautiful songs whilst writing this that mean a lot to me and the story. You can listen and download here
Major love to the_muppet for running this tidy ship and creating this wonderful fest for us all to indulge in.
This has been my first big bang experience and I hope you all enjoy the read!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 {Epilogue}
pdf || AO3 || fanmix