Fic: Cross You Off My List (Merlin/Arthur)

[strangeumbrella]

So I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but I think it's safe to say that it's been a while since I crossed the boundary of watching Merlin purely for the lols into the worrying territory of actual serious love for this show. I'm sorry. Actually, no, I'm not. There's been no big fandomy thing on tv for me since the last series of Doctor Who,

Comments

[moogle62]

OKAY MADDIE I HAVE NOT READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH YET BUT I HAVE TWO POINTS TO MAKE:

1) HURRAH YOU WROTE ARTHUR/MERLIN HURRAH
2) YOU ARE WRITING SPEECH WITHOUT SPEECHMARKS OKAY THAT IS ONE OF MY BIGGEST LITERARY KINKS EVERRRRRRR

BACK LATER, MORE CAPS EXPECTED

[th_esaurus]

I READ THIS

IT WAS REALLY CUTE.

[strangeumbrella]

LOL THANKS. \o/ Have you watched any of the show yet?

[th_esaurus]

About a minute? And then I turned it off because I was appalled. Maybe I just picked an episode with a particularly bad opening? Feel free to recommend me a favourite episode.

[strangeumbrella]

You...you really have to go into it not wanting it to be good. I've become so used to it being completely retarded that when it gets slightly better than that, it seems surprisingly great. So it might not ever be your cup of tea, but if you want to give another episode a try, general consensus seems to be that the most recent episode (1.10, "The Moment Of Truth" or something I think it was called) was the gayest gay ever to gay, so at least there's that. Like, my mum rang me up today and was all, "So I watched Merlin last night, and it was REALLY. GAY. How can anything even be that gay without them kissing or something."

[moogle62]

OH MADDIE

[moogle62]

- Arthur's angry partly because Merlin is insufferable and difficult and an idiot and deserves someone to be angry at him, but also partly because he knows Merlin is right, which is absolutely the worst bit of all.

"Look," he says, his voice low and dangerous, "if you leave now, and we don't speak of this matter again, your impertinence will be excused, and we will carry on as before." - THIS IS SO ARTHUR

- And this is where Arthur kisses Merlin very forcefully and very very angrily. When Arthur looks back on this, he thinks: perhaps it is some kind of instinctual human thing, because he has a mouth, and Merlin has a mouth, and they were very close together, and there is no other way out of that situation. Although sometimes, in very occasional fits of clarity, Arthur thinks his own theories can be pretty fucking moronic. - I LOVE THIS BIT, with Arthur's theory being simultaneously quite brilliant and a bit retarded in the brain. KISSING.

- There is a brief moment where they just stare at each other in shock, before Arthur turns

[strangeumbrella]

OH MOOG YOUR COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS THE BEST. ♥! Especially when there are three of them and one of them is literally just an exclamation and that's it. I am also weirdly into writing without speech marks! I don't really know what that says about us. Also "HURRAH" is possibly the best possible addendum to any line, and made me lol a lot.

WHEN DID I START LIKING THIS PROGRAMME PROPERLY
I KNOW RIGHT. Yesterday I was just flipping between spacking out completely and being all WHY AM I REACTING SO STRONGLY TO THIS SHOW, IT'S NOT MEANT TO BE VERY GOOD.

[moogle62]

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW MERLIN HAS DONE THIS TO ME

I just watched it on BBC iPlayer when I couldn't sleep some nights, and then suddenly it was like OH HAI MERLIN

I am also quite distressed by the fact that I rly rly like Arthur, who basically flies in the face of All Characters I Like, except that he redeems himself by being a) ridonkulously pretty, b) tormented and secretly good and c) GAAAAAAAAYYY

I re-read your Tennant/Derren Brown fics today, after a fit of Tennant-loving post-Einstein and Eddington, and they are STILL RLY GOOD TOO. ♥

[strangeumbrella]

Ah now, Arthur actually fits very nicely into the model of All Characters I Like, in that he is outwardly a twat but also ~complex~ and ~angry~ and ~tormented~ and ~quite gay~. Loz said something to me about how in some ways, he's kind of...similar to Prior? And that's when I understood why I liked him so much.

Also, I think we all had an unexpected Tennantfit last night, amirite. GOD E&E WAS SO FREAKING GOOD. (and aww, thank you! ♥)

[_faeriequeen]

Oh, boys! ♥

I liked how you wrote it from Arthur's POV as for some reason most of the fics I've read so far seem to be Merlin's POV or an omniscient narrator type thing (lol my Eng Lit knowledge is slowly dying a death). But yeah, I think you showed his thought process really well and I agree that before anything happens they would definitely have to have some sort of confrontation.

In conclusion: WRITE MOAR! You are always fab at whatever you write. :)

[strangeumbrella]

lol Eng Lit knowledge; that sounds good enough to me. But anyway, thank you! I've read quite a lot of Merlin POV too, though some of the best fics I've read have been Arthur POV. I think it might be to do with the fact that Merlin's a pretty open character, and he doesn't really try to lie or conceal his motivations that much (apart from the whole "not being magic" thing, but I mean he even managed to reveal that to Gaius within about three seconds of meeting him), whereas Arthur is much more ~complex~ and difficult and has to pretty much stamp out emotion all the time, and so trying to work out what makes him tick is particularly challenging and interesting. :D

[_faeriequeen]

You speak the truth. I shall go and investigate further!