The Ladies' Room

"Tony, the Hulk isn't erectile dysfunction..."

Omggggggg. I'm going through my 'Marked for Later' on AO3, and apparently a few years ago I thought I'd have time later for a lot of Tony/Bruce. THANK YOU, PAST SELF!! ...which is not something I say unironically very often, lol. But I am loving this. :D :D

Damn it, I need an icon now. #fandomproblems

So, as you either know or probably deduced, I have been a little busy recently; real life is some of it but most of it, to be brutally honest, has been this thing called Summer Pornathon. It's a Merlin fandom thing that's gone five rounds, like its show did, and involves writing a 500-750 word thing, voting on ~75 of those written things, and usually writing at least a few sentences for a bonus thing -- all three, weekly, for seven weeks.

It's surprisingly intense. The sheer amount of writing and reading, and amount of social interaction, is daunting week after week, and, although it's pretty much the friendlist competition known to humankind, it's still a competition so comes with self-doubt and disappointment.

This week, though, reminded me of the flip side-- This year and last, some of my best writing ever, full stop, came from PThon. I think it's because I excel at short forms. Brevity is the one compliment I got on my writing from my high school teachers. (To be fair, I was a dick in high school, and barely did any homework.)

Anyway. Without further ado:

The bonus challenge turned into a thing longer than an actual challenge entry. >.> The theme was, essentially, Bring Your Merlin to Work Day.

Hidden Dragons
The one where Merlin reads books onto tape.
Merlin/Arthur pre-romance, friendship, gen, idk what to call it
R for language
835 words

The actual challenge was about beds and sleeping and such, and I wrote and wrote... and then I had a story with no porn that was over wordcount but to which I was incredibly attached. So here that is.

Like When I Noticed Your Nobility
The one where Merlin dreams and Arthur comes back.
Merlin/Arthur pre-romance? (seems to be a theme here) (with a plot twist which a warning would spoil, just...fyi)
R for language and sexual situations
949 words

I finished that like, four hours before the deadline, at my parents' house, and was like, 'Well... fuck.' So this happened, in like an hour. And I'm not sorry at all (okay maybe a little) because it tied for second place, and tied with tourdefierce which really is like having a tie with the Yankees, okay. She's just that good.

Once a Princess, Always a Princess
The one where Merlin's impatient with a newly-returned Arthur, and it gets kind of silly.
NC-17
908 words