Cover of Merlin fanfic by Procoffeinating with lettering by Jenrose
Complementarity, Entanglement and the Uncertainty of Destiny —or— A Feminist Mage in King Arthur’s Court
Summary:
Merlin was once told that Arthur would rise again at the hour of Camelot’s greatest need. But a thousand years pass, with no Arthur. When the last war comes, and the world dies, and Arthur still doesn’t return, Merlin suddenly realises that the hour of Camelot’s greatest need… was a thousand years ago. Sometimes he’s a bit slow on the uptake. Fortunately, he’s figured out how to go back. What would YOU do if you had 2000 years of experience in the body of a 17 year old, and absolutely nothing left to lose?
Okay, so I started watching Merlin early in 2016, and was immediately captivated by the characters and irate at what the writers did to them over time. I managed to get through the series by basically chanting to myself, “The fanfiction is gonna be great!”
It was. I read a lot of fanfic, not thinking I would write any myself because there was so much.
Then I started rewatching the first season, and hit episode 8, and realized, “If Merlin could go back in time and fix things, this is the moment he’d go back to.”
And then I thought, “You know, in at least one Merlin story, Merlin lived backward. And in this series, Merlin is able to control time, a little.”
The next thing I knew, I was diving into writing the denouement everyone needed after that horrible series finale.
Someone asked me while I was writing, “Where is the conflict?”
And I said, “The series had enough conflict for a thousand lifetimes, shut up.”
So this is the angstiest fluff I’ve ever written, or the fluffiest angst, but it ends up being an engaging “What if” that gives us everything we wanted:
- Merlin using his magic freely, and to great effect
- Merlin stopping Uther, saving Morgana and Arthur and pretty much everyone
- Arthur alive and well and completely gobsmacked
- An overt love story
- Lance and Gwen finding their happy ending
- A giant magical library
- Uncorrupted female characters who are not evil or spies
- And oh, yeah… humanity is saved, war is over, and hunger is ended.
- And that’s all in under a week!
The neat thing about this project is that I signed up for a Big Bang, and was assigned an amazing artist, Procoffeinating. She did so much amazing work, full color illustrations which appear at several points in the story. This featured image was the front cover. Read the whole fic to see the rest!