dirty bookshelves

a BBC Merlin fanfiction personal archive & recs blog for people using the tumblr app : TAGS & INDEX

[dirtybookshelves]

Please know that this blog is inactive and serving only as an archive. I’ve occasionally reblogged fanart or fandom announcements in the last few years, but it hasn’t been updated with any regular reccing or reccing-adjacent posts since about 2014. Most fics and info you will find on here are from before then. Opinions might have changed, resources might be outdated, dead links will not be repaired or deleted. The askbox is closed for a reason, PMs with requests for recs or for finding fics will not be answered. Thank you <3

EDIT: to access all the resources, tags, lists, etc, check out the links in the sidebar.

[swmtk]

🍃 The Willow Tree 🌿

I’ve been in the Merlin fandom for 5 years now and I finally! made art for it <3

[16th-of-a-twigg]

Lazy Mornings ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

[lao-pendragon]

And I swear I will protect you or die at your side. Arthur’s Bane, The Fortress of Ismere

[lao-pendragon]

Destiny can happen earlier than expected Merlin Memory Month Prompt Day 1: Path I - Beginnings, Firsts, Risings On this day the prince of Camelot gave a neckerchief to the most powerful sorcerer who ever walked the earth… ooops!

[hvmus]

I just had to fix Arthur’s hand and some other things on the last painting, so I’m posting again, but thanks for all the support on the previous post! <3

[softershadows]

x

[albymangroves]

Happy (slightly early) Birthday, @violette-royale <3! I wrote you a thing, but never mind that, LOOK AT THE ART, HOLY SHIT  <3___<3

[softershadows]

x

[albymangroves]

/pterodactyl noises at this gorgeous art for a thing i wrote, holy fricking canoli

[hvmus]

Merlin’s Moving Castle, reposting

[16th-of-a-twigg]

Morning Coffee Stop (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

[gjdraws]

penny for your thoughts

(now with a follow up)

Merlin fanart

[16th-of-a-twigg]

Morning Commute (~˘▾˘)~

[hvmus]

the otp

[dirtybookshelves]

THE REST OF ME, by anonymous

M/A | Mature | 7.2K | apocalypse, magic, reincarnation, pining

summary: Merlin hangs back as the others surge down into the valley to retrieve the supplies. He touches the ridge the dangling sharpie makes along his sternum, beneath his clothes, and thinks of the last proper words he'd written with it. It's getting harder to believe Arthur's still out there, that he's found the only box that used to matter.

comment. I LOVED THIS. So wonderful. The apocalypse happens and Merlin and Arthur are separated. Merlin hopes Arthur will find him. This is well written and achy and angsty (but not melodramatic or fatalistic don’t worry). It’s really beautifully done. I loved the format that takes us from the “present” back to that fateful day when they were separated and then forward again. I loved how the author expanded on the original, giving the apocalypse a name, so to speak, and wove in it magic and lore from the canon and legends (as opposed to using a more “traditional” kind of apocalypse). It was well crafted and built but never overtook the main point of the story which was Arthur and Merlin and their relationship and the sheer longing of being apart and scared and lonely. By the end, there’s hope and there’s a quest and I just really really enjoyed getting to read it.

note: read the original as well--this is me if I can’t be, by ingberry--read it before this one. It’s short (800 words) and really really good as well (and you’ll get the little references the remix makes to it)

[procoffeinating]

brought to you by Damien-in-blue-hoodie, this is a Merthur commission for the lovely @tracionn who is an absolute delight to work with ❤ ❤ ❤

[dirtybookshelves]

TO A PLACE OF NO RETURN, by anon (name to be added after reveal)

M/A | Explicit | 5.3K | slave!fic

summary: Arthur doesn't fuck slaves.

comment: Well this was really good. I love how it went for the opposite (and my personal fave) side of the slave!fic trope: instead of having the master honourably NOT fuck the slave... it has the master not so honourably fuck the slave--in aaalllllll its dubconny goodness and hotness. And boy, was it hot. Oh Arthur tries, mind, he really does. But Merlin doesn’t make it easy at all. I love the tone of the story, especially the characters’ voices (not just Arthur and Merlin, but Uther and Cenred too). Arthur’s voice was dry and sarcastic and funny, and then also guilty, but not too guilty... The sex was smoking, and I really enjoyed the conclusion between Arthur and Cenred. 

[dirtybookshelves]

*clears throat awkwardly and waves* hey there, I was wondering if you happened to know like, what number of likes or hits on ao3 means a fic in the Merlin fandom is popular?? Like not famous, but just popular? Thanks~!

um… hard to say? I’m not big on really thinking about those things, mostly because there are so many GOOD fics that have a very little amount of kudos (and therefore so many bad ones (imo) with a high number of kudos). 

Also, the fandom is still active now, but is also smaller, and that would have changed from when I was really active writing-wise. I always thought that a lot of my own fics were well received even when they got somewhere in the 200 kudos back then, but I don’t think that’d make them popular. I guess there’s a difference between popular and well-received. I have no idea now, with less people reading, what that number would be.(and that’s without mentioning that some fandoms are better at feedback than others. Merlin fandom was, and maybe still is, pretty average to kinda bad, imo, at feedback. Lots of fics might be read and loved and recced and talked about and yet people don’t always leave kudos. I’d say that it’s like that for the majority as well. There are always more people who read it AND love it than people who leave kudos)

I know a lot of people look at the hits to kudos ratio on AO3 but I feel like you can’t trust hits at all. Every time someone comes back to your fic to read it again (or rec it or…), it will register a hit, but they can’t leave another kudos. Every time someone clicks on it to bookmark, it registers a hit. Every time YOU click on it for whatever reason, it registers a hit. 

Sometimes fics get lots of kudos but are utterly forgotten or not as memorable. (my most popular fic, like, wayyyyy above the others is this coffeeshop AU, that I barely see mentioned most of the time. It’s not memorable. People love it, for sure, it’s a beloved trope, but it’s not different or that note-worthy. So here the number of kudos might not be indicative or popularity or at the very least of something that people remember automatically).

I am aware that this doesn’t help you at all. haha. Sorry.