My OC is called Fritziki or Fritz for short. Fritz is a cheeky pirate/witch with a purple hat and frizzy pale green hair. She has a good heart but can't seem to stay out of trouble. Her colour palette is pale green and purple. Feel free to change her outfit as long as the hair and hat are the same.
Refs by @tinymintywolf
The one where she is more piraty and has a darker pallet on her clothes is my favourite. All other refs I had have been lost.
send me your OC and I'll do a quick doodle of them! (With Reference please!)
For the Eggsy sees Ghosts series. Roxy and Merlin's deaths in Golden Circle.
So, you’ve created a monster. For now, have this version, where everyone lives. Cos, you know, the whole series is telling moments in both directions. I promise I’m working on the one that’s more canon-aligned, but figured you’d like this humble offering in the meantime.
Already up on AO3, feel free to subscribe for when I eventually get to finishing/posting the second version.
Eggsy wasn’t really sure if he should be thanking or cursing whatever strange powers-that-be gave him his ability to see ghosts, most days. For a few reasons, actually, starting with not everyone stayed behind, obviously, and often the people he wanted to see most were those who moved On without pause. Which meant that he didn’t always know if he was waiting for a ghost or should be looking for an injured friend, in the wake of tragedy.
And, unfortunately, tragedy was far too easy to come by in Kingsman; this made the concern a constant thought in the back of his mind.
He’d been at dinner with Tilde’s family, pretending to know a lot more than he did because that was the only way he could remain in her life, when James had simply appeared where he hadn’t been a moment before. His face was contorted in a way Eggsy knew spelt disaster, and a moment later Alistair was just beside him, shock in every line of his features.
Needless to say, Eggsy had made his excuses and practically ran from the room before locking himself in the first bathroom he stumbled across.
‘Fuck, Perce, I am so sorry-’
‘Save your apologies, Eggsy and get your arse back to Kingsman.’ James had never spoken to him so curtly, and that alone was enough for him to spring into action, sprinting out the door while sending an automated text Tilde’s way. Kingsman, sorry, got to run was definitely not the sort of text Tilde enjoyed receiving, but it was a common enough one to have been added to his automatic responses- and it was one of the thousand reasons they hadn’t succeeded romantically.
He didn’t really want to think about the source of James’ stress, but as Kingsman flickered in and out of his periphery he couldn’t help but keep note. Percival, Bors, Kay, Geraint, Lamorak, Bedivere, Pelleas, Dagonet-
‘Shit,’ Eggsy had already set the jet to make its way to the Manor as quick as possible, and had pulled a set of glasses from a cabinet with shaky hands, ‘come on, come on, come on.’ He flicked through channels at a frantic pace, not letting himself connect the static he kept running into with the ghosts surrounding him. At least that’s what he told himself.
He landed next to a crater, smoke and dust still billowing up from within, and scanned the rubble with disbelieving eyes. Kingsman (no, he corrected, the mansion) was gone. Nothing but dust and smoke and the taste of ash on the wind.
‘-ggsy… Eggsy! Get your arse over here.’ Eggsy shook himself to awareness and found himself bounding toward James without consciously deciding to do so. He followed his gesture with his eyes, and found himself looking at a handle and a mostly-covered door. There was a faint thudding, and for a moment Eggsy was convinced that he was hearing rubble fall like chunks of iceberg into the sea, before he connected the sound to the source.
‘Fuck,’ Eggsy breathed before leaping into the crater, heedless of the sharp debris, ‘hold on, hold on, I’m coming!’ He yelled the last, hoping beyond measure that the definitely-panicking person trapped within could hear him. Would know that someone was coming for them. He didn’t let himself guess as to who had survived the attack while he moved anything he could nudge away from the door, didn’t let himself listen to the murmering behind him even as it grew with more voices, more layers, more-
The door swung open, would have hit Eggsy full on had he not been able to jump out of the way. Well, more trip backward over something he hadn’t been paying attention to in his bid to remove himself from the trajectory but either way he was (mostly) unharmed as someone came out, coughing.
‘Galahad, are you there?’ It sounds like it’s coming from far away despite the glasses still being on his face. It’s said with the kind of resignation Eggsy’s heard from telemarketers, from people passing flyers on the kerb. The one that says “I’ve been at this for a while, I know you won’t answer, but I have to keep trying.” Merlin’s voice was in his ear, Harry was supposed to be watching Daisy for the day at his mum’s place back at the Estates. He’d never been more thankful for his mum’s stubborn streak than he was at this moment, somehow certain that the manor was the least of Kingsman’s losses, going by his spectral entourage. He’d flown here straight from Sweden as the behest of James and Percival which now that he let himself think about it could only have meant that-
A small, solid, body knocked him right back off his feet and tears (and no small amount of sweat, and perhaps a bit of blood) soaked through his shirt at an alarming rate. He ran a hand from the top of the head pressed to his sternum to their neck, both to check for swelling and just to reassure himself that they were solid. Present. Real. Alive.
‘I’ve got you,’ Eggsy whispered, hiding his own tears in her hair, as the embers of Kingsman continued to die around them.
—
Eggsy stared at the laptop blankly, Harry sat beside him in a similar state, and Roxy in their ears trying fruitlessly to get their attention. The battle had been over for a handful of moments, but they hadn’t known what to do afterward. They’d thrown a man into a meat grinder (and who that person was had Eggsy’s stomach twisted into pretzels. He’d doubted Harry after everything and what kind of an agent, let alone friend, did that make him?) and saved the world and now that all was said and done they were able to… stop.
To let themselves realise what had happened, what they had lost, from the bombing of the mansion to their breaking in to PoppyLand and-
‘The fuck are you mourning for, you daft prick,’ Eggsy steeled himself to turn and face a ghost he never wanted to meet. Just another in the seemingly endless list of people he’d lost in the last couple weeks. James and Percival were back with Roxy on the jet, the rest of Kingsman had thought better of following them into battle, correctly assuming that they would be a distraction far more than they could be a help. ‘I’m right here.’
‘You lucky bastard.’ Harry replied, and Eggsy forgot to breathe for a moment.
‘I was trying to tell you, Eggsy- Merlin’s vitals didn’t stop, though they did flicker for a bit. He’s stable, if a bit shorter than he was before his rousing performance.’ Roxy’s voice was shaky, tight, the way it got in the midst of crying and Eggsy felt no shame in adding his tears to the lot.
‘Galahad?’ Eggsy took a steadying breath before turning toward Harry, and thus Merlin. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Harry on his stomach like a teenage girl at a slumber party, resting on his elbows next to Benny and Jet’s doggy doors and Merlin-
Merlin was a sight that Eggsy could have gone without seeing. His suit was torn and dirty, he had a multitude of cuts, his fingers were bloody (fresh blood, new blood, from dragging himself from the explosion) and his legs. Well. They weren’t. Eggsy wasn’t sure if he wanted to throw up or faint but neither was an option, and without conscious thought he had thrown himself from the stool and slid to the side not occupied by Harry. He lifted a shaking hand as if to touch him, to reassure himself that Merlin was alive, but it seemed that Eggsy’s arrival had been enough for Merlin to allow himself to lose consciousness.
‘Hamish!’ Eggsy and Harry reacted in sync, as they had been their entire time in PoppyLand, one hand each going to Merlin’s shoulders and the other to the small of his back, and moved as one to the counter. They unceremoniously knocked the briefcase-laptop over the edge, neither caring that the fall was broken by the madwoman’s body, and set Merlin down as gently as they could.
‘How are we getting him home?’ Harry didn’t answer, face pale and eyes wide, one hand resting not-so-casually over a pulse point. With how it was trembling it likely wasn’t very useful, but Eggsy was never one to tell others how to cope.
‘You need to fix his tourniquets, but I have medical assistance on the way.’ Roxy whispered in his glasses, and both men spring into action- Eggsy grabbed a couple aprons that were hanging nearby and tore the ties clean off as Harry checked the makeshift-triage while glaring at the dirty stumps as if they had mortally offended him. Which, honestly, it wasn’t that far off- the loss meant that they hadn’t imagined the explosion, but it also meant he was alive-
There was a flicker of blue, so quick Eggsy was convinced he imagined it, but then it happened again and Eggsy’s heart went into overtime.
‘How long ‘til help gets here, Rox?’ Eggsy cursed in his mind, not wanting to alert Harry to the precarious situation before them. Not wanting to make it any worse than it already was. This was his burden to bear.
‘Fifteen minutes out now, Galahad.’ Eggsy nodded to himself, and leant forward to pull the strips of cloth from Harry’s hands. Harry continued to look back and forth from Merlin’s face and the remains of his leg, watching for any signs of further distress, but Eggsy busied himself with pulling the cloth taut and steadily ignoring the rhythmic blue that he immediately knew matched the pulse Harry was desperately monitoring.
He’d never hated his ability more.
He’d been there for someone coming Back, he’d been there for someone moving On, had spoken to ghosts centuries old who had long since forgotten what they had come Back for, he’d been there for all the moments in between; but he had somehow managed not to be there as someone struggled to Stay.
Eggsy looked around the room for something, anything, that would help more than the haphazard tourniquets they’d fashioned. There was a first aid kit in the corner, but knowing Poppy it would only have what the 50s considered necessary for a kit and as much fun as that could be it wouldn’t solve Merlin’s problem. It wouldn’t even vaguely help.
But that could. It was a stretch, it wasn’t made for this, but anything was worth a shot at this rate.
Eggsy ran to the first aid kit, and on the shelf next to it were packets of Statesman Alpha Gel. Three or four sets, wrapped in gaudy yellow fabric with fucking bows but they were there and Eggsy snatched up the lot before sprinting back to Merlin and Harry.
‘Harry. Oi, Harry,’ He looked up from where his finger had been running along the seam of the tourniquet, ‘think this’ll help?’ Eggsy dropped them to the counter before pressing one to Harry’s chest
‘Well,’ Harry began, throat obviously tight but trying to play it off, ‘I’m fairly certain that legs aren’t quite as complicated as brains so it should stabilise him at the least.’
Eggsy wanted desperately to be doing anything else, but pulled the elastic stuff firmly across the open wound before stabbing the plungers just below the tourniquet and Harry did the same. Eggsy let himself crumple gracefully back into a bar stool when it looked like everything would hold, and Roxy let them know that Merlin’s vitals were slowly stabilising. He watched with bated breath as the elements merged, as the gel seemed to do what it had when he’d used it on (traitorous) Whiskey only a short while ago.
What was it about Kingsman that fucked with time passing?
‘You did good.’ Eggsy looked up and locked eyes with his dad, the man was on the other side, forearms resting on the counter top, and Eggsy gave him a shaky grin before he reached a hand out to Harry, and pulled a limp hand into his own and squeezed it tight.
‘We win. Shit’s fucked, but we’ll figure it out as we go. Together. Ain’t that humanity’s great superpower? Teamwork? We’ll get it done.’
So, like, I am currently and utterly obsessed with a world @snafu-07 and I have created. Basically it’s merwin where they decide to foster a child, which ends up being three - because not wanting to separate siblings and all that - in which they adopt. Because Merlin and Eggsy are softies and cant let go of these kids.
This all spawned from a RP we decided to do, because we both love merwin and wanted to give RP a go. We now have EASILY over 100K words of content for this insane, funny and lovable family - which is all not beta read or edited because we just get so lost in the world.
But! We are FINALLY starting to get some of the clean up done, and have since posted our VERY first installment of the series - which to my partner in crime’s pleasure is smutty!!!!
eggsyobsessed has said that you gave her some self beta-ing tools to help with editing. I too hate the editing process so please share these tools with the rest of us.
I am always happy to talk about writing and editing!
So step one is this, and it is the most important thing: you don’t need to have it perfect, if a mistake or two are in your fic that is okay. There is no such thing as perfection, and to strive for that will make it too daunting for you. What you are striving for is the best you can do, be, and each time you edit that goal is a little higher, because you get better each time you edit. A MISTAKE OR TWO, A TYPO, MISSING COMMA, ARE ALL OKAY. IS YOUR STORY READABLE IS WHAT MATTERS MOST.
A good way to do a technical edit (so grammar) is in your word processor write it in your normal font, walk away for 24 hours and when you return switch to a different font for editing. It forces your eye to read the words, not just skim through it because it looks like how it usually does.
If a passage doesn’t feel right, but you don’t know why - read it out loud. I swear reading out loud is one of the best tools when something feels wrong. Because if your tongue stumbles, you know that is where a problem is. It works for grammar, but also is effective for dialogue if it doesn’t feel natural on your tongue, it probably wouldn’t be natural for a character to have said.
From a story point of view a good think to think about is “Why is this character sharing this information?” Is it because it is necessary to plot or character, something they would honestly do or say, or are they providing that information solely as an info dump for readers. If it is the latter is there another way to convey that exposition?
I always have a core for the stories I am writing, a feeling I want to convey, a heart of it, that I always try to sum up for myself in less than 7 words. And as I write I always keep in mind, is what is happening serving that feeling, that core? Stories can meander and change but if you keep true to a central core, you’ll find that it goes well.
Along with that, you want to keep a story under control - know where it ends. A lot can change or grow on the way there, but I find knowing where your story ends, really helps the shape of a story overall.
Hope this helps, feel free to ask any other questions, and others feel free to add to this with your tips and tricks for self-betaing!
1, 10, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 42, 43, 46 & 51. I may have gone a bit overboard ⁄(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄
1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?
answered
10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?
tons
sherlock (don’t read johnlock hate it, read anything that makes lestrade happy), 00Q, i read tons of ships in the mcu that I wouldn’t write, welcome to night vale.
19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?
Hmmm, maybe Stony in the MCU I can read it fine as a background ship but it doesn’t work for me as a main ship.
20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?
answered
21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?
answered
24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?
A couple I pulled from AO3, the problem is pulling them I am unlikely to get to them.
26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?
Much pacing and cursing. Think about songs and poems and ways to adapt the lyrics to my needs and then just sort of the feel I want for the story? I dunno titles happen.
27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?
Summaries. Summaries are the worst because you have to entice but not give everything away. and they just are blah.
28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?
Oh man, if I could pick…you know what I wrote a one shot recently where all the guys were werewolves who were in a band. I’d love art of all of them on stage playing in their suits their shadows their werewolf forms.
30. What inspires you to write?
My fandom friends first and foremost. @elrhiarhodan, @adventuresoftheordinarysort @eggsyobsessed can say an offhand word and I am running with ideas. Otherwise, movies, books, random tropes I have always loved, all can inspire me.
31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?
I am lucky, I receive so many generous comments but the best was something recent, and really simple. “I appreciate what you do, please carry on” It was so simple but sincere. And to hear I was appreciated? It just struck me hard.
40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?
answered
42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:
43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?
no one person in particular, just my friends really.
46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?
Went Down to the River and Prayed because I worked my ass off on that one and it is probably my best from a technical sense. Also it is weird. I like weird right now.
51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!
already answered a couple times but adding a thing.
if you in a fic say that Eggsy speaks Cockney I kinda want to stab you with a spork.
I LOVE your Eggsy Sees Ghosts series and would love to see the Merlin/Roxy edition.
So, @leeef I actually wasn’t sure what to do with this- both because I have 2 AUs in that series so I wasn’t sure which to expand on, and because those AUs are so Gen I couldn’t see any shipping in it. It just… is. Not sure I can articulate it proper.
BUT I was suddenly hit with this idea for Merlin, and maybe one will hit me for Roxy later, but for now have this! It’s weird, I don’t know what it is, but it’s here!
Takes place in the verse where Harry dies in Kentucky.
Merlin’d always been able to see the things that others couldn’t.
It was a bit of a problem, actually. It had made children reluctant to be his friend, teens eager to avoid his knowing gaze, and peers at university jealous of his success- sometimes to the point of accusing him of academic dishonesty. Which such a load of tosh that any professor with whom the accusation was shared would pretend to take it serious until the door shut behind them before tossing it into the rubbish.
The things people would do to feel better of themselves.
Luckily the trend wasn’t as noticeable after graduation- though whether that was due to his ceasing to take notice or an actual decline of the behaviour was anyone’s guess. Merlin puttered about with whatever technology he found made available to him, allowed his mind to run with whatever strange possibility came to him.
That the source of such ideas was the apparent-spectre of a long-dead futurist who had desperately attached himself o the first intelligent being who could see him was no one’s business but his own. Not that he acknowledged him, nowadays.
As a child his parents had chalked up his mutterings to an imaginary friend- and, honestly, it wasn’t as if he knew any better. But, as the years passed, it became less and less acceptable to speak to the air as if it would respond, and Merlin had grown quiet. He’d grown more studious, forever writing in notebooks and sketching whatever idea came readily to him, and his family had sighed in relief as Nik had faded from their lives.
The key word was their lives, as the spectral man had done nothing but time his conversations for when they were unseen. Or, that is, when Merlin was supposed to be asleep and instead was up experimenting with whatever he could get his hands on.
So, when someone asked where he had the idea for whatever innovation it was at the time, Merlin learnt to answer without answering.
‘Oh, I’m inspired by Nikola Tesla.’
—
Slowly, though, even Merlin began to doubt what he was seeing. Who he was seeing. There was no reasonable explanation for a ghost of a man with no logical connection to him to be haunting him, so obviously it was wishful thinking. A longing for intellectual connection, manifest as some form of hallucination he would not bring notice to for fear of ruining his career.
By the time Merlin became Merlin, as entrenched in Kingsman as the roots of the great Life Tree, he didn’t acknowledge Nik. It wasn’t personal, he told himself; it was simply time for him to grow up and face the fact that he was projecting insecurities and subconscious desires as a way to not take responsibility for his more eccentric or ambitious endeavours.
Yes, he’d privatised the sorts of things Tesla had wanted to provide for all, but he had done so not out of a bid for monetary compensation but for security for the world. For everyone. Had the world developed into a kinder place, a safer place, perhaps he’d have taken the altruistic road. But, as it was, the world was a dark and cruel place- so Kingsman needed what no one else had, they needed the best, so that’s what Merlin made.
The years passed, and Merlin studiously ignored the things he saw moving in the corner of his eye. The people who weren’t fully there, the ones he had seen die but somehow walked past him in the halls, and especially the once-man who has guided him and inspired him. The one he hadn’t looked directly at or listened fully to in nearly a decade.
It was only by luck that Nikola was even nearby, the day Harry died. He’d been spending more time elsewhere- other inventors to watch, the possibility of finding another Seer- there was an incredibly finite number of things his moving On could be tied to, this many years later, but he was still hoping to figure it out. He had no desire to see the world continue to spin in the same old way and be unable to spin along with it.
Nikola Tesla was tired in the way he hadn’t known ghosts could be.
—
Eggsy walked out of the bullet train and toward Merlin with a surety he’d been sorely lacking the last time he’d been on Kingsman grounds. Nik kept himself to the shadows, as far from Merlin as he could be while still being able to hear what was going on, but could clearly see the two men at Eggsy’s shoulders, like heaven and hell themselves resting at his back.
One bore an incredible physical likeness to Eggsy, while the other was Merlin’s friend- so there was the proof that he had, indeed, perished on Kentucky soil. However, what was more interesting was the calculated look Harry Hart gave Merlin before stepping around Eggsy and approaching him directly. Harry spoke clearly and concisely, outlines a simple but efficient plan, and demanded that Merlin look him in the eye.
Nik had never been one to push the boundaries of his forced transparency, had never bothered to note the ability to know one thing over another; his fascination had been with the physical and electrical. How the energies of the world interacted- discovering that he was unable to influence such things while still having consciousness had been frustrating, to say the least. It had taken the joy from exploration, so he’d been content to find anyone who could see him- and eventually lucked out with Merlin, a child who had both the ability to see him and understand his prodding.
But, perhaps he’d been thinking on too large a scale. Perhaps the connections and transmissions he should have been focusing on were smaller, and infinitely more complex.
As Nikola Tesla watched Harry Hart demand his Merlin’s attention, as he realised that Eggsy could see them, and thus would (he assumed) be able to see himself… He wasn’t sure what he felt. He hadn’t needed to breathe in decades, he hadn’t been able to communicate actively with another being since Merlin’d begun ignoring him, and he had lost all passion to create at about the same time. But here was this Moment, the child he had seen come into his own and the generation after, and suddenly there was meaning. Purpose, though it had long been achieved.
In a moment built from a billion fragmented actions, Nikola Tesla realised that he was ready to move On.
—
Merlin looked up at the gasp from the corner, forced his gaze from Harry and turned toward the shadows that Nik had kept himself to for the past… He didn’t even know how long, and he felt guilty for having ignored the man so thoroughly.
Nik was watching with wide, sad, eyes and a small smile. The kind of look Merlin had only received after making some offhand remark about not needing anyone else when he’d had Nik. It was a look of resignation, with some small bit of pride hidden beneath. Unfortunate pride in a skill borne from necessity instead of desire.
‘Are you okay, old friend?’ Merlin hesitated in calling him by name, somehow feeling as if he was unworthy of use informality. Nik wiped at his eyes, and smiled more fully for being Seen.
‘Oh, yes- I’ve just discovered why I’d been made to stick around, you see. I’ve finished it all, and so…’ He shrugged, palms open, and Merlin allowed himself a moment to grieve the loss of a friend he had not treated as he should have in recent years.
‘I know that I haven’t been-’
‘You’ve been precisely what you needed to be- no more, no less. And I thank you, for humouring an old man’s fanciful ideas,’ Merlin opened his mouth, but Nik cut him off once more, ‘we’ve accomplished a great many things together, and I have the nagging suspicion that you’re going to accomplish a great many more before we cross paths again. Now,’ Tesla placed a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, the air just a bit cooler there than in the rest of the room, and dipped his head once before walking from him, ‘go stop Valentine.’ Nikola refused to look back, though he tipped his head lightly at Eggsy and Harry as he passed by.
He had faded from view entirely, and Merlin stared blankly at where he had been, until Eggsy grasped him by the wrist.
‘Merlin, y’alrigh?’ His eyes were earnest, and Merlin wondered if Eggsy had any idea how fully his emotions were displayed on his face. But, no matter, they had time to teach him those skills more fully now. Unfortunately. ‘… Who was he?’ It was whispered, with a brief glance to where Nik had last been.
‘The greatest mind I’ve ever known.’
Taking Kingsman prompts! Never really know what’s going to happen to them but I’ll try my hand at anything once!
It started as a desire to try to write tentacle porn. Because hadn’t really done it before, and thought hey a couple k of tentacles porn wee, we need more of that in the kingsman fandom.
But then I had to figure out where the tentacles come from, which when my brain starts asking questions like that a full story is happening whether i want it to or not, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed in my fics I am a sucker for world building.
The room originally wasn’t going to move, but then it started to - almost on its own - and that was when I realized that it would only become fixed in this world when Merlin was fixed in the world.
Another little detail - I didn’t intend for Percival to be so cheerfully pervy in the fic with the whole if your dick is that magic let’s film you and fund kingsman off the profits sort of comments, and i am really itching to have him be like that in more fics
Director's cut for The Improbable Invention of Love please.
Okay so this story went through a few different versions before we arrived at this. I had wanted to do another historical au after To Sail True and I knew I wanted to ditch period typical homophobia. It moved back in forth in time and pairing and then settled back into regency and made it merlahad. I did not expect the slow burn to be quite so slow tbh, but lord love a duck these guys were just determined to not get along at all, but we will get them there.
