Eight Days of Happiness: Fairies

[thefourthvine]

The One with Elf-on-Elf Combat. Oh, Don't Look at Me Like That. Like You've Never Wanted to See Elves Whale on Each Other.* The Crown of the Summer Court, by astolat/astolat. Merlin, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon.

There was a period of about a week after I read this story that I spent seriously considering that maybe I was just done with Merlin. It seemed like this story had fulfilled my every wish and desire, and I didn't need any more stories in the fandom; I was replete.

I got over that. Of course. I mean, for one thing, I haven't even found an Inappropriate Centaur story in Merlin - I can't possibly be done. (And, also, I'm not done with the characters; there's that, too. It's just - until you've found a few Inappropriate Centaurs, you really don't feel you've come to grips with the fandom. And by "you," I mean me.)

But this story is just that awesome. I have been secretly wanting fairy and elf AUs for quite some time (and this despite the fact that at least 98% of urban fantasy novels make me want to stab the author with a knife inscribed with celtic symbols; as with MPreg and woke-up-animal stories, elves and fairies seem to be one of those things that should really remain in the hands of fans). I'm sorry! It's just this urge I get sometimes. I want someone to put on something sparkly and wave a wand around.

And Merlin - well, come on. It's halfway there already - I mean, sharpen a few ears, add some magic competence, you've got it. But - the magic! The tests! ARTHUR QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES OMG! I just cannot even express my love for this story enough in words. (Where is the Squee Font? That, like, contains only hearts and flowers and sparkles and exclamation points? It would make my recs sets so much easier to write. Harder to read, possibly, and likely to give people Twilight flashbacks, but easier. When will font-makers meet my needs?)

-Footnote-

* I should perhaps explain that I spent a lot of time playing AD&D in my youth. The Cult of Elf got incredibly annoying. Ninety percent of new players wanted to play an elf. If they wanted to play a high elf, you knew they'd maybe eventually grow into real actual roleplayers if you could resist hitting them with a Player's Handbook. If they wanted to be a dark elf, you knew you were going to be trying to get the chaotic neutral character to kill their characters by the third game.

Comments

[copracat]

http://www.dafont.com/mtf-heart-doodle.font

[swanswan]

Your eight days of happiness are making me happy too! Chain reaction of happiness around the glooooobe!

[aldanise]

I stopped playing with my first D&D group when they wanted to play a game with all dark elves. And then they did, and it contaminated my conversations with them for months. Yargh.

[kellyfaboo]

This is actually one of my favs too. I mean totally *flail* Arthur Queen of the Fairies!

I ♥ your happiness recs too.

[minnaway]

I love the idea of the Squee Font.

[queue]

Now THAT is what I call a misspent youth. *admires you*

[thefourthvine]

Wow. That's actually pretty close. I am impressed, both with you and with the font makers of the world!

[thefourthvine]

Soon EVERYONE WILL BE HAPPY. And then I will rule the world!

Okay, so there are a few flaws in this plan.

[thefourthvine]

All drow campaign? Oh my god, it's got "Flee! Flee for your sanity!" written all over it. I am glad you fled, and only regret that you could not have the group removed from the planet for the duration of the game.

[copracat]

Oh, all I did was go to dafont.com and look under 'valentine', but I'm with you on the awesomeness of font makers.

{{{{fonts}}}}

[thefourthvine]

In retrospect, it's obvious that what this world was lacking was more Pendragony fairy queens. I don't know why I didn't realize it before!

And thank you!

[thefourthvine]

I think it would make fandom a lot more efficient.

[thefourthvine]

Well, I have to be honest with you: I did all the misspending of youth you can do without a prison sentence. I did the sex, the drugs, and the crime. And then I got to college and realized I was bored with drugs and crime and switched to sex and geekiness instead.

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

LOL! My first D&D character was a wood elf ranger... with a wolf. Yea, laugh now. I might have a thing for elves *points to username*

[firesprite1105.livejournal.com]

*hops up and down*

*points emphatically*

What you said! Everything you said!

Crown of the Summer Court is the single most-reread story on my hard drive right now. It hit kinks I didn't even know I had, and then the plot was awesome on top of it. Seriously, this story is so satisfying on so many levels that it's ridiculous.

[firesprite1105.livejournal.com]

Well, except maybe the thing about the Inappropriate Centaur, but everything else! ;D

[jamethiel]

I never played D&D specifically, but lots of clones. I think my first character was a human cleric, and then either halfling or human thieves or paladins.

I was once a half-elf ranger, but got killed very quickly.

I have found that my urge for sparkly things is generally much better if I wear sparkly socks. No one can see them underneath my sensible work trousers, but I KNOW THEY'RE THERE. It makes everything bearable sometimes.

[hypertwink.livejournal.com]

I was a human monk because I wanted the hands of death. Little did i suspect that I would be almost always courting death throughout my whole campaign life before I could Bruce Lee my way out of tough situations.

[hypertwink.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to add. I love this story. I have an addiction to Merlin modern-day AUs but this one was fantastic.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Inappropriate centaurs, eh?

Also, I damn near only played elves. Including in the most recent game where I was a (male) high elf with a gnomish boyfriend, as the gnome's player described things. Or a gnomish stalker, from the point of view of most other characters. (Best moment ever: the gnome's player was moving to the other end of the country, and his character was being written out of the game in a suitably surreal way, by being involved in a shotgun wedding to Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. He insisted my character would be the best man, and at a moment when everyone's guard was down, I wailed, "Oh Bane! Is it because I didn't put out enough?" It is a beautiful thing to see so many adults suddenly choking on their Pringles . . .)

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

hahaha, you know, I was half thinking of making my own 8 days of happiness post about this today, since I just reread it this morning and was all asquee with love for Elf Merlin.

[miaruma.livejournal.com]

Heee~, your footnote sent shivers of horror down my spine. I lived with someone for a year who believed that the best characters EVER are drows and I spent all of our RPs (I no longer play with her) trying to kill her without being obvious about it. The fact that she wrote a self-insert Id-fic chronicles and kept trying to get us to RP 'in her world' didn't help at all. *raises Dwarf flag of solidarity :D*

[octavia-b.livejournal.com]

I've had it bookmarked to read for ages, but just haven't made the time to do any fic-reading recently. You've just rekindled my interest . . .

[villeinage.livejournal.com]

I think I remember playing D&D with an Elf named Spike. This was long before Joss got hold of that name.

But my memory may not be accurate. There was a lot of St. Pauli Girl beer at the time.

[apetslife.livejournal.com]

As the de facto player of the chaotic neutral character in almost all my teenaged games of D&D, I cheerfully acommodated the wishes of my fellow-players and would sneak up on/shoot/strand/otherwise kill dark elves played by Elf Groupies all the freaking time. It's funny because it's true.

ALSO THIS STORY OH MY GOD YES. Yes. Merlin made an oak tree grow. ARTHUR IS HIS CHAMPION. Uther nearly has apoplexy. It's so amazingly awesome that, like you, I felt almost totally replete with fandom after reading it. *G*

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

*SNERK* You're awesome.

[vass]

My first D&D character was a gnome cleric named Brodrib Efaw. Neutral Good, dedicated to the goddess of healing. He had a tattoo on his lower back of a white rose, the symbol of his goddess. His steed and celestial companion was a Newfoundland dog named Byron. You can probably guess what I spent most of every fight doing. Which suited me, because after all, when your dog's better in combat than you are, you might as well spend your time healing the team's fighters after they jumped from a freaking airship to land on top of the monster, thus getting a whole lot of special attacks according to the rules that I can't remember the names of, and hurting themselves quite badly in the process.

Oh, this was last year. I never had friends I could game with in school years, and later when I was at uni, everyone was doing really advanced, THIS R SRS ROLEPLAYING games. Mostly involving vampires. And you got the feeling that some of them genuinely only came out after dark, and would sincerely like some public-spirited vampire to give them the Dark Gift.

I might mention that my DM in the game last year made a rule that in his story, elves were very scarce, and if someone wanted to play an elf, they'd have to have a very good reason. No one did, although we had a couple of NPC elves we had to rescue from elvish hit-men. I wouldn't have anyway - too ethereal.

In conclusion, um... tell me of your memorable AD&D characters/campaigns/moments.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

Oh that story is one of my absolute favourites. EVAR.

[gornishka.livejournal.com]

The one and only time I played D&D (well, a D&D clone I don't remember the name of), I wanted and got to be a dwarf. I had no idea what I was doing and had zero experience with anything remotely role-playing related, but I did have two axes and four extremely useful feral pigs. And yes, my name was Carlos.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Wood elves don't seem to have the same problem as high elves and drow. (And my first character was a dryad - we were doing kind of a weird campaign. If it had not been for the weirdness, perhaps I would have gone for a wood elf!)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I know! It has possibly unprecedented levels of awesome! I seriously re-read Crown of the Summer Court, like, five times in a row on my Kindle. I just got to the end and was like, "Well, I want to read the part with the elf combat again..." and then the next thing you know I'd be at the end again.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*eyes you*

Don't insult the Inappropriate Centaur. It's a fandom tradition!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I never played D&D specifically, but lots of clones. I think my first character was a human cleric, and then either halfling or human thieves or paladins.

I played lots and lots of clerics. LOTS. Also paladins and druids. It started because if I didn't have a healing ability, no one would, but I quickly realized they are really the best classes to play. *biased*

I have found that my urge for sparkly things is generally much better if I wear sparkly socks. No one can see them underneath my sensible work trousers, but I KNOW THEY'RE THERE. It makes everything bearable sometimes.

This is genius. I only regret you can't patent it.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. When my then-boyfriend sat me down to explain the Mysteries of AD&D to me, he did brief descriptions of the character classes, and his summary of monks was: "They make good NPCs, but they're almost impossible to play." I was more attracted to the cleric side of things anyway, so I never tried. But I salute you for making the effort!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously you are an exception for sheer awesomeness, because that's a fabulous story. *loves you despite your pointy pointy ears*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

And yes, of course Inappropriate Centaurs. It's the thing every fandom needs!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

You should! It brings a lot of happiness, this story. We don't want to risk someone not reading it. That would be awful.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh my god the horror. You LIVED with a drow-lover. That's - that's very hard. *sympathetic hugs*

(And, seriously: it's like they invented the race solely as a warning to other players. A drow character is like the rattle on a snake.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Readitreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreadit!

I mean. Only if you want to, of course.

(Readitreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreaditreadit)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Your youth truly contains much murkiness! St. Pauli Girl AND elves. *admires you*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I salute your efforts to rid the roleplaying world of the scourge of drow! The world needs more people like you. And it needs them to be armed and deadly.

(And, yes: this story. It just - yes.)

[lorem_ipsum]

Sparkly socks! That's an awesome idea. Being less acquainted with subtle, I, er, may have three pairs of sequin shoes.

[jamethiel]

YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON AND SHOULD FEEL GOOD. I have a shoe addiction the size of--well, something very large. And currently my life is unfulfilled because I can't find a pair of red knee-high boots (I already have black and brown ones) to accomodate my calves.

inappropriate centaur fic

[championlurker.livejournal.com]

Does this (http://seperis.livejournal.com/709962.html#cutid2) count? ;)