insta!rec

[merrily]

greensilver is working on a WiP where Merlin has always been a girl. I'm fascinated by it -- first, because girl!Merlin is so charming, but second, because it creates an interesting feminist reading of the text and reveals how ridiculous it is that the show's ignoring the queer subtext. (Or giving it a really long, slow burn -- anyway, the show's been slow to act on it.)

I recommend it both for the aca!fan reasons and because it's just delicious on its own, without needing to dissect it.

In 's story, girl!Merlin behaves exactly like boy!Merlin, but the outcome is that the entire court thinks that girl!Merlin is Arthur's mistress; Arthur teaches her to fight, or starts to, then decides it's a ridiculous notion (girl!Merlin instead turns to Morgana & Gwen, who willingly help her). Perhaps most interestingly -- particularly in light of the recent argument about whether we want to support particular canons by being fannish about them -- when girl!Merlin, in an attempt to save Gwen from charges of sorcery after her father recovers from the plague, makes a (not-so) "false" confession to being a sorceress, the court doesn't laugh it off, as they do with boy!Merlin, but instead locks up girl!Merlin, and Uther is determined to burn both of them if he can't figure out who's responsible. I feel this was an excellent authorial choice on greensilver's part: it absolutely rings true -- if Merlin was a girl in canon that's exactly what would have happened, and as such it makes me a little sick to my stomach (although relieved when Arthur finds a way out, even though it's not a particularly noble way). Anyway, I love it, both because it's an excellent story and because I am glad that fandom is continuing to do the work of fandom.