#anyway time is a flat circle and I am reading merlin fic in the year of someone else’s lord 2022 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

phoebe-delia · 3 years

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Hello, nonnie! Thanks ever so much for this request. Song 11 is "long story short" by Taylor Swift! This is one of my favorites from evermore, and I love it for Drarry. I was especially inspired by the bridge. Enjoy!

CW: slight implication of past suicidal thoughts, but I promise this isn't all that angsty and it has a happy/hopeful ending!

Dear Draco,

It is a testament to my respect for Healer Rostova that I'm writing this letter. Honestly, years ago—when I was you, I suppose—I'd have thought that this exercise was for mentally ill people who were stuck ruminating on the past.

Well, considering that I have recently accepted the fact that we belong to this classification, I think this exercise is all the more prudent, even according to our old standards.

I picture you reading this at, oh, roughly 17 years old. You're newly Marked and starting to realize what it is your father has gotten you into, what it is you've agreed to.

I'd ask you to close your eyes, but I imagine you need to keep them open to read this letter. Also, you won't read this, because Time-Turners are now banned and I'm not willing to test the extent of Harry's influence with the Wizengamot for a second time.

Yes, I referred to him as Harry. Don't worry, we still call him Potter when he being a particularly annoying prat. But our relationship now lacks the violence to which you're accustomed.

Anyway, Draco, I want you to imagine yourself at 26. You wear your hair loose and without that horrid gel that you used for so long, and it's short, unlike Father's. You're healthy, now, eating actual meals instead of subsisting on apples and fear. You don't have dark circles under your eyes, and you smile more—genuine smiles; they aren't the weakness that Father said they were. There's power in happiness.

I imagine this vision sounds rather familiar; it's one with which you like to comfort yourself when you find yourself on the verge of a panic attack. You give yourself the respite of delusion, imagining a future in which you're not only alive, but you're thriving with everything you've ever wanted: true friends, stability, and him.

It's real, Draco. You're alive, you have friends, you're stable, and you have him. You call him Harry, but you also call him "love" and he calls you "babe" and you're thriving, together.

Starting at this age, you're going to learn to trust your inner voices rather than the one that sounds distinctly like Father. You'll listen to that voice when it tells you to lower your wand in the Astronomy Tower. You'll listen to it when it tells you not to give Potter up at the Manor. You'll listen when it tells you to apologize, to keep your head down, to go back to Hogwarts—to unlearn the lessons of the old voice.

I know it feels as if you'll forever be defined by the last seven years, but I'm eight years past where you are now and I can say with confidence that you are so much more capable—more courageous—than you think. And it's Harry, of all people, who is going to teach you that. Let him, Draco. Let him try to show you how he sees you through his eyes. You won't believe him entirely—Merlin knows I struggle to believe it sometimes—but if he's known you at your worst and chooses to see you at your best, then perhaps you can, too.

I suppose that's the point of this letter. Here I am, reflecting on what I wish I could tell you, past Draco, about yourself. The things I see in you—in us. The future we have.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go. I'm going to fold this parchment and seal it with a spell and tuck it into a drawer within this desk. And then I will walk into the living room of the flat I share with Harry and I will snog him senseless. And I'm going to do those things because I can—because we can.

Thank you, past Draco, for sticking around so that we can have the present, and the future.

Sincerely,

Draco

Send me an ask, or something about musicals, Drarry, Harry Potter, fanfic, Taylor Swift, The West Wing, or life in general!

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it!

#drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter #harry potter x taylor swift #drarry ficlet #epistolary fic #drarry squad #harry and draco #draco and harry #drarry fanfic #drarry fic #drarry fanfiction #phoebedelia

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deepdarkwaters · 7 years

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Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Got back from the Kingsman double bill a bit ago and am trying to put my brain into words even though I'm very tired and a bit numb and I smuggled five hours' worth of gin into the cinema in an Evian bottle so I'm as drunk as Harry at breakfast time.

OBVIOUSLY THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW

Watching them back to back like this was interesting because it highlighted so clearly how much better the first one is than this fumbly ridiculous sequel. Not saying it's not good or not worth watching or whatever because it absolutely is worth watching for several reasons I will babble after another teacup of gin, but holy god is this really the best they could come up with? REALLY? A 100% true fact that I believe with my entire heart: YOU reading this, you are a better writer than people being paid obscene money to write films. I could easily name thirty fic writers off the top of my head right now who have an infinitely better grasp on pacing and plot and characterisation and dialogue than the people responsible for this stuff. I've not read any press or fan reviews but I imagine there's going to be a hell of a lot of backlash over so much in this from every angle because it's just so incredibly lazy and sometimes ugly and absolutely cannot stand up to its own hype.

Really good things:

* SPECTACULAR, EH!

* Eggsy/Harry and Eggsy/Merlin shippers, goddamn we have a lot of new stuff to work with. Chemistry through the roof, especially Eggsy/Harry (including possibly the best clingy desperate hug I have ever seen on film in my entire life WE HAVE WAITED SO LONG AND IT'S HERE AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL). That was the heart and backbone of the first film, I'm so relieved that it's not only survived but evolved into something fiercer and often messier. So so good to watch. Pretty sure I've got Harry/Merlin written down the inside of my heart like the words in a stick of rock, and though it's not romantic you get much more of a sense of their friendship here and it's all just a bit shattering and gorgeous.

* Pretty much everything to do with Harry's memory loss and Eggsy and Merlin trying to shock him into remembering was great, Y E S P L E A S E. And Harry's matter of fact comments about his loneliness, fuckkk. Angst writers, go forth with all this new information and break my heart some more! Fluff writers, fix him!

* Lots of beautiful intricate fight choreography which is literally all I need in my action films, so even if I did think the rest was complete balls (which I don't entirely) then I'd still be happy. Nothing comes near the vivid glorious gutpunch of the church scene as a standalone set piece, BUT there's so much Harry & Eggsy teamwork and please just inject this directly into my veins, it's amazing. Prepare for several years of me writing many more elaborate fight scenes than I already do.

* Part B to the above: Whiskey is a lot of fun and his fighting style is full on hardcore pornography to me.

* Merlin in a flawless Kingsman suit, RIP me.

* One of my Bespoke WIPs is about Merlin and Eggsy getting into the habit of going to the pub together sometimes and rolling home completely drunk with a kebab in each hand then trying to get in the house really quietly because Harry's asleep but they end up waking him because they think it'll be really nice to cook him breakfast in bed and Harry comes stomping downstairs in his dressing gown like "it's four o'fucking clock, put those frying pans away and drink some water!" while Merlin and Eggsy side eye each other and try not to giggle. So maudlin singing drunk Merlin was very nice to see :P

* Eggsy and Roxy bromance. There’s such lovely chemistry between them as well, it feels so natural and real, and it’s so good (and miserably rare) to see platonic friendships that aren’t shoehorned into some shitty boring love triangle.

* Eggsy and Tilde were seriously adorable. It ended up not at all satisfying as a romance plot arc because it was like CUTE - fight - marriage, it needed so much more screen time. Like all the important stuff was there, but it was just so abrupt. Include a satisfying romance or don't include one at all, fuck your lazy bullet points. But it started so well and I hope there's a ton of fic that treats them better than the script did. I appreciate the anti-Bond-ness of it all, that Eggsy's genuinely in love and wants to settle and is figuring out how that and his job can possibly fit together, especially with the complications of marrying into royalty. Interested to see where they take that if there's another film. Until then, soo much scope for fic.

* I'm shipping Harry/Elton like burning.

* Poppy was terrifying in a vaguely Umbridge-ish way. That sort of characterisation is always freaky, Julianne was great. So glossy and cheerful but absolutely dead in the eyes. And I'm ambivalent on Charlie, but I ABSOLUTELY want lots of brutal older woman villain/pathetic younger male minion smut. Please provide asap.

* T H E M Y T H I C A L B R E A K F A S T S C E N E I S R E A L

Really bad things: well where the merry fuck do I start haha.

* I will never ever understand why they thought it was a good idea to wipe out all the locations and almost all the existing characters at the very beginning. It's lazy shitty writing. If you feel like you need to shake up your fictional world you don't just knock it all down and start over. It's cheap and very shallow angst.

* I only have two middle fingers but I need about seventeen million to even begin to profess my disgust at them killing Roxy. I knew it was going to happen, it was the only spoiler I asked someone for ahead of time and it was not at all a surprise to find out for sure. Still utterly infuriating. The way people responded so positively to her in the first one is a real indication of how ridiculously low the bar is for female characters in action films ("good at something" and "not the hero's love interest" are literally the only two requirements), and JG/MV didn't even think enough of her to follow through on the absolute base level achievement they made before. Fuck everyarse involved in this decision.

* Absolutely revolting honeypot mission scene. Not really the fact that it exists, just the entire way it was handled and shot - so predictably male-gazey and laddishly "waheyyy!" that it kind of turned my stomach. Horrible and completely unnecessary.

* A million new characters and not enough time spent on any of them to care. Tequila was barely more than a cameo. Champ and Ginger hardly had anything to do. All the Statesmen (except Whiskey) were completely two dimensional and it's such a jarring contrast to the obvious care taken over Eggsy, Merlin, and Harry. It's not even because we already know them, I don't think? It's weird to try and explain. The Statesman characters just feel so rushed and shallow, there's no substance to any of them. Kill off Roxy and replace her with paper cut-outs, ok that makes loads of sense!!! Whiskey’s a level up from the others because he gets loads more screen time and some beautiful fight scenes, but his ~emotional plot twist fell completely flat. I don’t know what it was, the pacing or a boring cliche backstory or what. It was just dull as fuck. WE HAVE HEARD THIS EXACT STORY FIVE MILLION TIMES.

A bad thing that's somehow not really a bad thing even though I'm fucking numb and want a hug:

* I've been raving for ages to people about Roxy being killed off and trying to figure out a way to satisfactorily explain how I feel about a character dying for a reason and a character dying because a writer is a lazy bastard who wants some quick angst. Merlin's death was an A+ wonderful death along the lines of my dear fictional boyfrends Quincey Morris and Lee Scoresby and a million others. Maybe it comes from all the swashbuckly historical adventure stories I grew up loving, but I'm a desperate sucker for a good noble death. Characters brave and self-aware enough to look at the bigger picture of an impossible situation and realise that their death means a better outcome for the people they love? This is ABSOLUTE CATNIP to me. Characters who go down fighting to the very end. If a character I love with my entire soul has to die, this is how I want it to happen. Give them some agency and a proper goodbye.

I mean I fully expect him to be magically resurrected with fancy prosthetic legs if there's another film because we saw those wedding set photos of him in the nice neon green cgi stockings, so really I should be saying "death". I totally reject this one. (I reject Roxy and JB's deaths as well, but the big difference is I really can't see the filmmakers bringing them back. Eyeroll.) Maybe that's what's making it easier to deal with? A not-real noble courageous self-sacrificing death. That's about as good as it gets. All three of them get Oscars for this whole sequence.

Anyway the tl;dr of it is:

This film is a very beautiful, very patchy mess. The good stuff is absolutely gloriously perfectly incredibly wonderful. Most of said good stuff is the interaction between Eggsy, Merlin, and Harry, which is written and performed with real care and heart. Nearly everything else is relatively lacklustre filler, misogyny, and shitty nonsensical decisions. These people cannot write women.

I liked it? I will definitely see it 900 more times, mainly for wet terrified Harry and gorgeous fight scenes. But ffs, how can it possibly be this difficult to pinpoint the reasons why people loved your extremely successful creation and consider including them in future plans?

I'm feeling fairly zen about everything. I kind of trained myself ages ago to think of sequels as just another bit of fanfic, so it's going to make absolutely no difference to the cheerful fluff porn and fight scenes I like to write. What I'm annoyed about isn't so much to do with ~new canon~ limiting what we're allowed to create for ourselves now, because that's just silly. It's more about being pissed off at the shoddy state of action films, particularly women in action films, when it seems like it should be SO EASY to take these astronomical budgets and create something groundbreaking. I'm so tired of this unimaginative lazy narrow-minded bullshit.

#kingsman #kingsman 2 #kingsman spoilers #kingsman: the golden circle #kingsman: the golden circle spoilers #tgc spoilers #is this enough spoiler tags haha

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