Merlin: Fanfic Rec: The Shoemaker

[ceebee]

Title: The Shoemaker
Author: Anonymous (to be revealed...)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Gwen/Freya, Merlin/Arthur
Summary: Historical magical AU. In turn-of-the-century Glastonbury, Freya Lake heads up an orphanage for magical children. And despite all of the seers’ dire warnings, Freya is happy; her infatuation with the shoemaker’s apprentice—who may or may not be a girl underneath his shirt and trousers—is slowly coming to a head. But then a woman claiming to be Morgana le Fay shows up on the orphanage steps, demanding to see Emrys, and Freya is forced to rearrange her priorities.

Thoughts: I still need to leave a review, but AO3 literally JUST went down for maintenance, so I thought I'd make a rec here in the meantime. OH MY GOODNESS, I loved it :3 Really, really adored every sentence. The OCs were particularly awesome, and the setting/magic sort of reminded me a bit of Terry Pratchett XD Idk, there was just something about it. The idea was awesome, and Gwen as a shoemaker/in guy's clothing was *flaps* really quite hot. Freya was lovely too...it must have been fun to write her, because I guess you can really make her your own. I think she was sort of quietly BAMF in this, heheh. 

Another thing that was lovely about it, was the reincarnation aspect...humm, I don't want to give away the plot, but some of my favourite moments involved characters being reunited. 

Merlin in this was endearingly eccentric, and the ending made me melt. Completely. I am currently a puddle, left only with fingers to type with. 

Comments

[jelazakazone]

I adore this fic and plan to record it. Next year:) It's one of the best fics I've read.

[ceebee]

omg, seriously? Hee, 'twould be fitting with your femslash theme. Oh sdhfsdkg please do! I loved it SO much, just everything about it. And it's the first bit of Gwen/Freya I've read, so it was kind of a surprise how much I liked it :3

(loved Merlin/Arthur bit too though, omg, I was just sitting here squeeing)

Think I'm gonna have to look through all the other Merlin Holidays stuff now :D

[jelazakazone]

Hell yeah. I might stick with 100% femmeslash for podficc'ing.

I know. I want everyone to know this story. I think it's my first Gwen/Freya too. Loved it. The whole thing just worked so well for me:)

Yay for Merlin Hols:) The art that has come out of it is great! Can't think of any other fics I loved *that* much, but I haven't read that many of them:)

[ceebee]

it deserves all the love *nods* not enough people have read it :(

And there are a few summaries that caught my eye...IDK why I went for that one first XD I guess I just felt like some femslash (and there really was something about Gwen dressed as a boy omg :3). I liked the way it felt like a proper STORY as well. It felt weirdly quaint, like a fairytale :')

But yeah, I saw a modern royal!AU that I wanna give a go, and one where Merlin works in a bookshop that looks cute XD

[jelazakazone]

Exactly!

Gwen dressed like a boy FTW! It did have a fairytale feel, didn't it?

Hrm, haven't read either of those. I read the one for amphigoury that is Merlin/Merlin. Heed the warnings, but it's good.

I tried to read the Gen one that features Kilgharrah, but didn't get hooked.

[ceebee]

wait omg wut Merlin/Merlin?? Humm, I'll have to check that one out XD

Man, I just wanna reread this one now though. Stupid AO3 maintenance *grumbles*

Is it just me, or were you doing something for Merlin Holidays?

Actually no wait, I just thought, are you not allowed to say if you're taking part because of all the anonymousness?

[jelazakazone]

Yeah. Merlin/Merlin. It's interesting. I mean, in a good way.

LOL. Soon, darling. Soon. *pets you*

*blinks eyelashes* I can tell you that I wrote something for it. That's all I can say right now:) I'm guessing that people who know me will have a pretty good idea of which is mine though.

Also, AO3 is back up!

[ceebee]

hmph. I bet it'll come back, and NOTHING will have changed.

hmmmm *is curious* okay sdkjhdfg am I allowed to ask whether it's been posted?

ooh so you HAVE posted it? okay I'm gonna have a look through properly XD

[jelazakazone]

Heh. Such a cynic and so young.

*cough* I never said that it was posted...;)

[ceebee]

oooh okay *sherlocks*

[jelazakazone]

LOL. You are cute.

[ceebee]

WAIT AO3's back up?? Awesome :D *hops*

and d'aww thanks XD (although not true. At least not till I get a quilt like the ones you make and wrap myself up in it)

[jelazakazone]

Yep, AO3 is back up. Yay! All of fandom can breath a collective sigh of relief.

Oh, I posted my podfic today too.

Hee hee. Stand in line... You know the ones I've been making lately are not big enough to wrap around your hand though, right?

[ceebee]

You never know, I could have super small hands :p

[jelazakazone]

Hee hee. I see you are angling....

[ceebee]

me?!? of course not!

*drools over your icon*

[jelazakazone]

You live in or near London, right? Good chance I'll be there in July. I'll bring you one then, ok? A little teeny one, like I've been making:) ♥

[ceebee]

*gapes* duuude, seriously? omg you don't have to *flaps* that would be really lovely though :') but like sdjhkg34t aw!

[jelazakazone]

Hee. Well, in that case, I won't make any promises. But if I can manage it, I'd be thrilled to foist off my little quilts on anyone who wants one when I go to London next summer. (See, if I keep talking like this, it will happen, right?:))

[ceebee]

well, you're certainly allowed to foist one off on me, if you can :')

and yes! although don't jinx it XD but you should totally come to London :)

[jelazakazone]

Since dh decided he should go to Yellowstone with us, this has cut into my dream of 2 weeks in Europe with him while the kids are with my parents. I'm think 1 week or 10 days. I am definitely drawn towards London, not least of which is that I know a bunch of you people there. And we already speak the language:)

Excellent. I'll have to see what happens in the next couple months with travel plans. I also expect that once Merlin ends, I won't be writing as much, so I'll have more time for quilting. Although now that the podficcing bug has bit me, who knows what will happen.

[ceebee]

Have you ever been to London before? There's so much to see if you haven't! Even if you just came here for a few days out of your holiday.

[jelazakazone]

I was there when I was your age, a milion years ago, with my parents. I think we were there for like four or five days?

DH says he can imagine doing things in London, so this is a start. I have just informed him that we will go to a show. He's horrified. He wonders if this is because we never go to shows here and I'm looking for an excuse to go to a show. I tried to tell him it's part of the culture. I don't think he believes me.

[ceebee]

oh! IT IS IT IS! You should go to a show! I don't go to enough tbh, when there are plays on ALL THE TIME. Although the ones in central London are usually ugh so expensive /sigh

[jelazakazone]

I will be picking people's brains like crazy when I figure out where we are going!

[cecilegrey]

Heh, I'm often a bit confused with the way Merlin fandom labels its fic. Like, I never would have considered reincarnation fic would be called AU before I started seeing it here. I'm glad I read your whole review because now that I know it's a reincarnation fic I'm quite interested! Hehe. I <3 reincarnation fics, though admittedly I haven't read many outside of regular Merlin/Arthur. I need to expand my horizons. Bookmarking it now, in my Reading Queue folder.

[jelazakazone]

It's really good. You should not wait to read it.

[cecilegrey]

AO3 still says it's down for me. :P

[ceebee]

*glares at A03*

[jelazakazone]

*punches AO3 for you* What? That's an outrage!

Does this link work for you?

[cecilegrey]

It does... :) Thank you!

[jelazakazone]

Yeee haw!!!

[ceebee]

I just dkjsf I really loved it. I mean, I mostly read Merlin/Arthur too, and sometimes some Morgana/Gwen, but the summary of this just looked kind of awesome. And the fic was just really quirky and cute and inventive, and yeah.

Merlin fic is so crazy XD There are so many AUs and then reincarnation just makes it all tangled and confusing, but I kinda love it like that :')

This is one of the best reincarnation fics I've read though *nods*

[cecilegrey]

Hehe, it's true, I've never seen a fandom that embraced AUs quite this much! It's funny, because in other fandoms I have often been quite fond of AUs, but most of the time in Merlin I am just so addicted to catching up on canon era fics that I skip the AUs. I'm glad fandom has its lovable tropes though. Whatever keeps fandom alive makes me happy. <3

[ceebee]

I can never decide whether I prefer canon era fics to AUs in the Merlin fandom...I started off really addicted to the canon ones, but lately I can't get enough of modern!AUs :3 it's just nice that there's so much choice *happy sigh*

lmao, fanfic tropes are the best...have you heard the song? omg *dies*

[cecilegrey]

There is a song? *confused*