Can't rain all the time

Title: Giving Ground
Author: elfflame
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: mild NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: agnophilia—struggling for dominance between partners
Other Warnings: None immediately come to mind…
Word Count: 1935
Summary/Description: Harry and Draco have a thing.
Author's Notes: For kabal42, a little late for your birthday, but I hope you enjoy it. I know it's not Steve and Tony, but I couldn't resist. Thank you to wolfish_cat as always for the help.


( I will not play at tug o' war/I'd rather play at hug o' war,/Where everyone hugs/Instead of tugs/Where everyone giggles/And rolls on the rug,/Where everyone kisses/And everyone grins/And everyone cuddles/And everyone wins. – Shel Silverstein, Hug O' War )

I can't recall where, exactly, my love for Morgana came from. It was definitely before I was aware of Mists of Avalon, because I remember playing with others in the SCA, and when we played at being in Camelot, I always wanted to be Morgana. Part of it was the fact that evil characters are just more interesting. All Guenivere did was sit around and eat bonbons or need to be rescued. Or macked on any Knight who let her... :P

Mists of Avalon only increased my love for her, and made it difficult for me to watch things like Excalibur, where she's so unrepentantly evil with no obvious reason other than peevishness. Which isn't to say I didn't love her in Excalibur (hell, how can you not love Helen Mirren?), it's just that her reasoning leaves a lot to be desired. Plus, a Morgana without dark hair just seems wrong.

Then there was Helena's Morgana. I only watched the Merlin Mini-series once. She was a kind of freak (not surprising, given it was Helena), so that made her difficult to watch as well. Even though I was ready to love her version to the ends of the earth.

I was quite glad when the Mists Mini-series finally made it to TV, though it really didn't do justice to the story. The book has so many little details, it would have been hard to get them all in. Juliana Margoles was all right, but I'm not a fan, and this didn't make me one, either. It was just a lackluster version of a great book.

So it wasn't until BBC's Merlin came on the air that I finally saw the Morgana I truly loved: Katie McGrath. Katie brings everything to the table--looks, style, grace, and a seeming understanding of a lady and how she would hold herself. No, the show's not perfectly medieval, but I adored her. I only wished the writers had been willing to more slowly develop her evil, instead of forcing it the way they did and making it seem almost comical.

Even so, Katie manages to shine, when Morgana is truly feeling things, as opposed to plotting or leering evilly. You can see her heartbreak at losing Gwen, or her anger at Uther for what he's done to her and others. Her confusion over her powers in the second season was especially well-acted, and if they'd moved slower at the end of that season, I could easily see her sink into vengeance and madness.

There is one honorable mention here, too. Eva Green's Morgan in the Stars series, Camelot. Though she was unrepentant in her evil, we could not only see her suffering, but her reasoning, even if it was flawed. I had high hopes for her character. Too bad the series was cancelled in the first season...

I think the reason I prefer Morgana over others is that as a character, there's so much to draw from. Depending on the legends you choose, she can have up to nine (yes, nine, there is a mention in a legend or two) sisters, not to mention her brother. And Mordred, whether nephew or son, is always an excellent ally. Not to mention her sister's other sons (of which Gawain is my particular favorite).

But most of all? I love the incestuousness between she and Arthur (when it's there--I tend to gravitate toward those stories that have it). I love the angst, danger, and evil inherent because of that liaison, which is why I tend to prefer her as Mordred's mother over Morgause. And, deep down, I believe that Morgana both hates and loves Arthur, and it is that confusion that drives her to fight against him time and again.

So...who's your favorite Arthurian Character, and why?

Extracarricular - Kingsley/Harry - NC-17

Home--the Goldilocks Remix - Harry/Draco - PG12

So yesterday, I covered the Mabinogion, which is the best-remaining source for early Welsh Celtic folklore. Today I'm going to cover my other favorite (semi-)Arthurian book, the Celtic Heroic Age.

This one is unfortunately not available online except to buy, but I do highly recommend it. There are several editions, so there's no need to buy this version, which is now out of print, but I linked to my version of the book here.

When I finally made it to the UW, I knew I wanted to do an English degree, though I considered a few things before I settled on it for sure. One of the earliest classes I took outside my degree was a Celtic History class. This was one of many books I bought for the class. It's a source of translations of original historic documents detailing the Celts, starting with a couple ancient Celtic transcriptions, and working its way through what we could consider post-Arthurian Britain, if you believe that there was truly a man who became the legend that is King Arthur.

This book was one of my first experiences with secondary sources, and is as close as I have been able to get to primary sources on Arthurian history, given I do not read or write the languages the early tales were all written in.

In truth, the book has very little to do with Arthur, but there are a few passages about him in the Gododdin, which was an elegaic poem set in Northern England in the post-Roman age. It details the losses of a fight between the Britons and the Saxons in the kingdom of Strathclyde, apparently in or near the modern-day city of Glasgow. It is one of the few texts that reveals Arthur's name in a possible historical context. He is mentioned only in passing: "[Gorddur] used to bring black crows down in front of the wall/of the fortified town--though he was not Arthur--/amongst men mighty in feats/in the front of the barrier of alder wood..." He is used more as a descriptor than anything else, someone to compare the fallen man to. But there nevertheless.

There are other random passages in other sections of the book as well, and having such early record (all the sources in the book are pre-medieval, even if the translations are not) of Arthur only gives credence to those of us who think he may well be based in fact.

The book itself holds a cherished place in my library, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Celtic people. There's a ton of fascinating stuff in it.

Anyone else have any good non-fiction Arthurian sources?

So kabal42 suggested I do a post on my favorite Arthurian books. I have two, though both are only tangential to Arthurian lit. I'll do one today and one (hopefully) tomorrow (I do keep forgetting to do these posts...bad girl).

So the first I'll cover is the Mabinogoin (pronunciation for those interested: Mah-bin-oh-gee-in).

This movie is one of those "always been there" things for me, which makes sense, because it was released several years before I was born. I'm pretty sure it's one of the major origins of my Arthurian knowledge. I know it is for a lot of my generation, though far from the only source.

For me, this is one of the top 5 Arthurian movies out there (I'll be covering the others in later posts). This one's great because there's really no romance in it, and because it' simple for anyone to watch. Of course, it doesn't really get into the central stories of Camelot and the Knights of the Round table, but for several generations now, it's been introducing kids to the young Arthur, and thereby continuing the interest in Camelot into a new generation.

For me, the story itself always makes me smile. Wart's innocence, Merlin's excitement about learning, and Archemedes' crochetiness. Not to mention the creatures they become and meet, and the Wizard War with Madam Mim ...

I'll cover it more in a later post, but this is one of two movies based on one of the seminal modern Arthurian classic books: The Once and Future King by T.H. White, which has lent as much to the legends these days as Mallory or Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Given that the only other possible Arthurian story that would have made a good kid's movie (Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone) wasn't written for a few more years after this movie came out, I think this was the best choice for a Disney Arthurian story that they could have made, especially given the darkness of some of the stories.

There have been other attempts to do Arthurian stories for kids since, but really, none are quite as enjoyable as Sword in the Stone. At least, not for me.

So what about you? Like or hate Sword in the Stone? Do you have another kid's movie you prefer?

This post is going to be more of a covering-my-ass post, to let everyone understand my thoughts on the names and how they are spelled.

The earliest record of Arthur dates to the 9th century, and so the stories have been written in a number of different languages: Celtic (mostly Welsh, though there are some mentions in Irish and Scottish tales), English (both old and modern), French, and Italian, to mention just a few. Add to that fact that English didn't have regular spelling until the Victorian age, and you end up with a wealth of spellings for some characters.

This doesn't means that the names are misspelled. In fact, most characters have several different spellings that are accepted by scholars as correct.

The nice thing is that this also makes it easier to determine where certain parts of the tales come from, because the names are spelled differently in different languages and at different times.

Igraine, the mother of Arthur, is an excellent example of this. In Latin, her name is Igerna. Welsh is Eigyr. and French is Igerne. Mallory was the one to coin the spelling we know today, though his version was Ygrayne, which was eventually modernized to igraine. As you can see, spelling is not so important as knowing which character is being referred to.

Of course, this becomes difficult when you start to get into certain knights and families. Of Arthur's nephews, three of the five have names starting with G: Gawain, Gareth, and Geriant. There are also several Elaines in the tales: one is Arthur's sister (along with Morgana and Morgause in some legends), one is the mother of Sir Galahad (son of Lancelot), and one is the Lady of Shalott who is best known from the Tennyson poem.

Which means that it will occasionally be difficult to figure out which character is actually being referred to until you get into the context sometimes.

So...all this was meant to do was to ask that before your inner grammer nazi tries to correct me, check out the character in question. It's quite likely I've spelled it the way it was referred to in a certain legend, though you may be right and I've misspelled it randomly--my fingers do tend to hit the wrong keys now and then, after all. All I ask is that you don't just assume it's wrong. Thanks. :)

My love of Arthurian Mythos started before I can really remember. it's always been there. I grew up in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), and it was part of the whole experience. It was also omnipresent in what I saw and read and listened to as a child. I just can't recall a time when it wasn't something I knew.

My first conscious memories of anything Arthurian was seeing Camelot in a theatre with my mother and some of her SCA friends when my sister was still quite small, so 1977 or 78. And I also recall people commenting about Monty Python and the Holy Grail at an SCA event, and a toy someone had made based on the migrating coconuts.

As a fan, Morgana was the first character really to call to me, because there were so few female characters in the tales, and even as a child, I could see she was far more powerful than Guenevere, who was too trapped in her role to do much. Despite that, I've only ever managed to read half of Mists of Avalon. I do think it's a great book, I just never got my hands on it until I was out of the voracious reading stage of my life, and it is a very large book. Someday, eventually, I will finish it.

In college, I took a number of classes touching on myth and folklore, but the two that really stood out to me were a Celtic history class that included a section on Arthurian legends, and an Arthurian Lit class, both of which I absolutely adored. In both classes, I wrote papers on women in Arthurian Myth, and their roles in the stories, which only increased my interest in the subject.

Unfortunately, I've discovered that I was born in the wrong place to get an Arthurian Masters degree. It's not an impossibility, but definitely difficult. Not that I couldn't have gotten it elsewhere, but I've always been a hombody, and being that far from home felt undoable to me. Still, you never know. Maybe someday.

Beyond all that, every time there's a new movie or show about Camelot, I'm always right there to check it out, even if only one episode, and I keep searching for more, because I know that there are many out there that I haven't seen. both good and bad. Specifically, my current Arthurian obsession is Merlin, which will probably take over several of these posts, but definitely not all of them. Plus, I have a shelf full of Arthurian books, both literature and resource books.

As you can see, my knowledge on the subject matter is extensive if erratic. Ask me a question about Arthurian Mythos, and I almost definitely have an opinion and thoughts on the subject. And I can't wait to share them all with you.

So yeah, me too.




{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

I've decided to blog about King Arthur & Camelot, because it's one of those things that I really do know an excess of information about. I've got about 80 subjects so far, though some might not work out, but I'd love more ideas, if anyone's got ideas/thoughts/subjects they'd like to hear about.

Title: Extracurricular
Author: elfflame
Characters/Pairings: Kingsley/Harry
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: Kingsley/Harry
Other Warnings: None, really.
Word Count: 2273
Summary/Description: Kingsley takes Harry "under his wing."
Author's Notes: As soon as I saw the pairing, I had to try it. Not sure if it fully worked or not, but I do love my Kingsley Smut, so here it is. Thank you as always to Wolfish Cat for the Betaing and hand-holding. :)

( A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open. - Francis Bacon )

The remix reveals went up last week, but I forgot to post this, so here's the remix. And if you missed it, my remix was art: To More Fables Needed by naturegirlrocks from my fic Fables.

Title: Home – The Goldilocks Remix
Author/Artist: elfflame
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Fluff?
Summary: Inspired by alovelycupoftea's Home.
Word Count: 2656
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Characters do not belong to me, they belong to JK Rowling, WB and others. The story idea is also not mine, but merely an offshoot of alovelycupoftea's Home.
Author's notes: alovelycupoftea, I had a great time looking through your stories, but I kept coming back to this one. It was just so cute, and the idea of their house search kept coming to me, so I couldn't resist. I hope you like what I came up with. Thanks as always to my usual beta, who knows who she is. And thank you to the mods for running the Remix again. This is definitely my favorite fest of all time. :)


( We both have plenty of money. Why shouldn’t we spend it on a beautiful house? – Draco, Home )

Pet Trouble - with kabal42 - Harry/Draco, Ginny/Pansy - NC-17

My remix was posted today, and it's so sweet.

They did art for one of my drabbles--Fables. Just go check it out. It's lovely. :D To More Fables Needed

Title: Pet Trouble
Author: elfflame & kabal42
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ginny/Pansy
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: BDSM themes
Other Warnings: D/s relationship(s), spanking
Word Count: 1994
Summary/Description: Ginny comes to retrieve her girl to find that she has not behaved well at all.
Author's Notes: Based in part on a few of kabal42's fics, most particularly Raising Snakes. We’d been talking about doing a fic with these two pairings for a while now, and this seemed the perfect opportunity. We hope you enjoy. Thank you to Kit for looking this over for us.


( I know I was bad. I know... She'll be mad. Because. It's here. And you. Will be worse than if I'd done it at home. And I didn't mean to disappoint her. – Pansy, Raising Snakes )

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I stumbled across this book a year or two ago looking for something new to read, and while I'm not the fastest reader, I have to say this one kept my attention. Often I set a book down and don't come back to it for days or even weeks or more, which makes getting back into the story difficult, but this one had no problem pulling me back in each time.

It's one (very small) part science fiction (due to the aspect of time travel), one part mystery, one part historical (covering mostly victorian times, but also the attack on Coventry in World War II), one part farce, and one part romance. That description might lead you to wonder how such a storyline could even work, but somehow, Willis makes it work, and you can't help but enjoy the mystery, as well as the wry humor of the main character, Ned, who is hiding out in the Victorian era to keep away from a madwoman who wants him to find one of the most hideous artifacts of all time.

Even when the characters are comical, they lend so much to the feel of the time Ned is in, and his quest to figure out what happened to the Bishop's Bird Stump gives the story a sense of urgency that might not have worked with any of the other aspects of the story.

If you're a fan of soft science fiction, or romance that features plot (and a central male character over a female one) over passion, I highly recommend this. Even more if you're a fan of science fiction and mystery, because that is exactly what this is. A sci-fi mystery with a twist.

I look forward to reading my way through the rest of her works. If they're all as fun as this one, I know I'll enjoy them.

I've avoided these in the past as too much work, but  last year for NaNoWriMo, I was considering doing a Lucius POV for one of my earlier works, so I think I'm going to do it instead for this. :)

Wish me luck!

I'll Make You Mine - Rodolphus/Draco - NC-17

Not that anyone even notices this journal, but I can't resist.  We'll see if I get any requests.

Stolen from inell:
Leave me a character and I'll tell you my top 3 ships for them

Fandoms to choose from (only including ones where I really ship more than a single pair here):
Harry Potter (of course)
Merlin
Buffy
Star Trek
B5 (might be hard, but I can try)
Marvel (I know XMen the best here, but I might be able to do something with the new Avengers, if pushed)
Narnia
Pirates of the Caribbean

You can try me on others I have in my sidebar under Fandoms, but I don't know if I'll have any successes outside those groups.

Have at it! :D

Title: I'll Make You Mine
Author: elfflame
Characters/Pairings: Rodolphus/Draco
Rating: NC-17 (mild, though—at least for Rodolphus)
Kinks/Themes Chosen: Biting
Other Warnings: Cross-gen (I'm thinking Rodolphus would be about mid-forties here, and Draco's just turned seventeen.), dub-con, restraint.
Word Count: ~4500
Summary/Description: Rodolphus has an offer for Draco.
Author's Notes: Between not getting to this until last week, and having one of the busiest weeks in some time, plus the fact that these two did not seem to want to shut up, this ended up being one of my longer pieces. Thank you to Kit and her Ro for inspiring this, and for all the hand-holding, despite my whining.

( Leave all your love and your longing behind/You can't carry it with you if you want to survive – Florence and the Machine, the Dog Days Are Over )

The Problem With Malfoy - Harry/Draco/George, NC-17

Viridian: A Waiting Game - Harry/Draco, R