Soria

Author's note:
My original characters usually end up as stock types, so it helps for me to imagine an actor playing them, to give them some more detailed features and to help shape their personality.

In this case I imagined Taliessa as played by Emma Thompson, who I believe has the right mixture of wisdom, warmth and authority to play a woman who is Albion's finest bard and knows it.

As for Tom, I really meant to not go with Peter Dinklage, because it felt a little arrogant, but my mind is terribly uncooperative when it comes to creating imagery and so as soon as I had so much as imagined the possibility, the idea stuck and refused to be modified. But then again, why not? He is awesome.

Title: Burn so brightly
Author: Judin
Rating: R
Genre: Angst, romance, age-regression.
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, and several surprises.
Spoilers: S1-S6. Goes AU post-S6.
Warnings: Violence.
Chapter specific summary: Zachariah looked decidedly unimpressed.

(As did my beta when she read this.)

Author's notes: It's here! And ... it's honestly far from my best work, but it's the best I can do for this particular chapter. The boys needed a breather, since the last chapter was so very chatty and plotty, and the next one will be ... wait, I'm not telling you that. Anyway ...

More fanart! I'm just ... I don't even ... What? IT'S SO CUTE! *dead*


Chapter 1
Chapter 2a and 2b
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5


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I'm a firm believer in Team Hug-It-Out, and took the idea pretty far in this next scene which never made it into "Burn so brightly". It was Balthazar who pointed out that Castiel's wings needed grooming, though he didn't know why, being unaware of the poison. He did, however, warn Sam and Dean that Castiel was entirely and completely untouched, meaning he had never "shared grace", as I call it, with another angel. Being completely touch-starved, Castiel might very well experience a great deal of pain when his true form was touched for the first time, and he does, as you will see.

In this version, the "mind meld" is only partial, for if they drowned in it every time, how were the boys ever supposed to finish the damn grooming? I had so many problems trying to make the grooming work, I'm not surprised I ended up doing something else entirely.

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Elfladyarwen wondered if I could post the discarded scenes here on livejournal as well as on tumblr, and that I can:


Not sure if there is any kind of market for this, but I thought I would share some discarded bits from "Burn so Brightly", so you guys can see how the story has evolved over time.

For one thing, instead of self-mutilation in chapter 5, there was supposed to be wing-grooming, as per the common rules of wing-fic. Alas, I couldn't decide how it would play out, and eventually went in another direction entirely. What remains in the published chapter is the idea that Castiel's wings are made of grace, and so to touch them is to be in contact with his true form. What follows below is one of the many, many versions of the inevitable "mind meld" when Sam and Dean try to rub oil into Castiel's wings.

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I've joined Camelot_Drabble, a weekly challenge community for Merlin BBC. It's a nice way to keep the creative juices flowing, while at the same time the drabbles can be short enough that the challenge never feels like a chore.

My first five entries are in a verse, and since I think I'm done with that verse now, I'll post them here.

Each drabble is between 100 and 1000 words long.
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (with background Lancelot/Gwen)
Warning: Minor character-death.
Overall rating: PG-13
Summary: Begins with the loss of a loved-one, then the magical reveal and Arthur's progression from rage to acceptance, before finally it gets all gay at the end.

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Heads up to let you know I'm posting some discarded scenes from "Burn so brightly" on my tumblr. First up are two version of a wing-grooming scene which was originally going to be in chapter 5 and 6.
Don't know what might come next, I've just discarded so much, and some of it I really like, so I'm posting it on tumblr so it won't go entirely to waste. It kind of hurts to think of the hours I've spent plotting and writing scenes that will never see the light of day.

First of all, I just want to say that the reason I make posts like this so rarely is because I'm not good at writing long segments about myself. Now you know.

Anyway.

I have just sent chapter 6 of Burn so Brightly to my beta. Yaaaay! She's on vacation, but might find the time to look at it anyway. It's a short chapter, but that's alright since it functions mostly as a breather and a bridge between 5 and 7, which are both heavy on the action and plot-development. In chapter 7 there will be actual moving action as well, not just sitting-on-our-asses-in-Bobby's-living-room-talking type action. :P

Season 7 ended with possibly the smallest bang of all the seasons so far, but I am mucho excited to see Dean and Cas' adventures in Purgatory come season 8, and I hope that Sam teams up with Jodie and Garth, because they are awesome.

Speaking of Jodie and Garth, I went to Asylum 8 in Birmingham in May, and it was amazing. I already knew that I loved these actors and actresses, but my adoration just hit the ceiling when I got to hear them speak, and even got to speak to a couple of them. Seeing Misha Collins up close was like a dream.
For those of you who were there, I was the idiot who suggested Mark Sheppard be an "extra" on BBC's Merlin. I meant "guest star", but my mind was just blank. I got to apologise later, though, and he'd forgotten all about it. If you want to you can watch me humiliate myself here.
I really want to go to Asylum 9, see Richard and Sebastian and Rob.

Back to the season 7 finale, am I the only one who laughed when I found out that it was written by Sera Gamble? After all the abuse she's been given by the fans, she gives us a finale full of delicious, heart-breaking Destiel. She also wrote "Death's Door" (7x10) and "The born-again identity" (7x17), two of the best episodes this season. I'm not saying I would have voted for her as showrunner of season 8, but I don't think she deserved half of the criticism she got.

And then a final service announcement: I have a tumblr! Don't be discouraged by the amount of Merlin I've been reblogging recently. ;P

Title: Burn so brightly
Author: Judin
Rating: R
Genre: Angst, romance, age-regression.
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, and several surprises.
Spoilers: S1-S6. Goes AU post-S6.
Warnings: Violence.
Chapter specific summary: “He tried to tear his own wings off,” Dean said, voice rising just a little. “What’s wrong with them?”

Author's notes: What can I say? It’s been five months. It’s inexcusable. Here’s chapter 5.

I HAVE FANART! Do you guys have any idea what that means to me? RainDragonX made this awesome picture of Castiel chilling with his storybook.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2a and 2b
Chapter 3
Chapter 4


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Thought I'd kick myself and let you know why Chapter 5 of Burn so Brightly is taking so long.

Mainly, it's because there are two large scenes that dominate the chapter, and I'm struggling to decide what  they are going to look like. The first scene is what happened in Heaven, a scene my beta informed me had too little excitement to it, which prompted me to think anew. Several drafts later, I'm no longer sure which idea to run with.

The second scene I won't say too much about, but it is a huge turning point for our heroes, especially emotionally. In this scene, I'm mostly struggling to put the thematic and emotional puzzle pieces together, because the pieces I choose to work with might change what I had planned to happen in the next chapters.

My fervent hope and belief is that once this hurdle is overcome (and it turned out to be a bigger hurdle than I anticipated), the rest will flow more smoothly.

I won't make any more appologies for keeping you waiting, because they are starting to ring hollow, though I mean them equally every time. I work on Burn so Brightly every day, but climbing out of this ditch is going to take some effort.

Anyway, happy new year! And thankfully, we will soon have another episode of Supernatural to enjoy.

I'm playing around with different version of a scene in Burn so brightly, Chapter 5, and now I would like to know:

What do you think happened between Chuck, Castiel and all the restored angels in Heaven? What does Heaven look like? How did Rapahel and Michael take being demoted to mere angels?

Anybody got any thoughts? :)