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-Amie Kaufman Happy Birthday @hartigays

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Happy birthday to the amazing Kassius Nelson💜

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Quick something🤧

(Arthur looks like a idiot)

(Merlin better take good care of his princess)

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The Core Four + colours Happy Birthday @stark-lord! Thank you for blessing this fandom with your gorgeous gifs! Have the very best day today! Lots of love from me!

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Cinematography

Cinematography | The Little Mermaid (2023)

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your honor I love them...

Arthur & Gwen | 3.06 "The Changeling"

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24th June 2025, by @sasakisniko

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Merlin goes out without his neckerchief on Arthur: I'm looking respectfully Gwaine: I'm not

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We have a winner! I love love love that the entire podium for this tournament consists of hugs 🫂 Also, our first place hug has just been confirmed as the owner of all of our hearts, the moment we all collectively keep returning to and I think that's beautiful ❤️💙 Thank you to everyone who took part and made this such a great one!

1st place

2nd place

3rd place

Endnote: (1) while this might be the end of our episode tournaments, we are far from done with these gif tournaments in general! I have many more ideas for other themes to give you impossible choices for! And we're going to do a champions round, with the finalists of the last eight gif tournaments, which should be fun! (2) this was the first ever tournament that was completely the same all the way through as over on twitter! which has made my job loads easier because I only have to keep track of one grid - so thanks for the fandom-wide agreement! 🫶🏼

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while gathering pictures of edwin covered in blood i noticed something!!

pretty much the whole time he’s in hell, it’s like THIS ^ with his non-bloody side in shadows, UNTIL charles comes

and then it’s like THIS ^ with his bloody side in shadows

i haven’t studied cinematography or anything but that’s definitely intentional

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i think that part of the reason why i love Dead Boy Detectives so much is because usually in a trio with two boys and a girl, it's the girl who's painted as the intelligent, cool, calm, collected one. you know, the Mom of the Group. and yeah, Crystal's a badass, she has superpowers and is definitely smart and resourceful, but she's not the one who's painted as all mature and put together. no. that role goes to Edwin who is. Fucking Insane.

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Anyway the Pendragon family trait is guilt deflection. It’s having the capacity for profound sympathy and compassion but only when they’re not the ones at fault. They don’t want the people they care about to be in pain but will rationalize to high heaven about how the things they did were correct and justified and those whom they’ve hurt were really in the wrong and/or overreacting.

When Arthur and Morgana tell each other they’re more like Uther than they realize, they are both once again seeing in the other what they do not want to see in themselves: Morgana cloaks her blind power lust in her righteous fury over the persecution of magic; Arthur cloaks his blind bigotry in his grief over his parents’ deaths and Morgana’s alienation.

This is also how Arthur “I haven’t seen you smile these past three days” Pendragon can still be hitting the best friend he’s more than once been ready to lay down his life for in S5 and insist it’s just ‘horseplay’. This is how Morgana, for all her cruelty, can care so profoundly for Aithusa, whom she sees as solely a victim of anti-magic sentiment like herself.

It’s all the same damn thing.

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I have so many thoughts about this scene, and I finally managed to make the gifs to go with it, so here we go:

We know Arthur's going into the fight with the intention of letting Uther win so that the king can save face. But Uther makes this as hard as possible for Arthur, goading him and triggering him by saying stuff like "when I was your age I conquered camelot. I didn't inherit this kingdom, I won it" or "one day you'll be strong enough to take my crown, but not yet". And so as a consequence, at the beginning, Arthur fights him properly, with all the skill he has, letting Uther feel his anger. He quickly and efficiently overpowers Uther, throwing him to the ground.

But then, seeing Uther getting back up, desperate with fear of humiliation and almost hatred towards his son, Arthur's perception of Uther shifts. For maybe the first time in his life, Arthur sees his father for what he has become.

He sees the man he has looked up to all his life, the man he's always wanted to make proud more than anyone, the man who he always thought saw him as a disappointment. That man is now desperate, red in the face, lashing out like a panicked animal. And in this split second he turns from someone to be feared and admired to someone to be pitied. He is no threat to Arthur, he is no match for Arthur, and in this one moment Uther ceases to have power over Arthur.

So Arthur throws the fight, but even though the crowds cheer for Uther in the end, it is Arthur who has won. Uther may hold the sword to Arthur's chest, but they both know who is the stronger warrior, the better person out of the two. Arthur no longer needs his father's validation, because he has stopped looking up to him, has stopped fearing him, and instead feels only pity for his vain, desperate father who needs his own son others to feel small in order to feel powerful himself. The power dynamic between them has shifted and Arthur has defeated Uther more definitively than by the sword.

And Arthur doesn't feel pride or satisfaction at this realization, but a weird kind of sadness to see his childhood hero reduced to this, to see his father so desperate for the crowd's validation. Arthur can swallow his pride for the sake of his father (and you can see how hard it is for him) but Uther can't do the same for his son. It's in this exact moment that Arthur proves that he is truly ready to be king, that he is going to be a better king than Uther could ever dream of being.

Arthur and Uther fight | 3.11 "The Sorcerer's Shadow"

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Can’t you think of anything new to say? Every morning it’s the same thing.

MERLIN 3x07 (The Castle of Fyrien)

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23rd June 2025

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Merlin rewatch -- S4E1: The Darkest Hour1

"You're not scared?" "Oh, I am, Merlin. Maybe more than you."

Amazing scene! Gorgeous from start to end. This post is going to be long.

Context, Merlin's magic was useless to the Dorocha. He dropped a candle and he was too terrified to retrieve it from the dark corner.

"Just, pick it up."

Love how gentle Arthur's voice was. His expression showed clearly that he wasn't impatient or anything. He looked puzzled. I think he didn't expect Merlin to be so visibly shaken. He thought Merlin was the bravest man he knew because Merlin always seemed unfazed in crisis (no more than Arthur, at least).

The lovely thing is that while he didn't expect Merlin to be as scared as he was, he didn't look down on Merlin just because of it. He told Merlin to just pick the candle up, not to mock him, but to make the situation more casual and less scary.

"Do you want me to get one of the maids to do it for you?"

Same here. Arthur saw how tense Merlin was and tried to lighten the mood by some light teasing. You can see Arthur didn't really mean it from his deliberately performative movement and quiet voice, like he was pushing himself to be funny.

"It's not a joke." "Yeah."

When teasing doesn’t work, Arthur was quick to concede and flip back to serious mode! It's so beautiful. He didn't look shock or offended, or even guilty, just quietly resigned, showing his understanding.

Then he goes to pick the candle for Merlin!! Truly a knight in shiny armour~~~

"You see, Merlin, I could never be like you. I could never let myself look so spineless."

They returned to banter, and I love the self-awareness in this sentence, a hint of Arthur's burden. He can never look afraid because he has to give the people confidence. In contrast, Merlin can (and most of the time, need to) show his fear because people don't look to him for courage (well, maybe Arthur does), and looking harmless is how he survives.

Lovely smile🥹Love these moments when their faces melted into a soft, genuine smile at the end of some jibing match.

I love how clear it was in the two actors performance that they were very much still afraid (and tired), and were only pretending to be casual. You can feel the effort they put it to keep their voice light and cheery.

A sudden noise had them both tensed up again. Arthur's face here!! At first glance he seemed relax and uncaring, still, only the tiny furrow of his eyebrow betrayed his calm exterior. So subtle yet so strong.

"You're not scared?" "Oh, I am, Merlin."

Then! Arthur admits that he’s scared!!! Out loud! The vulnerability on his face here was wonderful. I love how easily he said it. He couldn't show his vulnerability to his people, but Merlin was different. There was also a sort of comfort or validation in his admitting fear, like he was telling Merlin it's okay to be scared.

“Maybe more than you.”

Bradley was doing some amazing thing here. There's this tiny shift on his face after he fully turned and before he talked, that made him look incredibly soft and... indulgent? There was sadness too. Just, so many emotions there in his eyes and they were all directed to Merlin. So beautiful.

The smiles ahhhhh 🫠🫠🫠

What I imagine, Merlin was prompted to smile by the realisation that Arthur wasn't as calm/unfearful/oblivious as he appeared to. Arthur was smiling as a reassurance "yes, I'm the same, you're alright", and maybe also because Merlin finally smiled.

Colin’s face at the end is wonderfully complicated. It's returning to reality from a moment of break. But also, I wonder if a part of him was absorbing the realization that this was what Arthur always felt. This hopeless. It was probably the first time Merlin experienced what Arthur always had to deal with. And still, Arthur appeared calm and confident each time, giving his people hope. Merlin had known how strong Arthur was to be able to do that, but here he actually experienced it. It’s very, very lovely.

[S4E1] [other episodes]

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I am hungry

Merthur AMV with the song Abbey by Mitski. I put a lot of thought and effort into this so hopefully you like it :) I couldn't find anyone else who had edited them to this song and I just needed it.

Big thank you to @godmerlin for helping to make this possible