gaiussleechtank - Tumblr blog

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feeding into my merlin can do archery bs: i never knew this pic existed and my mind just- exploded. I mean imagine guys merlin doing archery IMAGINE IMAGINEEEE

i also made this a while back because i was delusional ⬇️⬇️ (not accurate posture)

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You are my Sun

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Head cannon that Gwaine and Leon are at each others throats most of the time with Gwaine being too care free and up to illegal activities and Leon being to much a nagging rule abider.

But when it comes to gossip? Those two are the pair that comes the closest to Merlin and Gwen’s level of bitchy boiling hot tea.

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Whilst on a run I realised something.

Arthur is so Crowley

And Merlin is so Aziraphale

Take this as you will

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saw this dress meme and blacked out

(painting study is based on JC Leyendecker's 'Couple Descending Staircase')

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god i love making animatics in my head i wish drawing was real

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What is wrong with you????

‘to be known is to be loved’ is all fun and games until,

‘sometimes i think i know you merlin, other times…’

‘everything you’ve done, i know now’

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Arthur’s love language is gift giving, always has been. He realises this when he returns to a modern Albion full of all these new terms and words and definitions. Back before he died, he didn’t have the time to properly make things for his loved ones as he was the King and he was incredibly serious about his duties.

Yet when he returns to a modern world, he finds himself crown-less and with a lot of spare time. Cue discovering YouTube and google, how-to-tutorials, craft books and step by step guides.

Back in Camelot, Merlin was a nightmare to get things for, nothing flashy or expensive or Arthur would have his ear nagged off about wasting money. But now? Paper and paint seem to be limitless to Arthur and he’s just learnt what origami is.

Merlin comes across him one morning to find the returned king fast asleep and surrounded by hundreds of painted paper dragons. It’s the best gift the immortal has ever received.

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The knights + Gwen have figured out that when Merlin and Arthur argue, you can give them something to hold and they will accept it and just keep holding until their argument is over.

Que both King and Court Warlock holding a bunch of random shit in the middle of the hallway and being very confused about it because their friends think they’re hilarious.

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It was one of those nights: the peaceful ones where both King and Court Warlock could shed their titles and just exist as two friends sharing cups of wine beside a fire. Both were silent as they nursed their drinks and basked in the dim lighting the fire provided Arthur’s dark chambers.

Merlin was lying across the floor on top of countless pillows and blankets, parallel to the hearth of the fireplace. His feet were bare as he had kicked off his boots hours earlier and the cords of his tunic were pulled extremely loose. Merlin’s legs were crossed one over the other as one hand played with a lock of his own hair as the other blindly traced the engravings of his goblet.

Arthur was sat his chair above Merlin, facing the fire and looking down at the peaceful man. He was glad that Merlin’s eyes were closed because it allowed the King to openly stare. For someone who was regarded to be so aware of everything all of the time - Merlin has not once ever cottoned on to Arthur’s gaze on him. In a way, it was reassuring that Arthur didn’t have to fear being caught by the very man he was observing. But it another way it was far too frustrating: Arthur nearly wanted to be caught and then in turn be forced to admit his reasons for staring.

For the Goddess’ sake, how could Arthur not look anywhere but Merlin with the man lying so enchantingly in front of him, doused in the golden light of the flames?

How could he lay his eyes elsewhere when nothing and no one else brought him nearly as much happiness and fulfilment in his heart than Merlin?

How could he when Merlin was everything that he loved?

The nearly empty goblet rested on his lap with his hands encircling the rim, it would be stupid to say it.

“Merlin?” Arthur broke their silence.

Merlin hummed in response, he didn’t move nor open his eye, but the tone of his voice easily told Arthur that he was listening.

“I’m in love with you.” Oh, fuck.

The body in front of him stilled. Merlin’s hand retracted from his hair as he slowly sat up. Arthur couldn’t tell you when the Warlock’s eyes had opened but he could give you a thousand words at least on what it felt like to be under their unending gaze. Merlin didn’t look away from Arthur as he got to his feet and came to stand in front of his King.

Merlin might not have ever been aware of when Arthur’s eyes were on him - but Arthur was far too aware of Merlin’s piercing stare. The King averted his eyes and stared down at the lingering mouthful of wine in his cup, listening to Merlin’s few footsteps.

A hand slid underneath Arthur’s jaw and half cupped the side of his face: hesitantly, Arthur let himself be guided to look up at Merlin. Had it been anyone else, this would have been so dangerous - to willing put his heart and mind at risk by giving someone else so much control over him would have been a death wish if it were anyone else.

Yet this was Merlin, the one person in his life that he would faithfully trust the world with to the ends of time.

It was sad eyes that Arthur saw. Not angry. Not disgusted. Not hurt, or even happy. Sad, sad, eyes that Arthur would nearly say were brokenhearted.

Merlin sighed with a pained and defeated expression. “Not again.”

“What?” Arthur felt his breath catch in his throat.

Merlin smiled with a soft pain, his thumb stroked over Arthur cheek as he said, “You don’t love me, Arthur.”

“I- I do.” Arthur stammered, he hadn’t anticipated out right refusal, denial and disbelief as an outcome. “I do love you, Merlin.”

Merlin swallows and seemed to choke back tears.

“No, Arthur, you don’t.” He repeated. “This is a love enchantment, this has happened before. You aren’t in love with me.”

The words were far too rehearsed, Merlin’s expression too knowing and understanding. Arthur felt like a petulant child being gently corrected on the truth. Had this really happened before? Had Arthur been enchanted to be in love with Merlin before?

“Merlin, I know my feelings, please believe me.” Arthur begged in futile.

“I don’t think you realise how badly I want to, but I can’t.”

Arthur’s eyes widened at Merlin’s confession - even though the feelings were reciprocated, Arthur was still being rejected - but he saw it. He saw all of the held back and restrained love Merlin held in his eyes for Arthur. He finally was bearing witness to Merlin’s affection, only because the Warlock was allowing him to.

“Is it really so unbelievable that I love you that you are convinced my mind is under the control of a spell of potion?”

“I know you love me - in the way friends love one another, brothers even.” Merlin stressed, his words clearly hurting himself. “But you don’t love me the way I want you to, you never have and you never will.”

“You do want me to love you like this?” Arthur countered.

Merlin closed his eyes and shakily let out a sob, his hands ran from Arthur’s jaw and face, around the King’s neck and weakly grasped at the back of Arthur’s head. He pressed his face into Arthur’s hair, Arthur pulled Merlin in closer and strung his arms around the Warlock’s waist and back: he could feel Merlin weep.

“You won’t remember this conversation, you never have, so why not?” Merlin muttered with a bitterness that surprised the King. “I have loved you for years, Arthur, what I feel for you goes beyond the devotion of prophecy and bond of friendship. I’ve always known that you will never feel the same.”

How his heart ached on the verge of breaking: Merlin loved him. He was in love with Arthur. He felt the same as Arthur but clearly awful past experiences that Arthur cannot remember are preventing him from acting on the truth.

Arthur tried to speak but was cut off before he could even utter a syllable.

“No, Arthur, please stop.” Merlin said, slipping out of Arthur embrace. He looked so guilty.

Merlin believed Arthur not to be in control of his mind and actions, he believed Arthur to be susceptible to anything. Though Merlin was nowhere near the kind of person to take advantage of someone under the influence of something mind altering. Even though this ‘supposed potion or enchantment’ was giving him what the Warlock wanted, Merlin still held back and refused.

Even such a simple embrace, the kind of embrace that was becoming more commonly between them as the years progressed seemed to wreck so much regret through the man - Arthur wanted to shake him and scream at how wrong Merlin was: that he could and was consenting to any any hold or touch Merlin could or would give him.

Arthur stood up and met Merlin far too closely. Their faces were mere inches apart, dangerously so. The King saw how badly Merlin wanted to give in, he could see the arguments and thought process that Merlin was going through.

His hand hovered over the side of Merlin’s face as leaned in closer.

“Don’t.”

He froze.

“You’re not in the right state of mind.” Merlin breathed out, more for his own sake than Arthur’s.

Arthur hand fell to his side but he didn’t move away.

“Please tell me how I can prove my honesty.” He asked.

Merlin looked down with resignation and then turned away to the doors.

“Come, Sire, follow me.” Merlin murmured as he left.

He hadn’t called Arthur ‘Sire’ in years, not even in heated arguments did Merlin enforce that distance between them. It spoke tales to Arthur on how hurt his best friend was. He dashed after Merlin, it wasn’t hard to follow the sound of weary footsteps.

They were heading for Merlin’s laboratory. Arthur caught up with broken hearted Warlock and joined their hands together - Merlin allowed it.

Met with the smell of dodgy potions, old books, strong herbs, ash and numerous other smells that Arthur had grown familiar with associating with Merlin’s experiments, Arthur saw and felt Merlin relax slightly. They were on his ground now, they followed his rules.

Arthur let go of Merlin’s hand and took his chair that he always sat in when observing Merlin work.

“You stare a lot.” Merlin said as he leafed through shelves of bottles - no doubt searching for a cure-all potion that he had concocted in earlier years.

“I always have, you’ve just never noticed.” Arthur replied honestly.

Merlin sighed for the thousandth time that hour and stood up straight and returned to Arthur, bottle in hand. It was a small vial with opaque pink liquid filling less than a third of the bottle. He stood on the other side of the work bench and handed over the vial of anti-serum.

Wordlessly and without hesitation Arthur uncorked the bottle and drank his mouthful. Setting down the bottle, he leaned closer to Merlin, head propped up by his elbow, hand under chin, staring at Merlin patiently.

The Warlock also leaned closer, gold creeping into his eyes without a single incantation as he analysed Arthur’s reaction to the potion. The world seemed to hold its breath as it waited for the two men to get onto the same page.

“Well, am I really under an enchantment?” Arthur asked after a very long pause.

Merlin’s mouth fell open as his brow and eyes once again creased into tears.

“No… You aren’t.” Merlin managed to say, covering his face as he cried.

Arthur stood up and joined Merlin on the other side of the workbench. He pulled the shocked and relieved and sobbing Warlock into another hug. Both holding onto each other equally tight.

“I love you, Merlin.” Arthur promised his Warlock firmly.

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question for my fellow merthur compatriots, i recently started reading a merlin canon fix-it where merlin’s modern name was emrys hunithson, and like i love that name, touching, meaningful. but that and another post on this website has me thinking about the lovely alternatives merlin might use as his name in a modern world.

like yeah, he could go by merlin emrys, merlin hunithson, emrys hunithson

but imagine if he took up the last name pendragon.

1500 years pass and merlin’s traveling the world as merlin pendragon, as emrys pendragon or better yet

ambrose pendragon.

merlin signs all his contracts and credit card receipts with the name a. pendragon.

arthur and the rest of the roundtable + gwen + morgana return but can’t find merlin. WHY?

because they’re looking for the wrong name.

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For AO3 readers: what’s the best length for chapters in a multi chapter fic?

I’m editing my fanfic and I’m curious what people would like best.

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I just thought of this theory so now I’m going to inflict it on all of you because I am no longer well after thinking this:

Magic existed in Albion long before Merlin and Arthur, et cetera, did. And based on canon - the books, the tales, even the geography and beings - magic used to be massive in Albion. A huge part of life and nature and living. Then Arthur is born and Ygraine dies and the Purge begins. Magic is killed off, reduced and nearly wiped out; thousands of species go extinct, entire cultures are burnt, and hundreds of millennia of knowledge are erased. So as a last resort to save itself, Merlin is born.

Merlin - Emrys - Magic Itself/Incarnate.

All of this desperate power is out there and channelled into one single being. Think of it, all the land's magic rushing into a single entity and given life, evolved from having existence in everything to truly living and experiencing a concentrated point. Maybe this is why Merlin has such a deep connection with everything, because he has existed before as something so much greater than the human mind.

I think this is why he is Emrys, why Emrys is immortal, you can't kill Magic, Albion's world doesn't work that way. There is the balance of life to maintain.

This is where Arthur and the Prophecy of the Once and Future King come in: Merlin and Arthur are greatly connected. It's Arthur's birth that forces Merlin into creation and it's together that they are meant to bring greatness to the land.

Except they don't, Albion's 'Golden Era' doesn't come. Arthur dies and Merlin continues living because Magic cannot die. Centuries pass, Merlin is missing his other half and Magic continues to disappear because Merlin and Arthur didn't save it.

So there is a build up, Magic keeps going to Merlin to protect itself, Albion ages and falls and is rebuilt over and over again into something new with each passing century. As time progresses Magic turns to its greatest source - the undying force of magic, the greatest concentration of it given life - and because of this the land slowly forgets that it even had magic to begin with.

This is what forces Albion's Greatest Need. The balance cannot handle this, the land cannot handle this and so Arthur returns to save it all.

He is Merlin's other half - their destinies are literally written and entwined with one another.

They would figure out that Magic had disappeared from the land and that it was why Arthur was back, but it would be Merlin to realise where Magic had gone to and what it would take for it to be brought back.

Merlin would have to die for Albion to be saved. His life would have to end and return to its previous state of unconscious sentient existence.

But how can someone that cannot die stop living?

It's easy really: have their other half of their soul - the one that they were born for, who they live for and exist for - kill their physical body with an immortal blade.

Only Arthur wielding the Excalibur would work. After all, Arthur was the reason that Merlin was born, so who's to say that Arthur's not the reason Merlin dies?

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I simply sat last night and just imagined the entire plot of an entire fic to Hozier's 'Unreath Unearth' and The Amazing Devil's 'Ruin'. But I have solved a major plot hole.

so rude that fantasizing about writing alone is not enough to actually get the fic done. you have to actually sit down and write it. insane.

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something that’s more important than anything

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I feel like as a fandom we don't talk enough about the Fisher King. No, I don't mean the actual episode - that is an entire other post in itself. I mean the actual Fisher King.

How Merlin meets an ancient being that was well cared for and loved, who has lived for centuries to the point that his actual name has been forgotten and all that is left of him is a desolate land and crumbling castle.

And that the King that Merlin meets doesn't ask for greeting or hospitality, but instead death.

Isn't it such a coincidence that a powerful person has stayed waiting for the time of the Once and Future King? Left, forgotten, aged, exhausted and begging for an end?

The Fisher King isn't a foreshadowing for Arthur's failed destiny, but Merlin's eternal doom.

The Fisher King is Merlin's later parallel.

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Reblog if you're a fanfic writer and you wanna know what your followers' favorite story of yours is ❤