robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Can’t believe there’s people who don’t believe Arthur and Gwen are in love… just observe them together

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Merlin (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Elyan/Percival (Merlin) Characters: Elyan (Merlin), Percival (Merlin), Gwaine (Merlin) Additional Tags: Episode: s04e12-13 The Sword in the Stone, it’s technically in the episode bc of the wedding, but it deals with the aftermath, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Panic Attacks, Cuddling & Snuggling, idk maybe elyan just deserves to be Held, percival is good at that, entirely unrelated to the series i’ve got going on i just like exploring this trauma :’), Established Relationship, soft, remember when elyan was tortured to the brink of human existence, and then starved for a week, and the writers went no trauma processing for you!! Summary:

Elyan breaks down after being rescued from the cells

For @sirwilliamofdeira for inspiring this and also just being such a legend 💙💙💙

@elyan-fest

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

hot take from hot take jones over here but... arthur grew up exclusively around men, for the most part. the only women he was ever really exposed to were morgana and possible arranged marriages.

so we have arthur, always around men, always touching men bc intricate rituals, who was clearly flirting with lancelot and merlin by drawing them into fights... all i'm saying is arthur probably knew for a long while that he liked men and was at least bi, and might have even had a questioning phase where he was unsure if he even liked women at all bc they were always just diplomatic tools to marry and he couldn't appreciate them as real, human beings.

until guinevere came on the scene and rocked his fucking world by being the smartest, kindest, prettiest girl he'd ever met in his life.

arthur didn't really care about marrying for love until he met guinevere; he didn't mention it that much (setting aside that there weren't a lot of arranged marriage proposals in s1, he WAS technically arranged to morgana and he never threw a fit that he didn't love her) and it just seemed like he was comfortable throwing himself into a loveless marriage and being done with it as long as he got to go to war and swing a sword around #boythings

then after guinevere he wanted love, he wanted someone he respected and who respected him, he wanted a partner, a person he could be with rather than just be next to. it's like this world of possibilities opened up: that he could marry a woman and love her, too.

all this just to say: gwen was arthur's bisexual awakening, not merlin, because arthur already knew he liked men but gwen made him realize that he could actually fall in love with a woman

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Diversity win! The man ordering sourcers to be burnt at the stake is bisexual!

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

I just realised Mordred probably reminded Elyan of the ghost boy now I will never know peace

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

So I wanted to draw the Dolma, because I haven’t so far.  And I tried to challenge myself by not blending anything at all.  Because I blend a lot. I think it turned out relatively okay XD It has a Mona Lisa vibe though…. kinda…. I think XD Maybe it’s just me.  Mona Dolma LMAO

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Guys. Arthur (and therefore Merlin) can't be 16 in season 1

It was Ygraine's death that started the Great Purge and literally in episode 1 Uther says that it's been 20 years since the Purge

Ergo making Arthur 20 years old in season 1 and around 30 years old in season 5.

I know we're never given concrete ages for the characters but going by what we know from the plot, Arthur has to be 20 in the first season.

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Gwaine and 22 (mute) if you're still doing these?

Oooooh thanks Nony!! This was a really good prompt!!

When Gwaine wakes, the first thing he notices is the pain. His throat feels raw, his neck bruised. And he remembers the torture; the rope around his neck, the boiling water poured down his throat. He begged and screamed until his voice gave out, the agony and effort pushing his vocal chords to breaking point.

They hadn’t asked any questions, they clearly weren’t torturing him for information, perhaps just for fun.

He pulls himself up, letting out a groan and a whimper – but no sound leaves his lips, just the pained puff of air brushing his abused throat.

He can hear the sound of clashing swords outside the cell; that must be what woke him. Scrabbling weakly across the floor towards the solid metal door of the cell he is in, he listens intently to the noise. He can’t get close to the door, his hands chained to the opposite wall stop that, but he is close enough he can hear voices shouting along with the clang of weapons.

He knows those voices. It’s Percival, Elyan and Leon. Elation fills his heart.

“Help!” he tries to scream but again no noise leaves his mouth, not even a croak. His voice is gone completely.

The clash of weapons finally stops and he hears running footsteps.

“Gwaine?” Percival shouts. “Gwaine, are you here?”

Gwaine takes a deep breath, which almost makes him choke as the muscles in his throat spasm, but makes no sound. He attempts to shout, silently yelling for Percival, for help, for his friends. So close through that door. Silence is all he can manage.

But he keeps trying, agony ripping from his throat as he tries to force any noise out. Tears pour down his face from the effort, but it is useless, they can’t hear him.

“Gwaine?” Elyan is calling further down the corridor.

Straining against the chains around his wrists, he tries to reach the door, he could knock on it, draw their attention. He’s silently whimpering as the heavy manacles cut deep into his wrists and still he can’t reach the door. He kicks his feet, but his boots are gone and the stone just hurts his bare feet as he thumps them against the floor.

He opens his mouth, the muscles in his throat squeezing in excruciating pain as nothing happens. He silently groans in frustration. He has been rendered completely mute and nothing he can do will help his friends find him. He thrashes against the manacles, trying to get to the door again. The effort weakens him further and he collapses to the ground, his cheek painfully smacking the floor. But the heavy chain clinks and scrapes against the stone.

“Gwaine?” Elyan’s voice is much closer now. “Is that you? Are you there?”

He wants to shout, wants to call to Elyan, yes, he’s here, help, but his voice won’t do it. He tries to sit up again, his arms shaking with the exertion.

“Is it him?” Leon asks Elyan, his voice getting louder as he comes closer too. “Gwaine?”

Gwaine’s lips move soundlessly as he cries and shouts back to them. He doesn’t have the strength to rattle the chains again.

“No,” Elyan says sadly. “I thought I heard something but…”

“Let’s check down that way,” Leon says, his voice quieter as he turns away and then the footsteps are receding.

No! They are leaving. Gwaine struggles to lift his head, still wordlessly calling. They are going to leave him. Panicked and desperate, he instinctually does the thing he normally does when the taller knights are walking too fast for him to keep up; the playful piercing whistle.

It works.

It is not as loud as he can usually make it; it sounds frail and he can’t sustain it as his lips shake, but it is a sound. He’s made a sound!

“Stop!” he hears Leon snap. “Did you hear…?”

Using as much breath as he can muster, Gwaine whistles again, the thin breathy sound now obvious against the surrounding silence.

“That’s him!” Percival yells. “Gwaine? Gwaine, where are you?”

Gwaine automatically tries to shout to his friends, ignoring how his throat is hurting worse than ever as he attempts to force it to make words. Pursing his lips, his next whistle is so thready that it can barely be heard over the sound of Percival calling his name. He gathers all of his strength and lifts his hands, dragging the chains up then letting his hands and the chains fall to the ground, clattering noisily.

There are scrabbling sounds from outside in the corridor then a triumphant yell.

“Here! There’s a hidden door in this wall!” Percival says frantically to the others and suddenly the door is being hammered on. Loud strong thuds resonate through the heavy metal as Percival kicks it.

It crashes open and Gwaine lets his head drop back to the floor in relief as Percival falls to his knees beside him. Elyan is by his side a fraction of a second later. Percival scoops him up, holding him steady in his strong arms and Gwaine sags into him, unable to stop the silent sobs that break from him. Elyan pulls a lockpick from his belt and sets about trying to unlock the manacles.

“Gwaine! Talk to me,” Percival mutters as he gently cradles Gwaine’s face, lifting it to get a good look at him. “Are you alright?”

Gwaine uselessly mouths noiseless words, tears running down his face and obscuring his view of his friends.

“He can’t speak,” Leon says softly, crouching beside Percival and frowning down at Gwaine. “Look at his neck.”

Percival runs a thumb over the bruise covering Gwaine’s neck and his jaw ticks in anger. Gwaine gasps as the manacles come loose and pain overwhelms his wrists again. Elyan holds his arms carefully.

“Let’s get him home,” Leon orders. Gwaine smiles, thanking his friends without words.

Not going to ask for more prompts now, getting close to the end of the month and I still have three left! But thank you to everyone who sent one!! And thank you @whumpster-dumpster for the list!

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Homework, I suppose...

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

whenever some stupid shit happens on bbc m*rlin and i have to remind myself why i am here 

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Are the borrowers the small people with tails who live under the floor? And who like, borrowed stuff from the human store?

Im just saying. A merwen borrower au with Merlin as a borrower would freakin SLAP yall

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Just to shove my thoughts into this discussion I've been seeing, the whole, it's not Arthur's fault how he acted thing. It kind of falls apart because of how he was shown to see that magic wasn't evil: ex. Using it to cure Gwen and to try and cure his Dad, saving Mordred, the old woman, he just never actually wanted to make the effort to do anything else, probably because it was far more politically stable/powerful to keep magic banned and to only use it when he wanted to.

Now, most of the knights, on the other hand, are pretty justified in their dislike of magic because I don't think they ever saw it used positively except by the Druids, who seem to be classified differently when it comes to magic.

Now, on my third hand, because I am actually Zephod Bebolbrox and as such have that many hands, Merlin was not exactly in the right either, because after about season 3 he wasn't in any danger of being killee by Arthur because he was more than powerful enough to escape anything Arthur tried to do to him. But, he did think that by saving Arthur he was doing a good thing, so he is a little excusable.

Conclusion:

Arthur: Needed to do better. Did not do well, unless you look at it from a keeping power standpoint, than he actually did very well, up till Mordred learnt about direct action.

Merlin: Made bad decisions, needed to ignore a certain dragon a bit more. Tried, I guess?

Knights: Who knows? Should have done better. Should have been written better.

Gwen: Not mentioned in above meta because she is an angel who can do no wrong. (She is actually a complex character who can do wrong, but is also better than everyone else on the show, so, shhh.)

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

I have decided that Killgarah's motives were, in fact, very justifiable, not only because he is a dragon, but also because of his age. Now, I do not remember if his age is ever directly stated in the series, and I refuse to either rewatch it or do research, so I am going to assume that he is quite old. Like, 1000 or so.

 Now, this is quite a large difference from any of either the characters he encounters during either the series or his lifetime, as the average person he would meet would be between 18-70/80. This would mean that, assuming he is not an outlier to dragon species as a whole, dragons live for anywhere between 800-1500 years on average. I am not an expert, but this seems reasonable? He is old, but he seems to be, for the majority of the series at least, in fairly good health, which would imply that he is not exactly in the last days of his life. 

As this has been established, we shall now move on to the main parts:

1) Dragons in relation to humans in general, with focus on Kilgharrah in particular.                                                  

Now, some of this will be speculation, but I think it probably would check out, taking into account that this is a fictional children's television series. The first part where this is a little bit speculation comes from the question: When is this show set?

 Now, there are many, many discrepancies in this show, such as the often mentioned tomato in the pilot to the fact that knights didn't really exist prior to about 800 or so, and the lack of Christianity means it couldn't have taken place after that. As this point is not key, we shall assume that this takes place in the year 500. Because I need a year.

So, that would mean that Killgarah was born in about 1000 BCE. Quite a lot was going on in this time, such as historical Israel was at its peak, the Assyerians were starting to do their thing, and the world population was about 50,000,000.

 From there to 500 CE, he would have witnessed the rise and fall of Greece, Rome, Persia (fall rather than rise, I think it had already risen), and countless people. He would have witnessed a massive chunk of human history, even if he was born slightly later than 1000BCE, such as if he was closer to 1000 than 1500.

Now, this would have probably given him a much different view on human civilization than a human, because it's hard to feel that individual civilizations matter when you've seen them all fall. Not only civilizations, but individual people would have probably started to be insignificant to him, as anyone he met would have died soon after, in comparison to his lifespan. Now, if this age thing is true for all dragons, then that would imply that dragons probably prefer each other much more than humans. Like, most people form closer bonds with other people than they do with say, a goldfish. You might really like watching the goldfish, but it would need 10 lifetimes to be equal to you in age. 

To conclude the Dragon's age section: People as individuals and as vast empires are basically meaningless to dragons, because they all die so fast it's not really worth forming a very strong attachment.

 2) Killgarah in relation to the prophecy

Now, this section relies on two main points.                                                                                                                        

a) Kilgarrah post the purge.  This is really quite tragic, as after this he has no other dragons left. He is the last of his kind, and if we take the previous ideas about the ages of dragons into account, then he is basically bereft of any meaningful companionship, and will spend the rest of his days alone, watching any human he might befriend die, leaving him alone again. Even if we assume that dragons probably don't form the same attachments to people that other people do, this alone would have not done wonders for his mental health and outlook on the world. 

 To top it off, he spends the next 20ish years in a literal pit, so he was probably not fond of people at this point of time. He does seem to get enjoyment out of Merlin's company, especially in the later seasons, so we can assume he probably liked humans a bit, but I don't think he would have liked them in an equal sort of way, as they were always going to be his inferior.  

Conclusion of this Section: Kilgharrah would have been unimaginably lonely, as his whole world (dragons) had just been killed.

 b) Kilgharrah and Merlin, and too many metaphors concerning hamsters.   So, one of the main things I see about Kilgharrah was that his advice was bad and that the goal of the prophecy was never actually achieved. Now, there is some truth to this, especially from a storytelling standpoint, but from the perspective of Kilgharrah, life did improve, and the prophecy was meaningless to him. Now, what Kilgarrah wanted was other dragons, and to get other dragons he needed a dragonlord. So, what he needed to do was to find a dragonlord who he could manipulate (Merlin) and who was not in danger of dying like everyone else in Kilgarrah's life (Merlin).  

This is where we speculate a little bit. Now, seeing as Kilgarrah knew about the prophecies and seemed to be able to predict destinies, he had the ability to act with quite a bit of foresight. We can therefore assume that he wanted the prophecy to go as planned, which meant that he never had any interest in doing what was good for people, only what was good for the prophecy. Why? Because if the prophecy gets completed, then he gets Aithusia, so he will not be alone, Merlin, so he will not be alone, and in a way, revenge on Uther, as bringing about he death of his son would probably be the perfect revenge as it was Arthur's birth that caused the purge that brought about basically the end of the world for Kilgharrah. 

The speculative bit comes from the question of: was Arthur living to build Albion part of the prophecy, or did the prophecy only want Arthur to make it to Camlamn so he could be killed by Mordred?

 If the latter option is true, then technically what Kilgarrah says at the end is true. Destiny was unavoidable, and so it was achieved, and Kilgarrah has benefited immensely. Now, onto the moral part of Killgarah's character, and why his actions were justifed.

1) He is very, very lonely. 

2)To not be lonely, he needs the prophecy to be completed, as he needs Merlin to hatch Aithusia, and also be immortal. He even says that the white dragon bodes well for Albion, and while it pretty much doesn't, it does bode well for both Arthur dying and Kilgharrah, which would imply that the prophecy wanted AArthur to die there, and Killgarrah knew it.

 3)While all this manipulation might seem bad, it makes perfect sense from Kilgarrah's perspective. 

To use a metaphor: Say you have a group of pet hamsters. You might really like some hamsters, but others you are neutral on. Regardless, all of your pet hamsters are only going to live for a few years, so you can't get too attached. 

Now, a person told you that you had to lie to your hamsters, who are slightly more intelligent than real hamsters, in order to save the lives of people.

 Now, you might really really love your hamsters, but you'd still lie to them to save people, right? You might not even know the person, but the life of a person is worth more than being truthful to a hamster. You're not even going to hurt the hamster, it's going to live forever, so what's the problem, really?

Now, say you weren't saving the life of a person. Say, all people you ever knew had just been killed. There's no more people, and you're just sitting in your house alone, knowing that you're going to live over the next forty years by yourself, sitting in one room, with nothing to do but think about the people you have lost.

Now, imagine you are told that there is a way to see another person again, that you won't be alone for the rest of your life, that you can have a friend. All you have to do is lie to your hamster, and get him to let another hamster die. 

Now, maybe you really love these hamsters. Maybe you don't want any of them to die. But you're all alone, and you just have to let one hamster die. The first hamster has a purpose now, and he's not going to die.

 Maybe a couple more hamsters have to die too, but you get to have another person again! Isn't it worth it? The hamster would die soon anyway, they don't live long compared to you.

 It’s not really bad, to let one hamster die, if it means you can have some of your world back, is it?

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

i saw a post today talking about how merlin isn't a traitor to magic users for stopping sorcerers from killing arthur, and i had some thoughts.

merlin's repeated patience and centrism with arthur led to unimaginable suffering and death at the hands of arthur's literal genocide.

merlin stopping gilli and edwin from just offing uther so arthur could rise to power was a betrayal of his people. it just was. any excuse given falls flat. that was in season 1. arthur was still redeemable then.

this post said that arthur has a good heart, a sense of justice and a willingness to learn when he commits literal genocide. that is frustrating at the least. he makes no progress in his anti-magic sentiment at all. a herald of a new age actually makes me pissed off because it's entirely forgotten in the next ep and kara is proof he was talking out of his ass.

that's something i don't think people consider. arthur doesn't actually stop executing or persecuting sorcerers. that doesn't ever happen. he is trying to wipe them out throughout his reign.

by the end of the show, ten years has elapsed. and nothing has changed! i understand that merlin just couldn't accept that arthur wasn't going to change. that nothing was going to change. but seriously. ten years. a decade. at what point is enough, enough? because as all this time is passing, innocent magic users are being culled.

and i'm not saying morgana was right either. i literally hate her. what i am saying is that merlin did betray his people. his faith in destiny, and his meddling to ensure that arthur wouldn't just die already, resulted in death after death. not at the hands of morgana or whatever. at the hands of arthur.

and arthur is ultimately responsible for all that. of course he is. but MERLIN is responsible for arthur being alive to do so.

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

Technically speaking, the ability to swap cards from the ones in your sleeve is also a natural skill, so I'm not sure that argument would hold up in the long term. It would be fun to experiment though. Being a Kind does give you an unfair advantage though

Okay but is it REALLY cheating to use secret magic in a game of dice? I mean, its a natural skill your body possesses. Thatd be saying its cheating to roll with both hands instead of just one! Or its cheating to use a dice tower! You could say "magic gives you an unfair advantage" but honestly so does being a king. Arthur is the real cheater here

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

oh is this yours? 

consider the enemies to friends to lovers in whisper of the heart,, consider the growth of the CHARACTERS 

[robin-notquiteasbraveaslancelot]

A Champion's Recovery

For @febuwhump day 26: recovery

Fandom: Merlin

Wordcount: 1107

Follow up to my other fic Champion. I guess you could read this one without having read that one, but I don't think it'll make much sense (I'm also really proud of that one so please go read it)

Read on ao3

“Okay, here goes nothing,” Merlin said as he unwrapped the last of the bandages from around Lancelot’s shoulder. The deep cut beside his neck had healed to a bright pink, raised scar, but the more important question was about whether the broken bone and muscle beneath the skin had knitted themself together just as well. The knight’s arm had been immobilized in a sling for the past six weeks so that he wouldn’t accidentally move it too soon and undo the healing that had been done on it, both by his own body and from Merlin’s spells. Even with the magical help, the recovery had been a slow process, and was far from done. The minotaur’s broadsword had done a lot of damage when it came down on his shoulder.

“Should I try to move it?” Lancelot asked uncertainty. Sitting shirtless on Merlin’s bed, he looked vulnerable and scared. He was skinnier than he used to be too, since he hadn’t been able to work out since his injury and his muscles had atrophied some.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Merlin encouraged gently. He watched with bated breath as Lancelot slowly lifted his elbow, with his hand tucked in against his shoulder. His arm made it halfway to level, but he couldn’t get it all the way up. He huffed in frustration and let it drop back down. “Hey, don’t feel bad, that’s great for a first attempt,” his friend was quick to encourage him. “You’ll need time to rebuild your strength, but honestly, it’s a really good sign that you were able to lift it that far. Did it hurt at all?”

“No,” Lancelot said with a small shake of his head. “It felt a little weird, but it wasn’t painful.”

“That’s good! Do you want to try to stretch it, see if you still have full range of motion?”

“If you think that’s a good idea.” The knight looked unsure, glancing at the warlock for support.

“I do,” Merlin tried to reassure him. “May I?” He gestured to the limb, which was now folded across Lancelot’s lap and covered with his left hand. Hesitantly, the other man nodded, and raised his arm to let Merlin take hold of it and gently move it around to roll his shoulder. “Tell me if any of this hurts.”

“It’s alright so far.” A second later though, a wince split his face as Merlin tried to move his arm upwards in front of him, twisting his shoulder more. “Okay, that does hurt a little,” he admitted.

“Okay,” Merlin said, letting his arm down. “We’ll want to stretch a little more then, so your arm doesn’t get ‘locked,’ as Gaius calls it. In the meantime though, I think it’s safe for you to stop wearing the sling all the time, and starting to use your right arm for light tasks. Light tasks though, you hear? No training yet, or lifting anything heavy.”

Lancelot sighed, and sensing his unhappiness, Merlin sat down beside him. “I know I shouldn’t be disappointed, that these things take time…” the injured knight said, “But I kept thinking that once I got the sling off, things would start to go back to normal, that I might even be able to start training again, if not return to being Arthur’s champion yet.”

“I know it’s frustrating,” Merlin agreed sympathetically, squeezing his friend’s hand. “This has been a hard month and a half for you, I know. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Lancelot shook his head. “You’ve already been a lot of help, Merlin,” he said. “I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you.” In addition to the healing spells he used to encourage the injury to mend properly, the physician’s assistant helped coordinate the medicine for the knight, including pain relief, and cared for him in the early stages of his recovery when he’d been mostly bedridden. Later on, when Lancelot confessed that he was worried about becoming dependent on the milk of the poppy, he had listened and helped him come up with other medicines for pain relief that allowed him to sleep through the night without pain while not becoming addicted.

“You would’ve managed,” Merlin encouraged him. “I’m sure Arthur, Gwen, and the other knights would have done all they could to help you. Speaking of which, do you want to go for a walk through the castle? I’m sure they’ll want to hear the good news about you getting to take the sling off.”

“I’m not…” Lancelot started to say, but broke off before he could finish his sentence and say he wasn’t sure that there was anything to celebrate.

In a previous moment of self doubt, he’d gone to Arthur to resign his position as Champion permanently, arguing with the king that he might never be as strong as he was before, and therefore no longer worthy of or fit for the role. Along with declining his resignation, replying that they should at least wait to see whether he recovered before he made that choice, the king had spoken to him about regaining not only his strength, but his confidence.

“It’ll come later, and might even be harder,” Arthur had said to him, holding onto his left shoulder to keep him close. “But unlike rebuilding your strength, this is something we’ll be able to help you with. Please, let us console you when you’re down, and let us cheer for your accomplishments and milestones, however small you may think they are. It will help, I promise.”

“Okay,” Lancelot replied to Merlin now as he had to Arthur then. The servant was looking at him with so much hope in his big blue eyes. Even if he didn’t particularly want to show off his arm, which was thin and weak and that he kept tucked against his side despite the sling having been removed, maybe the others would want to see it, and maybe they could cheer him up. His recovery had been as much mental as physical so far, as he’d been forced to confront some of his self-esteem issues regarding his sense of worth being tied so strongly to his strength and ability to help others and the crumbling of that when he suddenly had to accept help instead of give it. It seemed like his remaining recovery would be similarly split between his body and mind as he rebuilt his strength and confidence. He found himself somewhat encouraged by that thought though, and the idea that with the help of his friends, he might grow to be more resilient through the trials he had faced.