#bbc merlin said no happiness for merlin >:( only sadness and tragedy! >:(

[abisalli]

I just want him to have fun, is that too much to ask for

[hauntedhikingsociety]

God i’m having thoughts now i got so blindsided by that goddamn merlin post

merlin could have been a well written tragedy. it could have been cathartic instead of rushed or unsatisfying, the elements were there.

my top most tragic ending for merlin is like, midway through season 5, merlin’s magic gets revealed. and arthur’s pissed, he’s angry, he banishes merlin (even though deep down he doesn’t want to he’s just reeling and upset about not knowing before) and then the knights and gaius and gwen all come to their own conclusions and convince arthur that he was wrong to banish him and magic isn’t evil. and arthur goes “>:( okay, i guess you’re right let’s get merlin back”

but merlin has been on his own adventure, possibly been picked up by morgana who doesn’t know he’s emrys and is willing to forgive and forget if merlin joins her side and somehow, he discovers the latest plot to take down arthur and camelot. and he stops it just like usual, but this time, he dies in the process. arthur gets there just in time to see merlin die for him.

naturally this changes everything for arthur knowing that merlin risked his life for him after being so poorly treated. in a dramatic gesture he goes back on all the laws against magic and the last few episodes involve a few battles that create albion and it’s all great and happy ever after.

if you are thinking “hey well that’s not very tragic” you know what breaks the immersion and makes the ending of merlin a lot less hard hitting? the fact that the prophecy of arthur uniting the land doesn’t come true. arthur uniting the land to become the greatest king that camelot has ever known was a hard fact for the whole first four seasons and the fact that it doesn’t come to fruition in any kind of satisfying way is what makes the ending of merlin frustrating instead of sad. look at fucking macbeth. all the prophecies in that believably come true even through loopholes. the merlin writers really said fuck the conventions of tragedy we can do worse.

the prophecy had to come true for the ending to feel complete. the tragedy had to come from another angle so in this angle the tragedy is that merlin is dead. no prophecy ever said that merlin would be alive to see albion. and merlin has spent five seasons fighting tooth and nail for this kingdom where he would finally be safe, only to die believing arthur had forsaken him, thinking that he’d failed. how would you emotionally recover from that?? you simply wouldn’t.

i also like this idea more because merlin spends five seasons going “oh well if arthur knew. if he knew all i’d done” and this offers the opportunity for arthur to say “if merlin knew.” it gives us a bit of long awaited role reversal which the canon ending did not give us.

at this point i’m just spitballing things i would have liked to see but the tl;dr—

s5 of bbc merlin is a poorly written tragedy and maybe if the writers had a little more appreciation for shakespeare and/or the tragic conventions they would have been able to write a better finale.

[slashtakemylife]

Sheith was NEVER meant to be canon

First of all, I will NEVER EVER discourage a ship, I welcome all ships, heck send me right now a message about sheith HC and I'll encourage you and even HC with you as well

But please, Sheith was NEVER in any point supposed to be canon and yes I've seen and read a LOT of theories and let me tell you, you all need to watch all of captain america's movies but that comes later, first here's some arguments

Brotherhood: Yes I know you get this argument a LOT but the Brotherhood (TM) story line is extremely common

The Hobbit (Bilbo and Thorin) Sherlock, both movies and BBC (Sherlock and Watson) Merlin (Merlin and Arthur) and my main base Captain America (Steve and Bucky) I'm sorry I can't bring you child shows because none come to mind right now

All this shows and even more, show a bond between males that go beyond friendship, become brothers, even stronger than blood but also these guys are actually the most popular ship in their franchise and it's no surprise why, even Queerbaiting comes from here because they KNOW people are invested in them and deliberately make scenes that encourage people DESPITE knowing they will never follow through, so you are not new, the first or even the last

The Beard

So it comes a point were this male/male relationships are so close you begin to think, hmmm, I wonder if there's more? Could it be romantic?! And at this exact moment content makers pull out their trap card, The Love Interest!

Nothing a seldom developed female character can't fix, right? They can add a female character and push her solely for romance (since they don't actually know what to do with a female character, wtf do vaginas even do?) with a few character development moments and also to show like, No they are not gay, look at this happy HETERO couple!

Now is the moment were I confess I am a rabbid Adashi shipper, YES I will protect my son Adam from ANYONE and right now I'm gonna tell you the real deal, the absolute tea of my boy Adam!

Adam is a freaking Beard

So yeah, when S6 ended, it also came to a point were they realized things had gone way to gay and considering how they had hyped LGTB, they knew now was the time to deliver and put an end to a romantic Sheith with the respective Beard (Acxa I think was considered to be Keith's beard but maybe they cast it out later on?) but wait! Ohhh f*ck, we forgot Shiro was gay, uh oh, that means Shiro's beard is a guy, yeah, remember that boy Adam back from when we were doing S2?

In case you don't remember, here's some history, Shiro was supposed to die back in S2 so that Keith could rise into the BP, in an interview, JDS and LM said that S7's Adam flashback was supposed to happen in S2, so those scenes were prepared beforehand, they were actually going to show a gay Shiro and then he was going to die but since they didn't want to do the BYG trope, *cough* bullshit *cough* toy sales and Shiro being Very popular *cough*, they let Shiro live, be the BP and also help make a storyline were Keith goes with the blades instead of immediately into BP and also create this amazing brotherhood that would guide both their characters (the only reason S6 gets a pass is mostly that emotional, visually beautiful fight between Shiro and Keith)

But then as I said, it reached the point were it was way to gay and the beard was needed but unfortunately, the beard was gay and honestly they didn't want to spend too much time on the gay, luckily all they need is a beard, nothing more so here VLD tried to be sneaky with these easy steps:

Put Shiro's gay beard

Get brownie point for the rep they promised

Kill Sheith in the process

Also kill Klance since it's stablished Shiro is he only rep

Kill the beard as well since we don't actually want to put a whole gay storyline, we only need to stablish Shiro as gay

Success!

This is very VERY clear in how they justified Adam's death by saying it was tragedy, war and loss, specially when they mentioned that Shiro is the rep, no one EVER made an intention to give Shiro a full GAY romance in ANY way or with any character, but their plan went to shit when everyone (rightfully) called out their BS so they needed a quick fix specially with the coming S8 which was probably mostly done

Why didn't they just make Shiro marry Keith? Their relationship was very developed it was a very easy step, in fact! We have clear evidence they cut out big Sheith moments and interactions and deliveratedly added more Curtis in the BG to justify the ending

If they had prepared a Sheith canon finale it would've saved their ASS, all they had to do in S7 was say 'there's more rep to come!' And be done with the controversy and you are right, ot would've been a slow build relationship

I wholeheartedly believe they cut Sheith scenes and added more Curtis, I do, but here's why, S8 was mostly done, they had done their LGTB duty and S7 should have all the rep the fandom needed, things were good, we could forget that pending and move on with the finale, then the fandom exploted (rightfuly mind you

So VLD had to fix this, they knew S8 also had Sheith PLATONIC moments since they thought they were safe, we were supposed to know this was a friendship, not a relationship, that was the point of the beard! But the beard and the rep both failed (you mean an ambiguous scene and later kill the SO doesn't work? *pikachu face*)

They cut Sheith platonic moments, made klance open ended, used the deus ex machina card for Ezor and Zethrid and rush a Shiro wedding

Look I'm an Adashi, my ship IS canon but one is dead and the other married off, if they had added Adam at the wedding it would've also felt awkward, this Shiro friend that we barely saw is now married to him? Only if you know their true relationship would you understand but it would also feel out of the blue (they did broke up) specially since their scene felt final and not a petty dispute or a misunderstanding but a really sad but necessary choice, none were in the wrong

So I understand the canon and the behind the scenes as to why this happened, but that doesn't mean I'll stop shipping them (F*ck VLD, I'm he captain now) I choose to drown in fanfiction but I won't hate or belittle Curtis because he really is a backgroungd character that got roped into this but people like him, so respect him, his relationship with Shiro and their shippers

So back to my Captain America, I chose this pairing because they went through the same, in Cap 1 there was a balance between the friendship between Steve and Bucky and the slow buildup of Steve and Peggy so while you could definitely ship Stucky if you wanted, the clear canon was Steggy, what happens in Cap 2? The Stucky relationship gets more screen time and the developing romance Staron is very little (non-existent) so when we get to Cap 3 were Cap goes against everyone FOR Bucky, well #GetCaptainAmericaABoyfriend was trending, why? Because The Beard, Sharon as a character and Staron as a couple was so underdeveloped that we all felt wierd with that kiss, sure we knew it was going to happen and that there was something there but suddenly in our faces? People felt comfortable with Stucky because it was more developed that the actual canon relationship, if they had actually made an effort to flush out Sharon and her relationship with Cap, I think it wouldn't have feel so akward, it doesn't help that we repeatedly get reminded of Peggy so they never really pay time to poor Sharon (Yes I'm a Stucky but if a female is done right I can accept her because I actually love Steggy as well)

So Sheith went through the same, they coded their relationship a certain way and failed to separate the romance and bromance, it's never fun to be the obligatory love interest to push away that gay sh*t, Lance actually went through thos since S8 has him mostly worry for Allura

So this is a long rant so thanks for reading