#traumatized!Merlin

[thekingofthenameless]

Merlin for the headcanon ask game?

The Blorbo!!!

Fluffy~ 💕

When he laughs, or even smiles, people (or creatures) around him tend to see it as beautiful. He usually has a serious expression or a resting bitch face, so him smiling is a precious sight. His laughter is also very contagious, and seeing his eyes light up with joy or mirth, depending on the situation, is heartwarming.

He can be a bit of a dork sometimes! Especially about magic. He has a lot of interests, such as sword-fighting, archery, linguistics, history… you get the point. Magic, though, is definitely the one that will easily get him rambling.

He can sing. But he’s never really liked having an audience while doing it; and at the time of Emerald Embers, he hadn’t sung in years. Then he takes in Kid!Douxie. The first time he sings again is when he’s calming him down after a nightmare of his parents’ murders. Shit is that a spoiler

He’s aroace! He’s romance neutral and sex repulsed, to be more specific. (And off topic but other people headcanon him as aroace too!!! :D Someone literally made an edit and God. It gives me so much damn serotonin and I cry.)

He’s always been brutally honest. He was that way as a child, like most children tend to be, and he just… never grew out of it. His personality has changed and shifted a lot over the life that he’s lived, but that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

Angsty~ 🥹

These headcanons are actually mostly going to be about his mental issues, because he has a lot of them.

He has Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (C-PTSD.) All of the trauma he’s lived through, which I’ll eventually elaborate on, gave him it. Just a few of his symptoms are: extreme stress and insomnia, hyper-vigilance, nightmares, flashbacks, guilt, and difficulty forming and/or keeping relationships.

He’s a perfectionist when it comes to himself. Over the millennia he’s lived, the centuries of saving the world alone, and having everything on his shoulders, he’s seen catastrophic consequences come from one mistake, and as a result, he’s taken that to heart and applied it to himself. If other people or creatures make a mistake, that’s fine, because he can always (usually) fix it! But him? No. He has to be perfect in everything he does. If he makes a mistake, that mistake could end the world.

He has abandonment issues. He’s lost a lot of people; acquaintances, friends, family. The causes vary, of course. They die of old age; sickness; they fall in battle; or he fucks up and drives them away. But no matter, no matter who, they leave; and because of this, sometimes he purposely acts like a jerk to drive people away. They come to a peak when he has to make Charlie leave so he won’t possibly die.

He isn’t used to being the one helped. After other characters start realizing some of the extent of his trauma, they start asking him questions to try to get him to open up, and try to help him. “Are you alright?” “Aren’t you tired?” And he wants it to stop. He doesn’t want people to worry about him, and he doesn’t know why this is happening now. Nobody’s even asked him these questions in years, because he’s the strong one. He’s the one who’s been carrying everything, and he’s been fine- well, not fine, but he’s been alone this whole time, so why now? Why can’t they just leave him alone? They’re trying to take off his armor, tear down his walls; and he will not let that happen again.

His body is very scarred. His skin is very weathered from a lifetime of being under the sun, and a few other scars are: a slash across his neck from being cut with a magic knife; a long, jagged, horizontal slash across his chest from a beast; a stab wound in his right side; claw marks on his back. Like I said, that’s just a few of them.

Thanks for the ask!

[amariram]

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

[chaoticallymuse]

Merlin and grief

"Grief, I have learnt, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners if your eyes, in the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go."

- Jamie Anderson

[justaz]

as much of a fan as i am of arthur falling head over heels for merlin in the lower town during their fight and knowing the entire time while merlin reluctant to admit he actually finds arthur sometimes pleasant to be around until like a year later when he's like "fuck i kinda like him as more than a friend" when he's actually in love with him,,, the alternative has been plaguing my mind recently.

merlin is like "aw man he sucks but destiny is destiny" until like around the poisoned chalice when merlin drinks the wine and falls unconscious and he's wondering to himself why he would do such a thing and like yeah nimueh probably cursed it so he would drink it but also he's not really that upset about it?? he's kinda relieved??? why???????? oh bc arthur didn't drink it so he's fine and alive and oh he's checking up on me and his voice is soft and not at all mocking or brash like normal and his hand is on my shoulder and my heart is racing and i'm blushing and his touch is so warm and- oh fuck. so merlin is like reluctant about feeling this way but makes his peace with it, hoping that one day it'll just fizzle out. but the thing is: it doesn't. merlin continues to fall deeper and deeper in love with arthur and it just becomes a part of him like his magic. it's a simple fact. he has blue eyes, he has black hair, he has magic, he's in love with arthur. it becomes intertwined with his very being and he can't imagine ever not loving arthur.

meanwhile, arthur is fond and protective of him idiotic, bumbling servant. he's also a good friend not that arthur would ever call him that but anyways arthur keeps him safe bc if it weren't for him, the fool would trip over air and impale himself on his own thumb. so arthur grows more fond and protective of merlin as the series progresses and yeah at some point he finds it in himself to murmur the word friend to merlin but he blames that on the wine and the late hour. then he finds out merlin has magic and it hurts. arthur isn't entirely sure why either but he knows it hurts to be around merlin, to hear him, to see him, but it also hurts to be apart. so he swallows it all down and sits with merlin to lay it all out. anyway time skip and he sees merlin as he truly is without all the hiding and lying and the fondness and protectiveness just continues to grow and grow and grow. he watches merlin cast spells and watches his eyes light up gold and gods isn't he just beautiful. no wait- okay he's in love and gods is he fucked because now he can't managed a damn sentence around the man and morning and evenings are torturous in the best way. merlin bodily dragging him out of bed, his touch never leaving as he strips him of his night clothes and dresses him for the day and sits him down at the table before sharing stealing his breakfast. at night he's much slower as he strips arthur, his fingers dragging across his skin and his words spoken low and soft. the sweet heat in his blood isn't new but the force of it almost knocks him on his ass.

just merlin being his usual enamored self while arthur is flooded with these feelings he couldn't name before but now that he knows just what they are, they lodge in his throat and block his words from escaping him, they block air from filling his lungs, and they keep blood from flowing through his brain. arthur shutting down while merlin is oblivious and concerned and pressing his hands to arthur's face and pulse and leaning in close and asking all these questions as his eyes shine with worry and this isn't helping-

disaster!arthur x oblivious!merlin is actually my new favorite dynamic. forget what i said at the beginning. this is it.

[imagine-to-be-a-pike]

Leon knew he had failed. He did not fail as a knight. He failed as a friend. He failed as someone who swore to protect him.

He took a step towards the tent, a mixture of blood and sweat running down his forehead, reminding him of what he had just participated in. What Arthur had just participated in

Arthur. Barely 14 years old. Such an innocent and lovely soul. and now he stood in the middle of the tent and shook. The slightly too big armor (despite trying to adjust it) hung on his barely teenage body. The blood-covered armor. Not just the armor. That bright face, golden hair suddenly faded, flooded with a monstrous red.

He looked at him. He knew that look, he remembered it perfectly. Betrayal. He first saw it in the boy's eyes when his father first ordered the guards to take him to the dungeons. Leon swore then that he would never be the cause of that hurt, betrayed face.

He didn't even dodge the piece of armor thrown at him. If it hurt, he deserved it. How ironic the blond's words from a few hours ago sounded now

,,I can't wait to become a real knight like you"

A real knight should protect people. Not mercilessly murder them. Not what Leon just did. not what Arthur was just forced to see. "What a monster he must think I am now" Leon thought. He had seen Arthur's looks during the execution he was forced to watch and they were nothing compared to the horrified looks of those blue eyes as the horror unfolded around him. He saw the mouth open in a silent scream of terror, maybe both, as he swung his sword at the child.

It's funny how a person you thought was perfect can, in a matter of minutes, turn into the worst monster in your eyes.

He wanted to explain himself, apologize, say anything. He was ready to scream, cry, throw things. But the blond just stood there with shaking hands, rubbing his arms as if he was trying to scratch the blood away along with the skin.

,,why didn't you ever tell me?"

Good question.He knew what happened during raids. It wasn't his first time. But he was afraid. He knew how Arthur idealized him. He knew how much boy needed someone to be a role model, someone to give him some approval. But Leon was also a coward. He didn't want to lose someone he practically saw as a little brother. He didn't want to lose his little sun that shone even after the worst training.

He remembered his panic when Arthur, encouraged, told him he was going on another raid. Panic at the truth. Panic that this sweet soul would face a horror that a child shouldn't be exposed to. His prince was overjoyed but the road to the camp was a slow countdown for Leon.

,,These were innocent people... children... women... and all of you....just"

Arthur's eyes were wet, tears mixing with the dirt on his cheeks.

,, Arthur .."

,,leave me"

There was something new in these blue eyes. Not just hurt and betrayal. Coldness. Coldness that Leon saw in one person. The person Arthur should never be reminded of. And he left. And if only he knew that was the last time he would address his prince by his name.

[liakimss]

I want to take them into my arms while lightly stroking their hair and tell them that they desperately need therapy; and I am willing to pay for it

[jxmimac]

I actually can’t get over how much Merlin as a show has evolved over the 5 seasons

like in the first few seasons (especially the first) it’s basically magical fairy rainbows every episode is a new adventure and yippee happily ever after

And then you get to season 5

And it’s

Well

‘I know I shouldn’t kill kids but if I reallyyyyy had a good reason to can I?’ ‘Istg at this point I may as well just kill everyone here’

‘Morgana? Oh, she’s dead. Gwaine? Oh yeah he’s dead too. There was mordred, Lancelot, oh and just for the fun of it, Arthur can die too. OH, but that’s not it because now we can show you a jump forward in time to a now modern world where, guess what? EVERYONE IS FREAKING DEAD AND MERLIN’S ALONE.’

Whoever was responsible for writing the last season of Merlin; I just wanna talk. Nothing else. Just a one to one chat with a baseball bat in the corner of the room which I definitely won’t use.

[caffeinatedbisexual]

Could we argue that “Beauty and the Beast” is the Merlin equivalent to Doctor Who’s “Love & Monsters”??

[fluffypotatey]

I said once and I'll say it again, I don't really think late season merlin is a villain, but I do think season 1 and pre canon merlin would think his future self is a villain

agreed, anon, s1 merlin would be horrified at the decision and choices he made by s4-5

but yeah merlin isn’t a “villain” by s5. he falls into more of a gray area in my opinion. like, he is still a hero to me but just with a narrower view on his priorities and 10 years of dealing with your classic episodic enemies who want to kill Arthur

[carebeardean]

merlin + all my love, noah kahan

[sebastiansmytheapologist]

asking my other friend who hasn’t watched merlin for their first impressions of these characters

[deadendtracks]

well absolutely fucked up my first attempt at bringing the cats outside in harnesses/leashes! it's much harder to introduce two of them to the concept than one. anyway no one escaped at least and we will try this much more slowly and one at a time. it was very traumatic, though.

[imagine-to-be-a-pike]

Arthur had every right to hate magic. I won't take back these words.

[sandinthepipes]

I've figured it out.

The reason Merlin's fics still come out every day. The reason ofmd has so many fics and content.

It's the hope.

They both leave you on the moment right before resolution. They've shown you something good is coming and leave you wondering what it could be.

It's not a cliffhanger, there's isn't "oh no this bad thing is going to happen but maybe not", it's the opposite.

[evilertoki]

i want to put merlin into the house of the dragon universe ,, watch my boy get one whiff of the incest and family drama and yearn for the bullshit morgana and uther had goin on. give him an aneurysm and let him whack daemon upside the head really hard for so many reasons.

[harisal0s3r-amr0cks]

I am genuinely scared to go on Tumblr on the 24 of December.

Why?

Marks 10 years from when the merlin season finale was aired.

I’m still not over that okay!