whataboringstory

[whataboringstory]

not to give him too much credit but do u think arthur suspected that merlin was the one who helped elyan escape in 4.10

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Say what you want about 4x08, but Gwens complete and utter confusion as to why she too hasn't been seduced by the snake lady really is quite something

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“Haven’t I done a great job protecting you? I mean, look at yourself. You haven’t died a single time.”

— Kilgharrah, to Merlin

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apparently it only takes one (1) parallel for me to headcanon isolde and percival as siblings

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There’s something about you, Merlin.

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Okay but can you fucking imagine the plot of BBC Merlin if Gwen was the Great Dragon instead of Kilgharrah?

Like girl would’ve somehow had a welcome basket for Merlin when he arrived and made sure he knew he wasn’t alone in Camelot before she even THOUGHT of putting any prophecy pressure on him. When she introduced the prophecy, she would pull out a written copy with color coded sticky notes of advice, notes of encouragement, and marks that indicate he should take a nap break, eat a cookie, or rant to his favorite (and only) dragon.

She would also 100% give unasked for (but highly craved) relationship advice to get Merlin and Arthur together and be successful within like 2 weeks.

When Merlin gets to the part of the prophecy where Morgana and Mordred are meant to turn evil and asks what the game plan is, Gwen asks his skill at baking cookies and the quality of his hugs. It’s Gwen’s most diabolical plan yet: Merlin is gonna love and comfort these scared children SO HARD their supposedly homicidal nature will be completely bamboozled before their second cookie. And it WORKS.

Within like a year in Camelot, Morgana and Mordred’s prophecies have been defeated, Morgana opened up about her magic like one cookie and hug in and Merlin felt safe and supported enough to share about his own in return, they both opened up to Arthur (who Merlin was already dating) and offered him one of Merlin’s patented cookies as he stood in shock before wholeheartedly accepting them both (and the cookie), and Uther completely gave up his fight against magic when faced with his magical daughter, intensely gay son, and soon to be son in law who all threaten to uninvite him from the wedding. Uther frees Gwen and she’s just like “yeah I’ll be staying here in case my baby boy needs me, but if you could bring down a bunk bed for our sleepover nights that would be great” and goes back to writing her wedding speech.

Just a normal day in a wonderful Camelot.

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So I made some Merwen headcannons! They're inspired by @siremrys' lovely post :)

Every time Merlin and Gwen get separated and reunited, Gwen gives Merlin the sunniest and most delighted smile that makes him feel warm all over. Here, "separation" doesn't mean a dramatic incident or even a journey, it means every single time they are apart even just shopping for produce in the market Gwen will give him that oh-there-you-are smile.

Whenever they go to the market on their off days, he wanders (sometimes on purpose) to other stalls to see her spin around looking for him and give him that blinding smile when she finds him again.

Or when they’re working at the castle and fulfilling their duties, Merlin gets extra excited when they bump into each other in the halls because yeah that’s his wife but her smiles remind him that there is something lovable inside of him that makes her smile like that (even though he doesn’t know what it possibly be).

They both know plenty of folk dances, but they grew up in different regions so they teach other dances they grew up with.

Gwen was the one to teach Merlin how to dance Camelot’s more popular paired/group dances in banquets (when they were allowed to participate).

Merlin teaches Gwen all of the dances he knew for festivals in Ealdor and loves to spin her around and sweep her off her feet, peppering her with kisses when he picks her up.

When Gwen and Merlin visits Ealdor for Beltane, Hunith is absolute delighted that she already knows the dances (Hunith is quite the dancer herself too!)

Whenever Merlin has extra change to spare on market days, he likes to buy a little bag of sweetmeats to share with Gwen as they go get groceries and supplies (this was inspired by this fic!)

Personally, I think that Gwen is more of a savory treat person but she’s not going to say no to sweetmeats, especially not when Merlin saved the candied almonds just for her.

Merlin has a huge sweet tooth that definitely did not get better when he came to Camelot and Gwen sneaks extra apple tarts or other pastries to Merlin when he’s doing chores.

Sometimes when the cook isn’t looking, he’ll snag an extra pastry/sweet for the "prince's" dinner so he can find Gwen and share it with her.

Merlin loves collecting flowers for Gwen, especially lavender.

Lavender reminds Merlin of Gwen and whenever he sees a bush or bouquet he does a little dopey smile (Arthur still teases him about it).

Their entire home has the most purple in all of Camelot as a combination of all the lavender, other purple flowers (the ones that Gwen originally gave Merlin in season 1), and Gwen's purple dresses and stays.

Merlin loves helping Gwen lace her corset and stays, he finds the process really soothing.

They absolutely do the thing where they rest their foreheads together and then do a nose boop while giggling. They are truly the sappiest couple in all of Camelot.

Whenever Merlin cups Gwen’s face, she turns to kiss his palm (it absolutely makes Merlin melt into a puddle).

If Gwen wakes up from a nightmare/memories of her father dying/Morgana’s betrayal and torture Merlin holds her and sings her songs from his childhood until she stops shaking.

He never pushes her to talk about what woke her up, but the times when she does, he’ll stay up as long as it takes until she can fall asleep again.

Gwen makes their handfasting rings and because both of them work with their hands a lot, she also made two fine chains so they can wear their wedding bands as neckaces, without worrying about damaging them.

Gwen kisses her wedding ring when she wants a bit of luck on her side. After all, she was lucky to marry the most loving man in all of Camelot.

When Gwen is having a bad day or just feels like it, Merlin tells her stories that he grew up with in Ealdor or picked up when traveling with Arthur and the knights. He casts little animated figures above them, illustrating the folklore as he goes. He even does sound effects just to make her laugh.

Gwen embroiders Merlin’s neckerchiefs and Merlin enchanted her threads so that they never lose their vibrancy or fray.

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[whataboringstory]

Thinking about them (Mergwen)

How happy Merlin is when he's around Gwen :

Look at him. boy is fucking GIDDY

I've seen (very correct) posts talking about how important Lancelot and Gwaine were to Merlin coping, but I think Gwen was too in a different way.

Because although she didn't know about his magic and therefore he always had to hide part of himself around her, he could pretend around her, the good kind of pretend.

Becuase theres's no pressure aournd her; there's no incredible power to be worthy of and no duty to perform above what anyone would do to save their friend. There's no one putting him on a pedestal. He could pretend he really was just a normal teenager who got roped into being Arthur's servant and lives a normal life, maybe having the odd adventure or solving a mystery or two with his best friend, but no great destiny, just life. he can be himself around her, a different kind of 'himself' that he loses more and more of as time goes on: he can be dorky and mischievous and soft and playful and forget about his burden for a while.

Bear in mind Gwen's only the second friend he's ever had and he thinks she's the coolest person ever (whch ofc she is)

Just look at him!

He's so happy to learn about armour from his bff!!

Then she gives him a FLOWER?! Fucking stellar

Gwen's the same:

Sometimes i think about how it had been a year since Elyan had left home and Leon's a knight now so he can't exactly hang out much and however good friends she is with Morgana she's still a noble and Gwen's still her servant. Then this boy shows up and the first thing she sees him do is stand up to a bully and he's funny and brave and tells ridiculously tall tales but above all he is kind

And they're there for each other when things are bad and they save each other when things are really bad.

Merlin is more devoted to saving her than he is anyone else apart from Arthur. He's tried to take her place on the pyre twice before, and even in season 5 when everything's gone to hell (including apparently their relationship which hella sad but actually makes sense in my mind but that's another post) he still does not hesitate to run straight into a burning room to save her.

Because that's what he does, and she knows that more than anyone. Every time, when she was in jail, her brother was kidnapped, she was threatened with exile, he promises he'll fix it. And she never knows exactly how, but things always seem to turn out all right.

She gave up wondering how a long time ago. There a just a lot of things that are strange about Merlin, and that's how it is. I don't think she knew it was magic, because, like Gwaine, it would mean that she was the world's worst friend for not letting Merlin know she knew annd he was not alone. But when she finally out the pieces together she wasn't exactly surprised and she accepted him straight away.

I think after everything Merlin only came back for Gauis, but he stayed for Gwen; they grew back together and he stayed at at her side for the rest of her days.

I just

Mergwen y'all

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Okay so you know how there's the theory that a lot of fantasy creatures originated from poorly described foreign animals? Like people would come to England with texts describing creatures from their homeland, but brits would be all "hmm. This description of a rhinoceros is clearly talking about a unicorn."

So like. The questing beast may have actually been a giraffe, dragons might have been some kind of large lizard, unicorns could be rhinos, and so on.

I propose a Merlin au where all the mythical creatures are just. Replaced with their theoretical real-world counterparts.

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They do a thumb war to resolve whose name goes first. Best of 17.

Going through my drafts part 2. Just found this gem of a modern au:

Merlin and Arthur early on in their relationship jokingly/drunkenly make a pact that when they get married, they’ll take the last name of whoever proposed. However, they’re both quite attached to their surnames. So years later, when one of them, let’s call them dumbass 1, finally proposes, the other (dumbass 2) says no. A few days later, dumbass 2 proposes. Dumbass 1 rejects them. They go back and forth proposing to each other for years until it becomes a daily thing, always trying to find ways to make the proposals more and more ridiculous. They’re both too stubborn to give in for the longest time. But then one uneventful day, either dumbass 1 or 2 sees the other doing something stupid (such as walking into a door, or spilling a drink, or ‘losing’ something that they’ve been holding the whole time) and just sighs and says “we’re fucking hyphenating our names.”

Part 1

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Going through my drafts part 2. Just found this gem of a modern au:

Merlin and Arthur early on in their relationship jokingly/drunkenly make a pact that when they get married, they’ll take the last name of whoever proposed. However, they’re both quite attached to their surnames. So years later, when one of them, let’s call them dumbass 1, finally proposes, the other (dumbass 2) says no. A few days later, dumbass 2 proposes. Dumbass 1 rejects them. They go back and forth proposing to each other for years until it becomes a daily thing, always trying to find ways to make the proposals more and more ridiculous. They’re both too stubborn to give in for the longest time. But then one uneventful day, either dumbass 1 or 2 sees the other doing something stupid (such as walking into a door, or spilling a drink, or ‘losing’ something that they’ve been holding the whole time) and just sighs and says “we’re fucking hyphenating our names.”

Part 1

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I typed out an angsty backstory to the knighting in the notes of the post but that’s all the braincells I have I’m afraid. The backstory is mostly about Merlin, Gwen, and Lancelot though, it’s lacking the jealous!Arthur content people are wanting. I wish I had the attention span to make a fic of it. If anyone wants to, please go ahead. I will adore you forever. If I ever find the energy to do it myself, I’ll let you all know <3

Gwen knighted Merlin when she became queen. The number one thing on her agenda was giving her best friend some appreciation. Merlin persuaded Gwen to keep it a secret from Arthur because a) he thought it would be funny, b) he didn’t want Arthur to make him join in with knight training and c) he knew Arthur would be intolerably jealous as Merlin would be Gwen’s knight

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Elyan is canonically not straight. I know this isn't a huge point of contention within fandom (at least it isn't in the corner of it I'm in) but I just want to lay my evidence on the table. In 3x13 Elyan looks away when Gwen and Arthur are kissing. This is something that I, an asexual, do. Now in Elyan’s case, you could write it off as brother doesn't want to watch his sister kissing her boyfriend who is also the prince, which is valid of him. But as someone who looks away when others are kissing cause it makes me feel uncomfortable, I get more "not looking cause I'm not straight" vibes than "ew my sister is kissing someone, Gwen wtf."

Then there is Lamia. She tells Elyan not to be afraid before she goes to kiss him and then when she IS kissing him he actively tries to pull away. Later on in the episode when she kisses Percival, he does NOT try to pull away or struggle. And that to me indicates that Elyan was not interested in her because he's not attracted to her/ women.

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Considering that Lancelot and Gauis were consistently blind-sided by Merlin’s chaotic bullshit, I like to imagine that he wouldn’t be any more forthcoming with his secrets in the event his magic is revealed unless directly questioned. Bc like, if Lancelot hadn’t asked Merlin what his plan was for the immortal army, Merlin would’ve tried to get to the cup on his own. And Lancelot did not know Merlin was a dragonlord until he roared at the sky and the great dragon appeared. And we know Merlin consistently tried to hide his more illegal activities from Gauis (with minimal success, but still). 

Also just, can you imagine? Arthur, Gwen, and the knights find out Merlin has magic, and they’re like, “oh, okay, that’s an issue, but it’s Merlin, and how powerful can he really be?”. But then he decimates a super powerful sorcerer who’s attacking them and they have another moment of “oh”. And you know, that should be the end of it, right? Wrong. Bc this boy is also Emrys, the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth and he’s immortal and the druids treat him like their savior. And he’s a dragon lord, which would absolutely be revealed in the most chaotic way ever. And one day someone thinks to ask, “whatever happened to Dragoon and the Dolma, we should invite them to Camelot in a peaceful overture” and Merlin is sweating up a storm and has a decision to make: come clean or try to transform himself into both Dragoon and the Dolma and come up with increasingly implausible excuses for why the three are never seen together (and somehow he decides the Dolma and Dragoon are exes and wouldn’t it just be hilarious if the knights tried to get them back together?) until he’s found out and everyone’s like, “wtf Merlin”. And sometimes he’ll just drop a reference to a time he was in mortal peril and everyone blue screens for a solid 20 seconds. Eventually Arthur just has to call everyone to the round table and get a full biography-type tale of Merlin’s absolutely buck-wild life so they stop being blindsided by Merlin’s past, but we all know getting straight answers out of Merlin is like pulling teeth. 

Idk, I just think there was a lot of chaotic potential with this disastrous warlock’s adventures and I would’ve loved to see at least a season of Arthur repealing the ban on magic and everyone getting to relearn Merlin. And we needed to see at least one prank from Merlin and Gwaine involving magic. At least one. 

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i know that the writers of merlin took quite a few liberties with the content of the show but they overlooked/completely ignored one of the fundamental ideas about dragons.

neither kilgharrah nor aithusa have a hoard.

arguably, it’s understandable that kilgharrah doesn’t, what with being chained in a cave for twenty years, and i suppose morgana was a little too busy trying to kill everyone to give aithusa the opportunity to find one but idk.

i’m now just thinking about how much better the show could have been if merlin had had to steal jewellery to give to kilgharrah every time he wanted help or something and kilgharrah would complain about the cheap quality of earrings and demand something better and you just have merlin getting so frustrated with sneaking around the castle to steal jewellery that he ends up trying to figure it out on his own and things actually turn out for the better.

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Going through my drafts part 1:

Can’t remember writing this but past me is valid I think; Merlin from season one would have ate that shit up.

I think what I was trying to get at with this post was that earlier seasons Merlin was so innately chaotic and energy-filled that this would have suited him and been so fun for him — especially the surprising Arthur with his skill. Younger Merlin would have revelled in proving he wasn’t as unskilled as people thought he was, that he was actually more special than people were aware of.

But by season 5, Merlin has been through so much shit. Proving himself is no longer on his list of priorities. He’s withdrawn, depressed, isolated, jaded. It must hurt every time Arthur is surprised to learn new things about him, he’s reminded about how much of himself he hides from everyone. The weight of it is crushing at this point, 10 years later and 0 secrets lighter. The performance he gives for Arthur and Annis, being Arthur’s “Fool”, is so symbolic/significant. In season one maybe he was the fool. He was young, impulsive, clumsy, figuring out who he was and where he stood, who he could trust. Now he’s grown up and matured, and now it really is all an act. Every day is now a ‘performance’, more so than before. And fuck that must hurt. Especially now that he’s grown so close to the people he’s performing for.

I mean think about it… just a few hours earlier, he saw Arthur dying in a vision. He watched his best friend die and then had to pretend everything was fine - though he isn’t really as good at pretending anymore. Or maybe Arthur’s just better at noticing. Or both. But he keeps pretending anyway, having to put on an act each day, having to isolate himself in his secrets and worries.

Got sidetrack by the angst but the actual point I was actually trying to make is that I’m just mourning smiley season one Merlin, who loved fucking with Arthur (see: the key scene. Make that SCENES, plural. I was thinking of the one with the soup/stew but actually all the scenes involving keys work), not getting the enjoyment of making Arthur’s head implode

Part 2