rewatching bbc merlin really has me like buzzing in my mind with so many thoughts. Like I'm kinda watching it backwards atm going from S5 to S4, I think I will jump around 3, 2, and 1 but just,,,, there is so much especially in S5 that makes me !!!!!!!

Honestly, I feel like this fandom has to give the writers more credit. Like they did a damn good job, and to me, it's such a good tragedy. Especially how S5 plays out, it takes everything and just tears you down, and down, and down. It's perfect, perfect with flaws! But still perfect

NO LANCELOT ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT IT'S NOT ON YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR OTHERS

you know how we often talk about merlin and his love and how it changed things? how his affections for arthur changed his decision making, influenced his sense for right and wrong, his sense of duty versus devotion? yeah, that's all well and good, but i don't think we talk about arthur's side of it enough. he, too, got twisted up in his affections. s1 arthur and s4/5 arthur were different for many reasons, but one that particularly strikes you is his ease when asking merlin for his opinions. yeah, he still makes jokes and pokes fun at merlin for his ability to see (know) things the others don't, but he begins asking merlin more and more for his views, thoughts, opinions. he doesn't shy away and when arthur asks directly, he doesn't disregard the answers he's given - he often takes them as gospel. on the surface level it's nice, the trust and belief in each other, but it's their fatal flaw, too. and as with everything, it's reflected in each other. merlin's inability to be objective in his decisions and arthur's inability to stand alone in his decisions.

But Merlin had one fatal flaw. When he loved, he loved too deeply, too passionately, too recklessly. When tragedy strikes, DI Merlin Emrys is determined to avenge his ex-fiancée Freya. The targets? Arthur Pendragon and his wife Guinevere, leaders of the infamous criminal gang The Knights. But Arthur Pendragon isn’t as much of a fool as Merlin expects. Knowing Merlin’s reputation for investigating and arresting criminals of all types, he cuts Merlin a deal — help him, and he’ll help Merlin bring Freya’s killer to justice.

Except neither Arthur, Merlin, nor Guinevere realize just how tightly entangled they will become, and just how much it will risk everything they have ever known.

come to burn your kingdom down | Art | Art (tumblr)

A collaboration for @aftercamlann After Camlann Merlin Big Bang 2022

Story By @princess-of-the-worlds

Art By @violetmessages

Alpha-read By @insane-ohwhyfandoms

Betaed By @mergwaines

Artwork rating: T

Fic rating: E

Word count: 72K

Relationship: Gwen/Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, Gwen/Arthur Pendragon, Gwen/Merlin, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, past Freya/Merlin, Gaius & Merlin 

Characters: Merlin, Arthur Pendragon, Gwen, Kilgharrah, Gaius, Gwaine, Leon, Mordred, Cenred, Knights of the Round Table, Minor Characters

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Additional tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Organized Crime, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Polyamory, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Identity Porn, Action, Guns, Blood and Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Minor Character Death, After Camlann Merlin Big Bang

I started watching Merlin again a few months back because my favorite podcasters were doing it after reaching the end of their Supernatural podcast, so for a while now I've been loping through at a civilized pace, watching 1 episode per week in advance of the podcast, and I was just about in the middle of season 3 -- coincidentally around the exact point I got distracted and lost interested in it the first time I watched -- when Netflix informed me they're yanking the show next week for inscrutable Netflix reasons. So this week I've bailed through the whole back half of the show so I wouldn't have to figure out how to download it or whatever, and man, you guys. It got weirdly dark in the last two seasons! Like there's a whole episode about the bewitched knights wandering lost in a hellish wasteland while failing to rescue Guinevere from being tortured and brainwashed and I'm like -- this is the same show that features other hit plotlines such as "Anthony Head is tricked into marrying a troll who farts constantly" right? It took a turn, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, I basically enjoyed it, in that it's (for once in my life!) written to provide basically consistent and sensible payoffs for the conflicts it establishes and also Colin Morgan is just a really likeable and compelling performer, but like -- I do think it's ultimately a more or less fatal flaw to the show that Arthur kind of -- sucks. He really is kind of a garbage dude, and initially you're kind of like, oh okay, he's youthful and reckless and spoiled, but the show is going to be about how he matures into the Great King of Prophecy, and I appreciate that the key to that is going to be the way he comes to realize that the Common Folk in his life, both Gwen and Merlin, are the best people around him. And kiiiind of? I mean, he does improve marginally, but oh my God he really just is largely a dipshit right to the end, isn't he? Like very late in the game, well into the Full Flowering of Camelot, the conflicts are still along the lines of "Arthur is fully going to execute someone for trumped-up reasons and Merlin has to gingerly plant the idea of maybe not doing that in his head because god knows he'll be having none of it if you try to be direct about the gruesome mistake he's making." And the man's daddy issues, Jesus Christ! I love a good fictional daddy issue, but there's a line, and the line is that if the ghost of your asshole of a dead father half-murders your wife because he thinks you could do better, you're allowed to speak sternly to him! Very sternly! But no, Arthur's like, Dad, I have to ask you to leave now please, because I'm an adult now and you are dead. Buddy! Buddy!!! He clocked your wife unconscious and tried to set her on fire, we passed I Need You to Go Now *several* exits back!

Anyway, it's stuff like that. He's a better king than Uther was, but the bar is in hell, and judged on his own merits, Arthur is -- kind of a petty curmudgeon, and not entirely not a tyrant, and he never *did* fully get around to that restoring magic business that was supposedly the point of the whole show. Which in and of itself is okay and kind of interesting -- it was almost a bold statement about the inherent moral vacuity of dynastic monarchies, like actually if you raise a person to believe the right of rulership is in him by blood, the very *best* you're going to get is a guy who's okay sometimes, unless he doesn't feel like it, in which case you're fucked until you can figure out some way to work him around. Which is basically what Arthur was, as a king. It's like Junior Varsity Game of Thrones. It's not bad.

But they so clearly wanted you, the audience, to go all in on Merlin's fear and sadness as Camlann and Mordred and the fall of Camelot looms, and Morgan's acting his ass off and I would like to play along and grieve the tragic loss of Arthur Pendragon and the end of a golden age, except Arthur's really just a dudebro with the bare minimum that qualifies as a conscience and actually the whole last two seasons were shot more like a gothic horror than a golden age, and I don't think I found it as reassuring as I'm supposed to that this guy is coming back at some point. Not to speak for the British, but -- thanks but no thanks, is where I personally stand on that business. Avalon can keep him.

Which -- again, if that's the point, it's a brilliantly sly deconstruction of the mythology of the True King. But it's kind of not framed like that's the point. I actually couldn't tell for sure. All of this sounds like I didn't like the show, but I think I did! It had some genuinely moving elements and decent production values for TV and some good performances and a dragon. I liked the dragon, he's probably my favorite character.

no, you don't understand, merlin didn't lie to arthur when he said that it was arthur's destiny to pull the sword from the stone!! no, he wasn't a bad person for letting arthur believe in a version of himself that didn't exist, because it was merlin's construction of that idea within him that allowed him to grow into the legend he was told he embodied!! we assume at first glance that the version of merlin that arthur sees is a lie disguised in bits of truth - hell, even arthur believes it ("you're not an idiot, that was another lie") but i think it's the other way round. obviously merlin isn't fully truthful until the end, but in a way, that's what makes the prophecy come true. between them, merlin and arthur are camelot: two sides of the same coin. soulmates. brothers. lovers. whatever. when arthur first pulls the sword from the stone, he does not manage it, because he does not yet understand why. if he pulled it out with no resistance, he would not believe it was any great accomplishment and that doubt would have eaten away at it, like doubt always does. but merlin recognises that, and holds back. he believes, but arthur does not, and it is not until they are parallel, until their minds converge, that any miracle can truly come to be. similarly, merlin lies about his magic for all those years, and it is not until the end of the road that he allows it to shine through, because arthur wasn't ready to believe that yet, not until his death. but morbidity aside, yes, arthur's pulling the sword drom might not be divinely ordained. and yes, merlin had a chance to save arthur, and he made the wrong decision, of his own free will. but respectfully, that is not the point of the show. merlin is unique as an arthurian retelling because at no point does it ever pedestalise the characters: they are messy, flawed, but most importantly they love and grow. the heart of the show isn't some far off prophecy and immovable, heroic figures, because camelot is not yet a legend. at this point it is unequivocally, heartbreakingly human. and yeah, the story merlin told arthur was bullshit. yeah, he lied, and he made fatal mistakes, but that's. what. people. do!! and the reason arthur was able to pull the sword from the stone was because of merlin, and his fragile, human heart that saw his friend struggling and gave him something to hope for, in his kingdom and in himself. the legend didn't precede them, and the show doesn't act like it does. they're just muddling through, and in the end, the legend they create isn't because of the prophecy, but because of the choices they made along the way. their legacy is one that echoes through the ages because they had the humanity to construct it for themselves, and there is no tragedy, or triumph, greater than the simple act of being alive, because then, and only then, those two things are one and the same.

The Choice

One of Gwen’s most iconic lines is advice she gives to Gaius in “Remedy for All Ills”

When she sees him running from the situation at court, after Edwin gave him an opening to leave, she reprimands him for not doing his due diligence for the people of Camelot as physician and friend, he is usually the only buffer between Uther and the people.

These lines attributed to Gwen, are highly significant because of their impact on other characters throughout the series. Through Gwen’s influence, they look over the choices they make with a keen eye, and give advice to each other of the same intent.

A great example of this would be Gwen’s advice to Merlin, which would be a pivotal turning point for the young sorcerer and how he approaches the weekly Arthur-hungry problems that plague Camelot.

This is also the first piece of advice in a domino effect of ethical choices, Merlin makes in regards to his destiny; the first one pertaining to Uther’s life.

Her choice to choose good in the face of evil, to choose a life saved in that moment even in her fresh grief, rather than a cycle of future pain is the exact decision that prompts Merlin to save Uther’s life. He safekeeps the lesson to ‘see the good’ in others, which Kilgarrah cites as a fatal flaw, until he is corrupted by fear and regret in seasons 4 and 5.

When he chooses to make attempts on Mordred’s and Morgana’s life, when they had been innocent to him, he makes exactly the wrong decision that begins the cycle of grief all over again.

However, he does carry forward this advice on the ‘morality of choice’ to Arthur in ‘The Changeling’ in the moments before Arthur’s wedding, and advises him on the King he can become, rather than the King he would be resigned as, if he makes the choice of being a bystander.

Arthur carries these words with him, and as he spends more time with Gwen!, her saying becomes more of a moral he measures his life against, than an empty phrase.

This is clear in ‘Queen of Hearts’

When Gwen is mercilessly banished by Uther, Morgana comes to fake comfort Arthur on the unfairness of the punishment but doesn't expect his brave words.

Morgana believes there is no other choice for Arthur in this way forward, other than to give up Gwen's hand, but he reminds her that there is always a choice, heartfelt words that he could have only gained from Gwen. He would rather give up his throne, his future, his life in Camelot than live another where Gwen is not near, his choice is made.

Hearing those words from the best friend she had cruelly scorned, was whiplash to Morgana, and it reminded her of the many decisions she must have made; always believing there was no other way except to hate. Falling into Uther's stride, something Gwen had likely cautioned her to beware in the past, is unthinkable, and so she makes the next choice to kill the messenger rather than atone for her sins and turn back.

Morgana's choice had always been clear: either kill Uther or die by his hand.

In the same fashion, she never affords other character's the choice to take charage of their own lives, she manhandles theirs under the guise of a virtous deed or a false choice.

This is thinking that originated from season 1, in 'To Kill The King' when she gives Gwen's father the key to escape his cell. You might be thinking that this was the right choice, she gave him an alley to escape! I think this was the wrong one, and Morgana of all people closest to Gwen, would know better. Gwen later emphasizes, after her father had been killed for an attempted escape that this was the wrong one, shame had come down on their family, on top of the grief of losing Tom.

Morgana had already known Uther would not stop to execute Tom in the morning, she knew that any trial at escape would lead to death. She knew that Gwen yearned for her father to get another fair trial, besides this, she had the power to ask Uther for a trial, to delay the execution again. She also had access to both of them, to give father and daughter the full pros and cons of either plan. Yet she chose to give him the key.

Morgana at this point, was naive and untried. She relied on her usual rebelliousness and hasty decisions to land herself out of trouble with the King and believed the same could be said for Tom. Her risky decisions to give a desperate man a key to escape, without warning him of the punishment was a mistake, but not a deliberate on. I believe this is cause for break in the friendship, as Morgana could never be truthful about why Tom tried to escape, her distance with Gwen begins there.

Besides these decisions, while knowing Gwen's thoughts on revenge, Morgana makes the decisions to kill Uther on a planned trip, exactly the thing Gwen would be against. She knew Gwen would never support this plan, which had originated in Tom's death, but she went forward anyway (eventually failing) but found some misplaced compassion at the end.

By the time 'The Coming of Arthur: Part 1' rolls around, Morgana's decisions on Gwen and all of Camelot have been made. She might not want to take ownership of the destruction in the citadel, as then she would be responsible for the pain and suffering of all her former friends. But she does attempt to win Gwen over, one last time, in a tragic perversion of Gwen's old saying.

The fear and shock are clear on Gwen's face; she had become aware of Morgana's magic and betrayals before this, but this is the first time they both put their actions to light. Morgana is the traitor, and now she's giving Gwen as much choice as a captive has to walk the plank; either she allies herself to Morgana's cause or she dies.

It's interesting to note the morbid satisfaction in Morgana's words here, she believes she has finally won in the game of choice, and in an almost mocking tone, she reminds Gwen to make the right decision.

Gwen recognizes the words but cannot recognize who says them. She had made her choice already, the minute she had fallen in love with Arthur, and abandoned Morgana to her own treachery.

She can only hope that Morgana makes the hardest choice one day, to turn her back on ruin and revenge and rejoin the land of the self-willed, the only choice she could make to ensure her own happy ending.

come to burn your kingdom down

word by @princessoftheworlds,art by @violetmessages Summary: But Merlin had one fatal flaw. When he loved, he loved too deeply, too passionately, too recklessly.When tragedy strikes, DI Merlin Emrys is determined to avenge his ex-fiancée Freya. The targets? Arthur Pendragon and his wife Guinevere, leaders of the infamous criminal gang The Knights. But Arthur Pendragon isn’t as much of a fool as Merlin expects. Knowing Merlin’s reputation for investigating and arresting criminals of all types, he cuts Merlin a deal — help him, and he’ll help Merlin bring Freya’s killer to justice.Except neither Arthur, Merlin, nor Guinevere realize just how tightly entangled they will become, and just how much it will risk everything they have ever known. Click HERE for the story and HERE for the art!

Let's all sit here and imagine BBC merlin if Merlin's fatal flaw had been personal loyalty.

Merlin as Dragoon: All I have ever wanted is that people like me can live in peace!

Merlin:

Fuck it, I wrote the goddamn essay

I'm far too invested in this series so heres my far overthought essay on Merlin as a Shakespearean Tragedy

Okay this is just a rough outline of what I want to talk about, but the basic premise is that merlinBBC lines up to be a perfect Shakespearean tragedy (ST)

The nine points of a ST ~

The Tragic Hero ~ Arthur is The tragic hero but Merlin also fits into it on a more personal level. Arthur is a man of great presence and station he fights all the monsters and dies in the end, He has this great destiny that lays heavy on his shoulders and he unknowingly drives the plot for most of the show (I just realised how much of this show Arthur just doesn’t know about? Like the entire plot is happening behind him and he’s just having a sword fight (sub thought, that is exactly how I would frame this if I directed a play of Merlin))

Good Vs Evil ~ Morgana sort of handles this all on her own? She is presented as the moral compass of the show and is then slowly manipulated into a position of villain although there is a more complex look at this being represented by merlin gwen and morgause but that would take an awfully long time to explain

Fatal Flaw ~ typically this is given to the Tragic Hero™ but because Merlin and Arthur sort of split the spotlight this is applied mainly to Merlin. Merlin is deeply and unshakingly loyal to Arthur and while this is initially and somewhat veiled as loyalty to his destiny and the future he’s fighting for, it’s easily evident from his actions in “the sins of a father” that he is quickly becoming more loyal to Arthur than magic and chooses Arthurs well being over the fate of magic kind.

Tragic Waste ~ this is the idea that the hero will die before completing all he could do, and if that doesn’t sound like Arthur then we didn’ watch the same show.

Conflict ~ the corruption of merlins and morgana from morgause and Killgarah is the real core conflict of this show, if those two characters had never been there none of this would ever have happened. While i would agree that they could have done it better the main theme of this shows conflicts in manipulation,

Dichotomy of villainy ~ we are left by the end of this show unable to really take a side because everything felt preventable, for this reason morgana’s death and Merlins victory still feels mostly hollow

Supernatural element ~ I feel like this is fairly self evident

Ambiguity of poetic justice ~ “good will always triumph and evil will always suffer” is the simple moral code that most writing goes by, however a ST subverts this, often having its good characters commit acts of moral ambiguity and the hero inevitably fails or dies in the process. This is doen in MerlinBBC with Merlin never fulfilling his destiny and Arthur never repealing the ban on magic. We can suppose given Gwen's scene during the battle of camlann that she will most likely repeal the ban on magic and raise merlin to the title of Court Sorcerer as is vaguely hinted towards given his position in her coronation scene.

Comic relief ~ STs aren’t all sorrow and hannes acts, they have their fair share of jokes and funny moments. We can see that in some of the more joky episodes, but also in things like That tavern scene.

The last piece of this tragic puzzle is the most obvious, the five seasons of Merlin are the five acts of a Shakespeare play. I've made a handy chart to understand what I mean. Because it's a t because its a tv show and therefore worried about viewers returning the act structures isn’t broken up perfectly, but it still fits fairly well. The thing that leaves people bitter about the end of this show, I think, is because they expected the show to settle, to find a rest in its ending, what we got instead was a camelot that (while still having a trusted monarch) was still in turmoil, and a shot of merli alone and sad 1500 years in the future still waiting for arthur.

What happened with merlin is that we never got the finally, “everything will be okay” moment and so we are left wanting

The themes of Merlin are a dichotomy of Peace and Equality Vs corruption and manipulation, this is displayed through the main characters of Merlin, Arthur, and Morgana, with each being manipulated and corrupted by Killgarrah, Uther, and Morgause respectively. This is shown best through the use of Forked Path. (which I weirdly can’t find any articles or anything for? Which is odd given how popular it is but anyway) the Forked Path happens anytime the characters are presented with two strict choices without much wiggle room, both of which could end badly in the long run but must nonetheless be chosen between. This is very clear with season two's story arc between merlin and morgana, in which merlin must either kill his friend to prevent a possible future, or let her win and risk the demise of albion. Merlin attempts to avoid this, temporarily disabling Morgana from enacting her plans and the like, but in the end he is forced to choose. Arthur is continuously presented with the problem of whether to trust and show mercy to magic. Morgana is presented with either killing Uther and freeing magic, or running from camelot and lending to the further persecution of the druids. The thing you might notice is that these are all linching on Merlin and whether or not he tells the truth, his silence provides false dichotomies for the other characters. This is the manipulation I mentioned earlier. Merlin is led to believe again and again that he Must commit acts against his morals to save Arthur and therefore Albion. But as no fan will hesitate to point out, he never really had to. This is a show of the trope of Self Fulfilling Destiny that's found in all tragedies since ancient greece. Merlin’s attempts to stop morgana directly lead to their conflict, his keeping his magic a secret to protect arthur ultimately leads to arthur's death (having only met “evil” sorcerers arthur never repealed the ban and so mordred sides with morgana). If Merlin had followed his own heart then all would have worked out well, but instead we see Killgarrahs manipulation stop merlin from acting in camelots best interest.

Yo, i've always wanted to ask you this but I don't know why until now i do it , what made you like Arthur enough to dedicate a fanfic to him and give him Edda who is a wonderful character, after seeing how he was such a jerk and did uncool things like not helping Snow White when she was surrounded by the guards and she needed help?

A fair question! One which I'm not sure I have a good answer to, honestly. But I'll give it a shot.

Like, I did not like him during my first viewing, and then he just sort of, grew on me? There is just something compelleling about him, about his character.

Part of it might ironically enough be that he's a bit of a shit. Since that makes him someone who's a hero in the story, and who carries himself like one (and really believes his own hype), yet still have some critical flaws that goes against his self image, which the text of the movie acknowledged, but which doesn't really get worked out on screen. And that in itself is something compelling to me, because that makes me wanna try to imagine the character in scenarios that makes them face and come to terms with their flaws.

Another part of it is that besides his garbage actions, Arthur is shown to be more then just a shallow, overconfident ass. He does have some genuine heroic qualities in how he deep down really does care about Merlin despite their constant arguments (and if you wanna be generous you could read his anger over finding the love potion book as partially coming from that Merlin even was thinking about pulling something so underhanded as that). Then there's also the signs of insecurities and vulnerabilities, when something doesn't go as he planned. Like there is something genuinely soft under all of the "heroic machismo", but you get the feeling he's sometimes scared of being too open with that (even if he's practically an open book when it comes to his emotions), because he thinks that his strength (and heroic-ness) is the trait of his that others, and potential love interest, will value most. (Sure he does have that pretending to die in order to get kissed moment, but I feel like that just him playing into the idea of the heroine kissing the hero after he makes a fatal sacrifice for her trope. Like I said, he sees himself as the big great hero, and in that scene Red is supposed to be his gentle heroine.) Then there's also how he seems to absorb any closeness to someone else, or affection, like a sponge.

So yeah, he just, compells me, and while I was first starting to hyperfixate on him, a separate thought came to me.

"Hey would it not be funny if one of f7 ended up falling in love with a witchy/Wise Lady in the Woods type character?"

And since I was already having Arthur thoughts, I naturally ended up picking him for that scenario. And then I started trying to write something out based on that since there wasn't much content centered on him at the time.

(Also the man has Himbo Potential. ESPECIALLY taking that cute end credits scene with him and werewolf red riding hood into mind.)

Eleanor, by the Grace of God, Queen of the English, Duchess of the Normans & Duchess of the Aquitanians and Countess of the Angevins

“… the young heiress was fair enough to content any king … “Charming,” “welcoming” and “lively” (avenante, vailante, courtoise) are the words used by the chroniclers to portray her … Her education had not of course furnished her with the orderly intellectual baggage fit for an abbess. Though doubtless, like all the heirs of her race, she had her tutors, her real school had been a varied experience …” (Amy Ruth Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings)

The END OF THE EAGLETS’ REBELLION AND ELEANOR’S CAPTIVITY:

“Henry had no need of trumpets to tell him that sedition in Poitou had not been quenched by the imprisonment of Eleanor. He had suppressed the rebellion that had threatened the Angevin empire with a success so signal that it was popularly attributed to the miraculous intervention of Saint Thomas. But to the prescient Angevin the conclusion had less the character of finale than of omnious prelude. The whole uprising had revealed, not only to him, but to his enemies, the extent of a many-sided discontent that needed only coherence to be overwhelming. The queen, though in his hands, remained the object of intrigue, the inspiration of her rival foot-loose sons and of the turbulent fortune seekers who found their profit in war and rapine. The king turned over in his mind the problem of what to do with his captive … To divorce her might be tempting; the grounds were excellent –treason and two more degrees of consanguinity than had been sufficient in Louis’s case- but he could not set her free in her own estates to make some new alliance of her own. Capable as he was of reading the lessons of history, he had no mind to repeat Louis’s fatal blunder. He needed legates to suggest to him how scrupulous the King of France would be in the interest of his vassal, if once she were at liberty. To keep her in custody (forever?) might hinder new intrigues … In the court there remained alone of the famous coterie of the Plantagenets the Capetian princess Alais. In 1176 she was sixteen. No fault was found with her person. She was comely, gifted, nobly dowered, and she too had been polished for her role in the school of Marie of Champagne [Louis VII’s third wife]. Why was the Frankish princess alone of all that noble company of dames choises left unwed in the palaces of the Plantagenet king? Why had other marriages been proposed for the Count of Poitou? The world made these inquiries and the Capets pressed them home. In 1177, in extreme agitation, Louis appealed to Rome to enforce the marriage of Alais to the Count of Poitou [Richard] on pain of interdict on all the lands of Henry Fitz-Empress on both sides of the channel … Giraldus relates that Henry, confident of his prospect of getting rid of the queen through his appeal to the Pope, intended to take the Capetian princess for himself, disinherit the fierce eaglets of Poitou as the bastard of a consanguineous marriage, and rear a new progeny to possess the Angevin empire. Giraldus, never more piously enthusiastic than when exposing Henry’s vices, declares that after his separation from the queen, the king turned openly to the evil courses he had long secretly pursued. Briefly he flaunted the beautiful Clifford, and when she had vanished from the scene, he made a mistress of his precious hostage, the daughter of his overlord, the bride affianced to his son.  Did the Angevin mean to erase from his life story the chapter of his union with the disastrous Poitevin and go back to his earlier plan for a primary alliance with his overlord? It was recalled that before he had sold his birthright for Poitou and Aquitaine, he had sought a marriage with Louis’s eldest daughter, the Countess of Champagne …” (Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings)

Henry II of England’s relationship and ultimate goal with Alice of France is still being debated. Whether or not he intended to divorce his wife (a woman who had given him plenty of sons) and who in spite of their rebellion, were of a fighting age to defend their respective dominions and perpetuate the new Plantagenet dynasty, is immaterial. Louis VII of France was against the match and so were most of the clergy. Following the death of their eldest son, the young King Henry; Eleanor and Henry II seemed to reach a peace of sorts.When Henry died, he was mourned by his subjects. Whatever his personal flaws, he had governed the country well and restored order to the anarchy caused by the civil war that erupted as a result of his cousin Stephen being chosen over his grandfather’s chosen heir, Henry II’s mother, Matilda. In spite of this, he left a strong inheritance to his surviving male heirs, among them his wife’s favorite, Richard who became the new King of England

“… he had left his inedible stamp on all of France and the British Isles. Until his last years he had mastered every king, duke, and count who had tested him. He was perhaps the most famous man in Christendom. And his fame burned across the ages to follow. For Henry II, king of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and lord of Ireland, had begun a dynasty that shaped the future of Europe for more than two centuries.” (Dan Jones, The Plantagenet Warrior Kings and Queens who made England)

Despite their quarrels, Eleanor was well aware of the big shoes her favorite son would have to fill. And more importantly whom he’d choose to look after England when he went seeking glory in the Holy land and elsewhere.

“Richard processed to Westminster behind ranks of bishops and abbots, barons, knights, and the solemn officers of England ... Perhaps the proudest of them all was Eleanor of Aquitaine. To see Richard crowned king of England represented the apogee of his mother’s ambition, fulfilling as it did a famous prophecy of Merlin: “The eagle of the broken covenant will rejoice in [her] third nesting.” Immediately on Henry’s death, her beloved son had released her form captivity and restored the lands and revenues that had been taken from her as punishment for the rebellion of 1173; even before he had arrived in England, Richard had sent a command that his mother, now aged sixty-six, should occupy a preeminent place in English government. She had spent the weeks preceding the coronation traveling around the country, holding court, and extracting oaths of allegiance from the great and good of the realm …” (Jones, The Plantagenet Warrior Kings and Queens who made England)

When Richard I of England died, a part of Eleanor died. But she remained resilient as ever, doing what had to be done to safeguard the new king of England (her youngest son, John “Lackland”) throne. As a result, John came to her aid when she was about to be captured by her grandson, Arthur of Brittany, son of her late second son, Geoffrey. Since war had broken out between Philip II of France and John I of England, the former believed he could gain the upper hand by showing his first ace under his sleeve in the form of Eleanor’s grandson. The teen (arguably) had a better claim than his uncle. John was the youngest of the eaglets, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine’s brood while Arthur was the son of their second son. Angered by Eleanor’s decision to support his uncle, Arthur pushed back by laying siege to the Castle of Mirebeau, where she was staying, in Aquitaine (modern day Western France).

Eleanor had been through all sorts of adventures and survived all kinds of treacherous plots and court intrigues. Her determination, wit, ambition as well as her struggle to preserve the courts of love and other knightly romantic culture through her granddaughter Blanche of Castile, are a testament to the incredible woman that she was. After that foiled attempt though, Eleanor opted for a rest that was long overdue. Like many aristocratic women of the medieval world, she took the veil and became a nun. She died three years later in 1204 and was entombed Fontevrault Abbey in the county of Anjou next to Henry II.

lol how about 4, 9, 10, 14?

YOU GOT THEM. that's the rest of the questions. tyvm <3

4. Do you prefer writing long or short fics?

oh for sure long fics. i’m not sure i could write a short fic if my fucking life depended on it lmao it’s like my fatal flaw. that and being bad at arguments

9. What’s the fic you like the least?

SIGHS DEEPLY. the detroit become twink one, which i am not linking to, because something happened in the middle and i wasn’t able to finish it and now that i’m over that game i don’t know if i ever will. i really liked working on it and i was VERY excited about my ending, but...shit happens. :/ i hope one day i’ll either nut up and finish or just fucking delete it, i HATE having an unfinished work on my profile like that!

10. What would you change if you had it all to do again?

i assume you mean about broken road! i think if anything i’d adjust my timeline a little - it’s weird that such a long fic, which i posted over the course of seven weeks, only took place over about 5 days in-universe time. it feels like longer than that when you read it, so i’d adjust the timing so that it WAS actually longer than that - if anything, i’d like to give john and mary more than one day before breaking them up, and i think sam would have held out against john a lot longer than he did before losing his temper too. a longer timeline also would have allowed dean and cas’s argument to last more than just a couple of hours. 

the other thing i might change is that i’d put the car scene after the argument instead of after dean telling cas about how he got his voice back and talking about the abuse. or maybe i’d swap and put all of chapter 3 close to the end, i don’t know - typically in character arcs, something like a sex scene would go near the end, not the middle. but i was too attached to having it where it was so it could be like it was when i first pictured it to move it. it was one of the very first scenes i ever envisioned for this fic, one of my reasons for writing it to begin with, and i was very loath to change it. 

14. What’s your favorite shipping fic you’ve written? Favorite gen fic?

I WAS HOPING SOMEONE ASK THIS. hello supernatural community, i have written OTHER FANFICTION. it’s wild that broken road is so popular because i’m sitting over here like old man yelling at cloud going THIS IS NOT EVEN MY BEST WORK. and it’s not! i love broken road but it’s not my best work!!! cambionverse (supernatural next gen, EVERYONE who tries it likes it) is my best work, but i cowrote that. for fics i did on my own:

favorite (aka best) shipping fic: the anchor series, but particular the first one. these are teen wolf fics which diverge from canon at the end of season 4 and feature trauma and ace derek hale and past sexual assault and my weird secret rarepair. they are EXTREMELY NSFW i used to have a whole sideblog to hide them on. i think all the minors who used to follow me have aged up but if you are a minor i will literally send your browser history to your grandparents if you click on my ao3. don’t test me. anyway, i think anchor (the first fic) was probably the most perfectly-paced thing i’ve ever written. not before or since have i managed to nail such a beautifully perfect outline the first try with almost no revision required later. i wrote all 50k of it in a MONTH. i stayed up until 10 in the morning on the regular, but i got it done in record time. it practically fell out of my brain into the google doc fully formed. if a fic ever comes even half as easily to me as that one did ever again, i will be very happy. 

favorite gen fic: technically, it’s pre-slash, but how arthur got his groove back for bbc merlin. i like to joke that this is basically the same story as broken road, because it covers many of the same things, such as: self-acceptance and acceptance of others after a lifetime of being told That Thing Is Wrong, daddy’s blunt little instrument grappling with his father’s misdeeds, daddy’s blunt little instrument grappling with what he himself wound up doing as a result of hero-worshipping his father, finding peace after traumatic events, batshit insane fight scenes that make me rub my hands together evilly, me deciding to turn my favorite episode into a 100k canon divergent fix-it fanfiction, and most importantly, people being shocked that gay people exist. i think it has much better “timing” than broken road (broken road’s timeline was so wonky and dumb), and also that it’s better-written, and that the side characters for more attention paid to their arcs.

when someone asks me what my best fic is, it’s always one of these two. so, uh, not to self-promote but if you were ever into teen wolf or merlin...yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...AND THAT WRAPS UP OUR MEME. i don't think i've been asked literally every single question on one before, so thank you to everyone who sent one <3

by Parzival3Keys

There was a snap heard in every universe, but only by certain people. Those people vanished never to return, but fate did not approve, so she gathered her power and reached in to the endless universes, grabbed the vanished and everything they would need to survive and sent them to a universe that needed their help, one where the dead were walking and the human race was close to extinction, for once they vanished they could never go back. A fatal flaw of the infinity stones, but here they could live how they wanted without prophecies or fate or meddling old fools. Where they were free. Finally fate scattered them across the u.s states and when she snapped her fingers they awoke.

Words: 3, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Teen Wolf (TV), Sherlock (TV), Merlin (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, The Companions Quartet - Julia Golding, The Walking Dead (TV), Labyrinth (1986), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Supernatural

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi

Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Colin "Col" Clamworthy/Connie Lionheart, Maggie Greene/Glenn Rhee, Merle Dixon/Carol Peletier, Daryl Dixon/Michonne, Jareth/Sarah Williams, Castiel/Dean Winchester

Freedom

Read it on AO3 here!https://ift.tt/2u1rcHX

by Parzival3Keys

There was a snap heard in every universe, but only by certain people. Those people vanished never to return, but fate did not approve, so she gathered her power and reached in to the endless universes, grabbed the vanished and everything they would need to survive and sent them to a universe that needed their help, one where the dead were walking and the human race was close to extinction, for once they vanished they could never go back. A fatal flaw of the infinity stones, but here they could live how they wanted without prophecies or fate or meddling old fools. Where they were free. Finally fate scattered them across the u.s states and when she snapped her fingers they awoke.

Words: 3, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Teen Wolf (TV), Sherlock (TV), Merlin (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, The Companions Quartet - Julia Golding, The Walking Dead (TV), Labyrinth (1986), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Supernatural

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi

Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Colin "Col" Clamworthy/Connie Lionheart, Maggie Greene/Glenn Rhee, Merle Dixon/Carol Peletier, Daryl Dixon/Michonne, Jareth/Sarah Williams, Castiel/Dean Winchester

Link: https://ift.tt/2u1rcHX