Allies or Enemies — The Crane Wives

just merlin and unraveling by the crane wives

"King Arthur asks the Lady of the Lake for the sword Excalibur"

by Walter Crane

do you ever think of me and my two hands?

morgwen

the quote is from never love an anchor by the crane wives

The moon will sing by The Crane Wives is so Merthur coded from Merlin’s pov

“The moon will sing a song for me, I loved you like the sun. Bore the shadows that you made with no light of my own. I shine only with the light you gave me”

It’s Merlin and his view of only using his magic for Arthur but Arthur doesn’t know so can’t give him the light he needs to fully embrace all that he can be!

And even worse is the moon isn’t even Merlin. The moon is all the people who look up to him to return magic to the land while he’s just trying to survive.

Merlin isn’t the moon, he’s just a man who’s trying his best while he’s got an overgrown basement lizard harping down his ear about destiny and his role and his responsibility to protect a man who can never truly know him.

“Tell me once again, I could have been anyone, anyone else. Before you made the choice for me”

And you’re gonna tell me this isn’t Merlin’s song about the love and devotion he feels for Arthur?

No one can change my mind about this.

does anybody want a rant analysis about merlin and crane wives songs?

i swear they have an entire album morgana-coded

i literally can't hold it in anymore

But I will crawl like a sinner to be at your feet Should God or the devil ever ask for me... - “October” by The Crane Wives, from Here I Am (2020)

This is my first attempt at an animatic, and who better to animate than Gwen and Morgana? It’s based on a comic I did for last year’s Morgwen Solstice Fest. I hope y’all enjoy!

Posted on Youtube HERE

I noticed something about myself and I thought some of you might relate.

I hate liar reveal stories cause you know from the narrative that something bad is going to happen and they're gonna get exposed, that's why I'm never gonna watch Dear Evan Hanson. Like Aladdin (spoilers I guess, also I like Aladdin a lot in geneal but just not a fan of the trope), you just have to watch how he is making all those wrong decisions and you can't do anything about it and just want to shake him and tell him he should be honest. You just don't want this generally good person be corrupted by their lie or see them disappoint their loved ones. I simply don't like the consequenses of the lie and how it can butcher a character because it was avoidable. Even worse if the character was outed by the villain and thus had no chance to come clean by themselves just before they were going to or if they had all those chances in important moments and didn't take them.

But in contrast to that I love it when a character is secretly badass but has to hide it for ✨️reasons✨️ like being executed for having magic. It creates hilarious situations where they have to cover their actions up or everytime someone treats them like shit I think "you bitch wait until the reveal then you're gonna be really sorry for what you just said".

Merlin does this quite well and the few times it was revealed were super satisfying. Six Crimson Cranes (and the fairy tale "Die sechs Schwäne" on which it's based on) did it even if in part 1 the reveal was limited to a few people (not finished the 2nd part yet so don't know how much is coming there).

Mulan does it a rare combination of both because she is openly a badass but has to hide something for good ✨️reasons✨️ and this creates hilarious situations. And there is the reveal (because she tries to save everyone) with it's consequenses but the ✨️reasons✨️ justify having to live through them (like no-one thinks "that was so avoidable"). But I think she should have been more like "yeah well you know what I'm better than everyone of you and I just saved your asses so how about a thank you"

Alchemy of Souls does the combination too (spoilers) where the ✨️reasons✨️ the characters have are "good"/relatable, the situations are hilarious and the reveal at the end of season 1 was so satisfying because the information was suddenly out there but also the consequenses were just horrible like even worse than expected and while the lie was justified towards the viewer the mere existence of the reveal was so unsatisfactory and felt so bad because it was initiated through the bad guy and not because the main character was trying to do something good or save themself or someone else.

Yeah so I guess that's another oddly specific trope I'm into.

EDIT: and I don't mean that protagonists can't be flawed, mess up, lie or make mistakes (even those that could have been avoided or which's consequenses they should have seen coming) like Anne from Anne with an E constantly messes up but she is one of the best protagonist I've ever seen. She always puts the work in to make it up and she doesn't mean to harm people.

huge respect to @myxinidaes for reblogging that post with 100 birds

I FUCKING WON I DID IT

FUCK YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

The Moon will sing — The crane wives

 i want to believe there's something left for me

it's so embarrassing that I think I'm a person with discerning taste when I've had like five fandoms in a row where my blorbo was the pretty brunette man with the blue eyes like who am I KIDDING

im glad everyone is in agreement that the crane wives and merlin (bbc) have the same energy 

have some quotes from books that i like that i have given to the 4 core merlin characters :)

———

morgana:

if i can not be better than them, i will become so much worse

- the cruel prince (jude duarte)

merlin:

I would come for you and if I couldn't walk I'd crawl to you and no matter how broken we were we'd fight our way out together. knives drawn pistols blazing, because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.

- six of crows (kaz brekker)

gwen:

instead of being afraid I could become something to fear.

- the crule prince (jude duarte)

arthur:

pain didn’t get easier. i just had to get stronger

- six crimson cranes (princess shiori)

———

i highly recommend all these books btw