#could be Arwen

[achillesuwu]

Fic where Merlin is on his way to leave camelot in the middle of the night but right before that he goes in the throne room and create an illusion so he can see at least once ‘what-they-could-have-been’ (him and arthur as equal and magic free again) & arthur who felt that something was ‘wrong’ and came rushing in the corridor, sees that illusion and manage to convince merlin to stay

Does anyone remember the name of this fic ? I lost it 😭 please rt if you don’t

[gallusrostromegalus]

Move To A Darker Place

This is a story of Man Vs. Machine.

---

Last March, my father attempted to file his Taxes.

My beloved father is a Boomer. Unlike most Boomers, my father is rather handy with technology because he was one of the people that had a not-insignificant hand in Developing a hell of a lot of it. He was studying Computer Science at Cal Poly before the computer science degree existed. I have many fond childhood memories of skipping through the aisles of various electronic and computer part warehouses while Dad described something that either terrified the staff or made them worship him as a God.  He taught himself how to use his smartphone.  Internationally.

So when he saw the option to file digitally with the IRS through the “ID.me” program, he leapt at the chance to celebrate the Federal Government finally entering the Digital Age.

It was all going swimmingly for about six hours, until he was ready to file and the system told him that it needed to verify his identity. 

“Very Well.” said my father, a man unafraid of talking to himself and getting something out of the conversation. “It wouldn’t do for me to get someone else’s return.”

The System told him that it needed him to take a “Digital Image ID”.

a.k.a: A Selfie.

��A-ha!” Dad beams. Dad is very good at taking selfies. He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped one, and tried to upload it.

Please log into your Id.me Account and use the provided app to submit your Digital Image ID. The System clarified.

“Oh. You should have said so.”  Dad pouted, but used his phone to log onto the ID.me account, do the six security verification steps and double-checked that the filing looked the same as it did on the desktop, gave the IRS like nine permissions on his phone, and held up the camera to take his Federal Privacy Invasion Selfie.

Please align your face to the indicated grid. Said The System, pulling up a futuristic green-web-of-polygons approximation.

“Ooh, very Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry would HATE this!” Dad said cheerfully, aligning his face to the grid.  My father is a bit… cavalier, when it comes to matters of personal information and federal government, because he’s been on FBI watchlists since the late 60’s when he was protesting The Vietnam War and Ronald Regan before he’d broken containment. Alas.

Anyway, there is very little information the federal government does not have on him already, but he’s as good at stalking the FBI as they are at stalking him, and had worked out a solution:  He has something approaching a friendship with the local Federal Agent (Some guy named “Larry”. Allegedly), and got Larry hooked on Alternative Histories and Dad’s collection of carefully-researched “there is very likely buried treasure here” stories, and Larry is loath to bother his favorite Historical Fanfiction author too much.

But I digress.

After thinking for a minute, The System came back with an Error Message. Please remove glasses or other facial obstructions.

And here is where the real trouble began.

See, my father wears glasses that do substantially warp the appearance of his face, because he is so nearsighted that he is legally blind without them. His natural focal point is about 4 inches in front of his nose.  While Dad can still take a selfie because he (approximately) knows where his phone is if it’s in his hand, he cannot see the alignment grid.

He should ask someone to take it for him! I hear the audience say. Yes, that would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but Dad was attempting to do taxes at his residence in Fort Collins, while his immediate family was respectively in Denver, Texas and Canada.  He tried calling our neighbors, who turned out to be in Uganda.

He looked down at the dog, Arwen, and her little criminal paws that can open doorknobs, but not operate cell phones.

She looked back at him, and farted.

“Well, I’ll give it a try, but if it gives me too much trouble, I’ll call Larry, and Larry can call the IRS about it.” Dad told her. 

She continued to watch him. Arwen is an Australian Kelpie (a type of cattle-herding dog), going on 14 years old, deaf as a post and suffering from canine dementia now, but she still retains her natural instinct to Micromanage. She was also trained as a therapy dog, and even if she can’t hear my dad, still recognizes the body language of a man setting himself up for catastrophe.

So, squinting in the late afternoon light next to the back door, Dad attempted to line his face up with a grid he could only sort-of see, and took A Federal Selfie.

The System thought about it for a few moments.

Image Capture Failed: Insufficient Contrast. The System replied. Please move to a darker place.

“...Huh.” Dad frowned. “Alright.”

He moved to the middle of his office, away from the back door, lit only by the house lighting and indirect sunlight, and tried again.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“What?” Dad asked the universe in general.

“Whuff.” Arwen warned him against sunk costs.

Dad ignored her and went into the bathroom, the natural habitat of the selfie. Surely, only being lit by a light fixture that hadn’t been changed since Dad was attempting to warn everyone about Regan would be suitably insufficient lighting for The System.  It took some negotiating, because that bathroom is “Standing Room Only” not “Standing And Holding Your Arms Out In Front Of You Room”.  He ended up taking the selfie in the shower stall.

As The System mulled over the latest attempt, Arwen shuffled over and kicked open the door to watch.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move to a Darker Place.

“Do you mean Spiritually?” Dad demanded.

“Whuff.” Arwen cautioned him again.

Determined to succeed, or at least get a different error message that may give him more information, Dad entered The Downstairs Guest Room.  It is the darkest room in the house, as it is in the basement, and only has one legally-mandated-fire-escape window, which has blinds.  Dad drew those blinds, turned off the lights and tried AGAIN.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move To A Darker Place.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO PHOTOGRAPH MYSELF INSIDE OF A CAVE??” Dad howled. 

“WHUFF!” Arwen reprimanded him from under the pull-out bed in the room. It’s where she attempts to herd everyone when it’s thundering outside, so the space is called her ‘Safety Cave’.

Dad frowned at the large blurry shape that was The Safety Cave.

“Why not?” he asked, the prelude to many a Terrible Plan.  With no small amount of spiteful and manic glee, Dad got down onto the floor, and army-crawled under the bed with Arwen to try One Last Time. Now in near-total darkness, he rolled on his side to be able to stretch his arms out, Arwen slobber-panting in his ear, and waited for the vague green blob of the Facial grid to appear.

This time, when he tapped the button, the flash cctivated.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Dad shouted, dropping the phone and rubbing his eyes and cursing to alleviate the pain of accidentally flash-banging himself. Arwen shuffled away from him under the bed, huffing sarcastically at him.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“MOTHERFU- hang on.” Dad squinted.  The System sounded strange. Distant and slightly muffled.

Dad squinted really hard, and saw the movement of Arwen crawling out from under the bed along the phone’s last known trajectory.

“ARWEN!” Dad shouted, awkwardly reverse-army crawling out from under the bed, using it to get to his feet and searching for his glasses, which had fallen out of his pocket under the bed, so by the time he was sighted again, Arwen had had ample time to remove The Offending Device.

He found her out in the middle of the back yard, the satisfied look of a Job Well Done on her face. She did not have the phone. 

“Arwen.” Dad glared. It’s a very good glare. Dad was a teacher for many years and used it to keep his class in order with sheer telepathically induced embarrassment, and his father once glared a peach tree into fecundity.  

Arwen regarded him with the casual interest a hurricane might regard a sailboat tumbling out of its wake. She is a force of nature unto herself and not about to be intimidated by a half-blind house ape.  She also has cataracts and might not be able to make out the glare.

“I GIVE UP!” Dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air and returning to the office to write to the IRS that their selfie software sucks ass. Pleased that she had gotten her desired result, Arwen followed him in.

To Dad’s immense surprise, the computer cheerfully informed him that his Federally Secure Selfie had been accepted, and that they had received and were now processing his return!

“What the FUCK?” Dad glared. “Oh well. If I’ve screwed it up, Larry can call me.”

---

I bring this up because recently, Dad received an interesting piece of mail.

It was a letter from the IRS, addressed to him, a nerve-wracking thing to recessive at the best of times.  Instead of a complaint about Dad’s Selfie Skills, it was a letter congratulating him on using the new ID.me System.  It thanked him for his help and expressed hopes he would use it again next year, and included the selfie that The System had finally decided to accept.

“You know, my dad used to complain about automation.” Dad sighed, staring at the image. “Incidentals my boy!  My secretary saves the state of California millions of dollars a year catching small errors before they become massive ones! He’d say. Fought the human resources board about her pay every year.  I used to think he was overestimating how bad machines were and underestimating human error, but you know? He was right.”

He handed me the image.

My father was, technically, in the image.  A significant amount of the bottom right corner is taken up by the top of his forehead and silver hair.  Most of the image, the part with the facial-recognition markers on it, was composed of Arwen’s Alarmed and Disgusted Doggy face.

“Oh no!” I cackled. “Crap, does this mean you have to call the IRS and tell them you’re not a dog?”

“Probably.” Dad sighed. “I know who I’m gonna bother first though.” he said, taking out his phone (Dad did find his phone a few hours after Arwen absconded with it when mom called and the early spinach started ringing). 

“Hey Larry!” Dad announced to the local federal agent. “You’re never gonna believe this. My dog filed my taxes!”

Larry considered this for a moment. “Is this the dog that stole my sandwich? Out of my locked  car?” he asked suspiciously.

“The very same.” Dad grinned.

“Hm. Clever Girl.” Federal Agent Larry sighed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before she got into tax fraud.”

---

I'm a disabled artist making my living writing these stories. If you enjoy my stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Book on Patreon. Thank you!

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[armenelols]

In deference to my recent bout of shitposting, have a daily reminder that Tolkien's half-elves have no happy ending and no matter what they choose, they'll still lose part of their family forever. They'll always be split between two people, neither fully one or the other, yet forced to pick one and lose the other

[justaz]

this got longer than i meant it to so im putting it under the cut

merlin and morgana watching arthur and gwen be The Couple in camelot. they are heartbroken, jealous, and tired- no, exhausted. they've arthur and gwen for years and fell madly and hopelessly in love with them (respectively). however, they care for the both of them and if they’re happy together then merlin and morgana will simply bite their tongue. besides, its not like their feelings are reciprocated so there’s no use in stirring up trouble.

but the pain eats away at them until they are shadows of their previous selves. merlin is quiet and demure while morgana’s lighthearted snark is growing harsher and harsher. it comes to a head when morgana makes a scathing remark to merlin about his feelings. before, her comments had been directed at others, arthur more often than not, but never toward merlin. they were in the same boat so why would morgana target him?

but she did and things get a little tense. then merlin finds a spell and shows morgana and the two of them, utterly exhausted and desperate for an end to their agony, agree to take part in the spell together. merlin concocts the potion and they both down it. the next day, merlin and morgana are as happy as can be. it was a startling 180° from the morose and downtrodden duo they had been not even twelve hours before to the happy, on cloud nine, nothing is wrong with the world people that hummed as they danced around the castle

merlin and morgana exclaim to one another how freeing it is to not feel such a heavy burden of unrequited love. they mention how easy it is to breath. how they haven’t been this happy and carefree in years. of course, like everything else, there comes a price

to be rid of feelings like love, the opposite feeling would take it’s place. a lot of people believe the opposite of love to be hate, but it is in fact indifference. it starts off slow where gwen makes inside jokes that morgana cant remember. then it moves to them having trouble remembering arthur and gwen’s names. then their memories begin to rewrite themselves to remove arthur and gwen from their minds. eventually, they roam the halls, arm in arm, without even a glance at either arthur or gwen bc they cant find it in themselves to care about these two random strangers. who would?

arthur and gwen go to gaius who has already noted their odd behaviors and has been looking into it. the rest of the knights join them in gaius’s chambers bc they had also noticed how weird they were acting. lancelot is quiet and brooding until arthur pushes him to confess what he knows.

lancelot tells them how he fell for gwen the first time he had come to camelot. she flushes and arthur seems upset but lancelot continues. he tells them all how despite, or maybe because of, his love for gwen, he let her go to be with arthur bc she was happy with him. he hesitates and gwen encourages him. lancelot mentally apologizes to his two magical friends and spills the beans. he explains how morgana has loved gwen for years and how merlin has loved arthur for years. the three of them had bonded after arthur and gwen were engaged about how much it hurt watching the person you love be happy with someone else.

slowly, he pulls out a vial filled with glittering, dark red liquid - dark like blood. he hands it to gaius and explains how they had come to him a few days ago with that and said how it would cure his pain. it would wash away his love for gwen so he wasn’t crushed under the weight of it. he says he never took it bc he didn’t think it was right but merlin and morgana had already taken it. he wasn’t sure what the side effects were going to be until he saw them that afternoon.

gaius finds what the potion is and explains how it did in fact wash away their feelings of love for arthur and gwen and with the absence of love, indifference took hold. he wasn’t sure if their missing memories could be attributed to the indifference or if the spell took to wiping the memories to prevent the love from regrowing.

arthur and gwen are quiet, guilty and upset that their closest friends were going thru such turmoil and they weren’t aware at all. leon clears his throat and asks how to cure them. gaius grimaces and read the book a bit more before responding that a counter potion would do the trick, it would neutralize the previous potion by bringing back their memories and feelings. arthur is quick to agree but gaius interrupts that once the counter potion has been administered, everything will come back at once. everything.

they question him and he explains that every memory, every word spoken, every touch, and every feeling from the past 7+ years will run through them at the same time. considering they’ve been dealing with unreciprocated love and watching the one they love be with someone else for the past couple of years, it wouldn’t be that farfetched to assume that they would look and sound like dying animals. suffice to say, it wouldn’t be pretty.

in spite of the guilt and fear in arthur, he insists that they have to bring merlin and morgana back. he doesn’t want to put them in pain but he cant just let them wipe themselves away and continue on with his life as if he didn’t just lose his best friend and sister. they spike merlin and morgana’s wine with the potion and, as gaius predicted, merlin and morgana both drop to the floor, screaming and crying in pain, pleading with anyone to make it stop and take the pain away.

gwen hides her tears in elyan’s shoulder, arthur uses his long taught skill of being an Emotionless Prick of a Prince his father taught him to not cry. the tears stay in his eyes and do not fall. a few minutes later, merlin and morgana are both catatonic on the ground, limp and staring at nothing. their breathing is slow, so slow they almost appeared dead.

lancelot and gwaine help merlin up and take him to his chambers while leon and percival do the same for morgana. no one mentions what happened and merlin and morgana stay locked in their rooms for two days before being able to get up out of bed. they aren’t back to their shadow selves from two weeks prior, nor are they the happy go lucky duo from the past few days. instead, they are slow and quiet and barely even there. they’re barely even people anymore. simply going through the motions.

[thesummerestsolstice]

There's this implication in Tolkien's writing that half-elves are kind-of immortal by default, and that they stop aging unless they choose mortality (though arguably they don't even really age then). See Arwen in the Lord of the Rings, who is several thousand years old and has clearly been living life as an elf, despite never having made the Peredhel choice.

I always wondered why Arwen was given that choice, actually. It seems like the Peredhel choice is mostly given to people who have a mortal parent and an immortal parent (Earendil, since Tuor was definitely mortal when he was born, and arguably Elwing depending on how you see Dior), or at least parents who are undecided (Elrond and Elros are born before Elwing and Earendil make their choices). Arwen is a fair bit more than half-elven, and has two immortal parents. And there's not really any evidence Elros's children got the choice. Why does she get to choose whether she wants to be mortal or immortal?

Now, this could just be some minor world building weirdness, but it raises another very interesting possibility. That Elrond, by the time his children were born, had not committed to being immortal, and was instead undecided. I feel like there's so much to explore in that idea. Maybe Elrond truly wasn't sure about his choice to stay immortal forever until much, much later in his life. Maybe he held off choosing specifically so his children would be able to. Maybe he didn't choose because he didn't want to have to pick between being an elf or a man, and just wanted to be a half-elf in peace.

There's also something very compelling to me about the idea of an Elrond who could have, at any point during the Second or Third Ages, decided to be mortal. Who could have left the grief and struggle of Middle-Earth behind forever, and who, nonetheless, always chose to stay; picking immortality, not once, but a thousand times over the course of his long life, no matter what difficulties he was faced with.

It would also be interesting to explore the idea that most of the people in Elrond's life assume he decided to be fully elven long ago, only to realize that that isn't actually true. I imagine it could be disconcerting, maybe even really anxiety-provoking to realize that someone you were certain would be around forever might not be. I also think it would be really hard for a lot of elves to understand why Elrond might not want to make that choice.

[phil-the-stone-art]

furthering my aishwarya arwen agenda inspired by @maedictus’ gorgeous gorgeous works

[edges-of-night]

Hello! With your comeback I had a grand time re-reading all your past imagines :> they're marvelous! Hope you don't mind me requesting - I had an idea of lotr characters with reader that is in adoration, love, and interest with their hair (and also them! but that's just predictable isn't it, how can you not love them). Even if it's dirty, reader would sometimes help take care of it, and her hands would just go to them on their own. Reader would also love to play with them, and marvel at texture, colour, lenght when they're clean. I had a few characters in mind (Eomer, Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Arwena, our 4 lovely hobbits) but I do know that's a lot of them. I am also happy with you choosing only few characters of your taste, or deciding on a completely different one! Quite honestly I'm happy about reading whatever you wish to write in this theme. Pretty please, but also no pressure! And have a great day/night, whenever you end up reading it :>

Thank you very much for your kind words! I know I said the same about the last request I posted, but hair prompts are an absolute weakness of mine haha! I hope you’ll enjoy what I’ve written for your characters, nonnie ♡

(so many glorious L'Oréal style gifs to choose from! ↓)

.

･ﾟ✧ Aragorn.

Rangers are not among the fairest creatures of Middle Earth, but you couldn’t care less – you are in love with Aragorn’s hair. When you’ve first voiced the thought, he was irritated, then amused. Now he softens whenever you go on and on about how beautifully his hair frames his face, how gorgeous he looks when it falls into his face as he’s lost in thought, humming some ancient Elven melody to himself. He may have pondered cutting it short before, but the thought is now discarded.

.

･ﾟ✧ Arwen.

You often find yourself playing with Arwen’s hair whenever you’re close. You have spoken to her about it before, but thankfully Arwen has no problem with you touching her legendary dark and smooth hair. In fact, she likes the intimacy and finds your fascination with it cute. Though she has always loved her long strands herself, she is now in a good mood to try out elaborate, beautiful new hairstyles before your visits to Rivendell to surprise you – it’s like a secret language the two of you are sharing.

.

･ﾟ✧ Boromir.

Boromir has never given his hair much thought; it needed to be practical and nothing more. Imagine his surprise when you offer to help him wash it after a long day of work, sweat, and dirt! He has much to learn in terms of hair care. But even if he was a little hesitant in the beginning, he enjoys your joint baths afterwards far too much! And you braiding his hair is just too romantic to miss. I figure Boromir would also be the kind of person to brag about how much you love his hair – perhaps not with the Elves, but all the more so with fellow Humans!

.

･ﾟ✧ Éomer.

Seeing Éomer at the royal banquet in Edoras has you starstruck: The usually so haggard and modest horse lord wears his hair down in gorgeous dark blond curls, accentuated by golden strands framing the face you have come to love already. Those strands are usually pinned out of his face for practicality during riding and fighting, but now you cannot help but stare – which at first might irritate him. He may not understand your love for his hair right away, but he cannot deny the warmth your compliments spread in his chest and would eventually find it romantic to take care of each other’s hair.

.

･ﾟ✧ Faramir.

You were enamoured with Faramir’s hair the moment you first saw him. His gorgeous waves make him look even dreamier than his kind eyes already do. When you first reach into his hair during a kiss, you blush and apologise – but Faramir loves the attention you give his waves and urges you to not hold back (in fact, he enjoys having his hair pulled). He would ask you about your opinions on which oils and waters to use in it and is in Seventh Heaven whenever you play with it during cuddles ♡

.

･ﾟ✧ Frodo.

Frodo always makes sure his brown Hobbit curls look orderly and enjoys fancy oils, waters, and scents. He is genuinely happy about the presents you gift him to use in his hair. Your love for his curls doesn’t escape his attention, far from it. So, when your hands finally gravitate toward them as you read with Frodo, lost in thought and the legendary stories of your books, all he does is chuckle, letting you play with them until you self-consciously draw away.

.

･ﾟ✧ Merry.

Since he is a bit vain in general, Merry is very protective of his hair. That said, he does have trouble taking care of it sometimes. Luckily you’re here to help! You help him wash it and compliment the colour and texture, which he delights him. Perhaps he would serve you a trick by casually telling you he would cut it short today – but you know better: This Hobbit loves both his hair and your fascination with it far too much for that!

.

･ﾟ✧ Pippin.

Pippin wastes no thought on his hair: It gets stuck in branches, twisted in petty fights, and spilled by beer in the Green Dragon. Since he knows are you are “a hair expert”, he one day arrives at your door with a bunch of thistles stuck in his curls. Not only does he appreciate how well you take care of his hair, he loves how much you like it, too. He would kick his feet anytime you played with his curls and especially loves you ruffling them!

.

･ﾟ✧ Sam.

When you tell him how much you like his hair, Sam initially thinks you’re joking. After all, both the hair on his head and on his feet is usually dirty and sweaty from gardening. And besides, who has the time for hair care anyway? But Sam soon realises you’re serious, especially after you stroke and caress his blond curls when you’re lying in his arms. You love how they fall into his green eyes when he looks at you all sweet ♡

.

･ﾟ✧ Bonus: Galadriel.

Galadriel’s long, smooth, golden hair is the stuff of legends, which is why you were so surprised to hear you have been appointed her maid to take care of it. And Elves are so particular about hair, too! It is among your sacred duties to untie your Lady’s braids and brush her hair every night, shining in the lights of her beautiful Elvish rooms in Lórien. Sometimes, she would start humming and smiling and telling you how much she adored you taking care of her like this. Needless to say, she would eventually gift you a strand of her fabled hair ♡

[muchmossymess]

Arthur: I love Camelot more than I can say but, sometimes I feel I can hardly breathe everyone expects so much of me. Being here with you, I can be myself.

Gwen: I like that, you being yourself.

Arthur: Sometimes I dream of leaving Camelot.

Gwen: Really? Where would you go?

Arthur: I don't know. Somewhere where nobody knew who I was. I'd get some land and become a farmer.

Gwen, laughing: I can hardly see you toiling away in the fields all day.

Arthur: Obviously, I'd take Merlin with me. He can do all the hard work.

Gwen: I'm sure he'd love that.

[anghraine]

In addition to the I'm Guessing Tolkien Had Some Hang-Ups About Pregnancy post, I also ran over some interesting but even more unrelated factoids in The Nature of Middle-earth that even I couldn't justify including in the main ramble.

So I made a separate post about those, which includes my favorite:

Arwen would have been even more exhausting for Celebrían to bear than a pair of twins because: Arwen was a "special child" of great powers and beauty The beauty I got from LOTR, but—without being dismissive about the banner—I really wish we had a clearer sense of Arwen's unique stature in her own right in LOTR. She's presented so much in terms of Elrond and Lúthien and occasionally Galadriel and Celeborn, but Elladan and Elrohir are Elrond's children and Galadriel's grandchildren just as much as she is. Yet here she's clearly framed as special and powerful in a way they are not and which drew so much from Celebrían's (and possibly Elrond's) spiritual reserves that they couldn't have any more children. That seems like a big deal! Tell me more! Epilogue: he did not tell us more

[bisclavret]

this gif makes me lose it every time

[vakarians-babe]

And Aragorn the King Elessar wedded Arwen Undomiel in the City of the Kings upon the day of Midsummer, and the tale of their long waiting and labours was come to fulfillment.

Happy Midsummer!

[onceandfuturelesbian]

ok i’m a merthur truther ride or die BUT

there NEEDS to be more bisexual polycule fics where everyone loves everyone

like the greater camelot polycule by mechup

i love that fic n i’d love to see more, especially like 1-on-1’s and more mature scenes and established relationships all around

like just seeing merlin edits n im like wow merlin has chemistry with everyone but also everyone has/could have chemistry with everyone

[eldritch-ambrosia]

Let me hit you with my Shade!Lancelot idea, keeping in mind I haven't seen that episode of Merlin yet. (This works for both established Arwen/established Merthur and Gwencelot/Mercelot in my mind so think of it whichever way you'd like but it does focus on Lancelot, Merlin, and Arthur.)

So! Morgana creates Shade!Lancelot using Lancelot's body and sends him back to Camelot to stir up trouble. Instead of trying to just break up Arthur and Gwen, he's meant to isolate Arthur and make him believe that he can't trust anyone except for Aggravaine.

So he flirts with Gwen, takes the knights out to have fun when they should be training/distracts them, and takes Merlin's attention away from Arthur as well, frustrating Arthur.

S!Lancelot and Aggravaine both place doubts in Arthur's mind directly as well and S!Lancelot realizes that Merlin betraying Arthur would be far worse than anyone else and sets his sights on Merlin instead.

So he keeps stealing Merlin away when Arthur needs him, makes comments about how he knows Merlin better than Arthur ever could and about how he knows Merlin sneaks away but he's loyal to Merlin over Camelot (which also upsets Arthur because that's one of his knights for god's sake!) and won't tell him where Merlin is going.

Arthur confronts Merlin about his sneaking away (magic things) and, when he refuses to tell the truth, Arthur thinks he can't trust him after all.

Merlin talks about having magic in front of S!Lancelot and, when he doesn't know what Merlin's talking about, Merlin becomes suspicious. He references something that didn't happen and S!Lancelot acts like he remembers that which confirms his suspicions but when he tries to sidle away out of the room to tell someone, S!Lancelot attacks him, attempting to choke him out.

Arthur finds them like this and S!Lancelot says that Merlin was sending information to Morgana so he had to subdue him which Arthur doesn't believe for ONE SINGLE MINUTE. Thus, they begin to duel as Merlin tries to recover his breathing and stop from passing out in the corner.

S!Lancelot attempts to kill Arthur and knocks him out, Arthur fading out with the last thing he sees being Merlin trying to push S!Lancelot's killing blow away as his servant stands.

Somehow (I'm thinking earlier in the ep Merlin finds a magical crystal that can hold souls released from the afterlife that Gaius is researching and Lancelot's real soul gets released during the ep and the crystal glows and maybe gets broken in the scuffle) Merlin pushes the Shade from Lancelot's body and his real soul is able to return to his body.

The Shade's form changes into a kind of Shadow Monster Lancelot and duels the real Lancelot now (who is very shaken and weak because he was just revived!) and, when he stabs the Shade, it does no damage. The Shade laughs and says that he can't be killed without magic and Lancelot says that then he'll just have to kill it like he killed the Griffin.

"You're a knight of Camelot and you're saying that you used magic to kill a Griffin?"

"No. I did." Merlin says, casting the same spell he did all those years ago on Lancelot's blade as he stabs through the Shade, killing it.

There's a beat where Merlin still isn't sure if it's the real Lancelot and asks him something only the real Lancelot would know, which he answers and they have a tearful/huggy reunion.

Arthur wakes up and they explain that it was a creature sent by Morgana and Lancelot is actually back with them now.

Later, when Merlin is getting Arthur ready for bed, Arthur tells him that he doesn't need to know where he goes off to because he trusts him. Merlin goes to tell him the truth but stops and thanks him instead, snuffing out the candles and shutting the door as he leaves.

(I want to hopefully write this one day but I will need to actually catch up and watch the episode first to get the vibes. Everything I know about it rn is from clips and gifs and such)

[animucrystal]

thinking about arthur and gwen and i think the best part about their relationship for me is the Choice. theyre two people with not alot of agency in their lives, for varying reasons. arthur obviously has a lot more privilege, but has to play a part in order to rule his kingdom properly lest he be seen weak to others and put his people in jeopardy. hes born and raised in one role, to be a prince then a king. he takes it on with pride, but you Know he feels stifled. gwen, on the other hand, is a black servant girl born in a lower class family. she may not have a certain “role” shes required to fill but she still has to work hard to provide for her family and for herself. she has to look and act like a proper lady lest people think shes unfit for her job, she has to be subservient in order to keep her already fragile status. the agency they do have is very limited, not just by society but by their own morals and beliefs. however, despite all of that, they both choose to take a risk with this one thing. they decide to take a risk Together, and they do it for Years!! they wait for YEARS!!! they work hard to be together, to Stay together, and while they may not have been eachothers first loves - they make it last because they Choose to make it last.

personally, thats way more romantic that being destined for eachother. they chose eachother and kept choosing eachother everyday, what else is there to say?

[poisonedfate]

bbc merlin - 03x03 Goblin’s Gold