#i'm sure it's not ONLY merthur but i have no idea who else it could be

[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)

[alloverthegaf]

So you said you wanted prompts so here's one I tried to write but never did because I'm not a good writer and also I'm lazy: *So the idea is that person A is a barista and person B learns A's hours and come in specifically to see A and order something complicated and annoying. And give A a hard time. But today, A is already having a bad time.* anyway if you want to try that haha

I like it and it’s perfect for Merthur which is not something I generally write but hopefully @dementorsatemysoup will get a kick out of it?

There’s a lot of swearing, mostly a horrendous abuse of the word ‘asshole’, and it cuts off very abruptly because it kept going longer than I meant it to and I ran out of patience lmao but hopefully you like anyway

The first time the Handsome Asshole, as he comes to be known in Merlin’s head, enters the cafe where he works is something of a prophecy for how their relationship is destined to go. He steps up to the counter, six people waiting in line behind him, and proceeds to order quite possibly the most complicated, douchiest beverage Merlin has ever had the displeasure of making. He lists off no less than eight modifications for his coffee, and though Merlin has two years of practice with his customer service smile, he can feel it getting tighter with every specification. Clearly, the Asshole who is Handsome is oblivious to Merlin’s - and his other customers’ - impatience, because he then goes back and lists it all again to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. Merlin assures him, through gritted teeth, that he’s got it all written down and will take extra care not to forget anything, and takes a moment to compose himself before he takes the next person’s order.

Despite the unfairly attractive man - tall, toned and beautifully blond - being an unequivocal douchebag, Merlin does his best to get the ludicrous order right, but they’re understaffed, it’s 8am, and there’s a horde of uni students who are about five minutes away from moaning for brains.

He gets the order wrong, and boy does he fucking hear about it.

It doesn’t stop the man from coming back, though. Two days later he’s back, this time at 4 in the afternoon, and Merlin could swear his face lights up with evil glee when he sees who’s behind the counter.

“Think you can get it right this time?”

Now, Merlin understands that the main reason he even has this job is because his uncle runs the place. He’s very grateful to Gaius for hiring him, and he knows that every time he mouths off to a customer it’s Gaius that has to hear about it. He never actually means to bite anyone’s head off, but he’s never been so great at keeping his mouth shut around bullies and the “think you can not be a prat this time?” slips out of his mouth before he’s even processed the words in his head.

Handsome Asshole’s eyes widen to saucer size and while a part of Merlin is panicking and already trying to think of a way explain this to his uncle, the rest of him is doing a mental self-five. He wishes he had his phone on him to take a photo of the guy’s expression. Maybe he’d print it out. Stick it on one of the front windows.

In the end, he doesn’t get abused. The man orders a flat white with two sugars and doesn’t say another word, but he stays as he drinks his coffee, and Merlin swears he can feel eyes on him the entire time. He waits, afterwards, for the inevitable dressing down from Gaius, but it never comes. Asshole must not have complained after all. Huh.

Maybe he realised he was being a prat after all.

But then, one week later, Handsome Asshole is back and apparently determined to up the ‘Asshole’ levels. His order seems twice as complicated as the first one, and he changes his mind about what syrup he wants about three times. Every time he does so, his smirk grows just a little wider, a little bit more smug, and Merlin can practically feel his blood levels rising. He considers getting it wrong on purpose, just to inconvenience him, but it’s pretty clear by this point he’s just being difficult on purpose so Merlin devotes every ounce of his concentration to making it perfect.

Judging by the surprised look on Handsome Asshole’s stupid handsome face, he succeeds. Mentally, he starts a tally in his head. Counting their first meeting, he sees it as 2 - 1 with him in the advantage. It’s his turn to smile smugly. Asshole looks at him with something like contemplation.

From there the pattern is set. At least three times a week Handsome Asshole - or HA for the times when Merlin’s too busy to properly mentally insult him - comes in and orders something ludicrous. It’s different every time, and every time Merlin makes sure he gets it just right. It comes to the point where Merlin neglects other customers’ orders in sake of HA’s, and as soon as he realises this he curses the man, but he can’t seem to make himself stop. Every time the man sips his coffee, or tea, or iced double whip soy latte with extra foam and two straws, and that expression crosses his face, Merlin feels like it’s a win.

Then comes the Very Bad Not So Good Day, as Gwen refers to it, or Absolute Shitfest, as Merlin prefers. It’s exam time for the uni students, and their milk wand is playing up, and a toddler knocks her babycino (and why is that a drink, Merlin thinks as he’s hurriedly mopping it up, just give her a goddamn juice box), and then a woman wearing gold and pearls like a bird that’s collected too many shiny things for its nest yells at Gwen and very nearly makes her cry, and Merlin has just. Had it. With this day, with this job, with humanity in general, Merlin is done, and he’s trying to gather the strength to last the two hours he has left of his shift while squeezing Gwen’s hand in comfort when the Asshole - because Merlin’s not feeling charitable enough for the ‘Handsome’ part today - strolls in like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Merlin takes a deep breath, lets go of Gwen’s hand with a final squeeze, and steps up to the register. He stands tall as Admittedly Still Maybe Slightly Handsome Asshole walks up to the counter and opens his mouth to no doubt make his day twenty times harder, and Merlin just snaps.

“No.”

Asshole stares at him. “Excuse me? No?”

“No.” Merlin knows he should backpedal, excuse himself, just take the damn coffee order and spit in it when no one’s looking like any normal person would do, but he’s started now and he can’t seem to stop his mouth forming the words. “No, I will not make your skinny cap with three sugars and an extra half shot, or your mochachino at precisely 82 degrees temperature and four marshmallows, no, you don’t get a half-water chai latte with no foam and a dash of vanilla, no, okay, no. I’m done. I have had the day from hell, I am tired, my friend is crying in the back, and I’m about two seconds from throwing a mug at someone’s head, so no.” He breathes in, long and deep, and lets it out, taking advantage of the stunned silence. “I’m willing to do a flat white. One regular, plain, no frills flat white. I may throw in a spoon of sugar if you agree in the next five seconds.

To his utter shock, the man nods. “Okay.” Suddenly, it’s Merlin’s turn to stare. The man’s looking serious for about the first time since he ever stepped foot in this cafe, and is watching Merlin with dark eyes, calm and composed.

“Okay,” repeats Merlin dumbly, “okay.” He turns to start the very simple, very plain, very… boring coffee order.

“Is your friend okay?”

“What?”

Handsome Asshole cocks his head in gentle enquiry, and fuck, fuck if Merlin has stop calling him Asshole then all he’s got left is Handsome and he can not deal with that - “you said your friend’s crying. What happened?”

“Oh,” Merlin says, confused and unsure where to step in the face of this suddenly caring and apparently nice man, “uh, yeah, she uh - just, a customer was really awful to her, a few minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry,” is the man’s answer, and okay, what?

“Seriously? You’re sorry?” Merlin sets the mug down on the counter with a hard clunk and the man flinches as the coffee spills over the sides. “You’re sorry? You’ve been making my life hell since the moment you came in here but someone else gives one of us crap and now you’re sorry?”

“To be fair, I’ve only ever given you crap. I’m always nice to Gwen.”

Merlin throws his arms up wildly. “Oh, well, in that case.”

He hears an inelegant snort and stares at Very Handsome Asshole who is poorly hiding a grin behind one hand. Merlin channels his Uncle Gaius and raises a very unimpressed eyebrow. “Okay, seriously, what’s the deal? Why have you got it in for me?”

“I don’t,” is the reply, as the man lowers his hand but leaves the grin in place. “Not, uh, not like that, anyway.”

And that - that just makes no sense to Merlin, who responds with a very eloquent “what?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but you’re incredible entertaining when you get all riled up.” Merlin opens his mouth to give an improvised but impassioned lecture on the morals of riling up service people for fun when he quickly adds “and cute.”

Merlin thinks something in his brain has fallen out of place. “What?” he says again, because apparently that’s what his vocabulary has shrunk to.

“Your ears get very red,” the man says, and the high points of his cheeks seem to flush in sympathy. “And your eyes get kind of wild and you start biting your lip and, uh.” He rubs the back of his neck. It’s the first time Merlin has ever seen him act self-conscious. “Well. Couldn’t help myself, I suppose.”

Merlin stares at him. And stares. The staring goes on for so long that the coffee sitting ignored between them goes cold. Finally, as if only just managing to register what was said, he exclaims “you’ve pissed me off for near three months because I’m cute?!”

Some of the other patrons look over curiously at the rise in volume. Handsome Man shifts uncomfortably under the sudden scrutiny. “I’ve been told I’m not so good at flirting.”

“You think?”

[thedogsled]

I'm interested in hearing about the Merlin queerbaiting thing because I seem to remember someone saying that this homoerotic subtext was upped after the producers or writers or whoever had been asked whether the queer subtext was intentional or something like that.

tbh the likelihood is you probably heard this from me, but who knows. I think it’s clear to a lot of people in Merlin fandom either way, although maybe not everyone feels that way. I’m going to go riiiight back to the beginning, though, to the very first episode where I was coming off my last fandom (Harry Potter) and had nowhere else to go, and there was this awesome show on TV…

First of all I’m going to drop this here:

So this was my experience, back in 2008, when I got to go to MCM London. The show had been on maybe a few weeks at the time, and not much had been developed back then, but there was no doubt that they were writing the pair of them very well as a strong male/male friendship. Now the subtext was glorious, because as you can hear right here it wasn’t the intention of the writers to put any of it in there, and it came off so naturally as a strong set of bonds forming between two guys. Nobody was aware of it, and then bam there’s all this fanfiction being written. This was the first ever question these guys had been asked on a panel ever. We’re not talking like the pussyfooting into asking those kinds of questions like you see with SPN panels, these guys were fresh and green and had no idea what they were getting into, and the unequivocal downplay from the writer ‘No, this is a story about friendship’, well it should have stopped there. But as you hear the writer go on to say, as they laugh about the idea of people shipping Merthur at all, these sorts of heroes journeys do have a homoerotic subtext. He acknowledges that, but he’s also forthright in saying ‘no, that’s not what this is, end of story’.

So for me, that should have been what it is, i.e. it’s not queerbaiting because there’s absolutely no intention of going there, and they’ve made it clear. Unfortunately that’s not what happened, and the consequence is that it wasn’t made clear to the audience. Sure, that crowd at comic con of a few hundred people, but not the audience (also I’m disappointed there wasn’t more to that clip, because the writers (there was at least one other person, a woman there, backed and forthed briefly on the topic, “is that a thing?” or something like that, but it was ten years ago so I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly. By this time next year people were cosplaying Merlin, it had played in the USA and everything was really taking off, but that first season was in the can at this point, and consequently precious and innocent. The friendship between Arthur and Merlin was as untarnished as you could get, because the writers had no idea what they were doing, and the actors had no idea of what was coming across in those intimate moments, so that was perfect too. Seriously, that first season of Merlin is superb.

But now everyone is self conscious. They know they have this audience and they’ve been exposed to how loud it is, how superbly influential. The feeling of watching Merlin season 2 was therefore entirely different to watching season 1. Bradley and Colin carry themselves differently. The wording choices in the scenes become deliberately nudge nudge wink wink. The scenes themselves are more homoerotic because of this conglomeration of ideas and acting choices. Merlin talks about how he ‘feels’ about Arthur and there’s shitloads more shirtless scenes and long silences and held glances between Merlin and Arthur than Arthur and anyone else. 

I’m saying this as someone who didn’t fall for the queerbaiting, because I knew from that unequivocal “this is a profound friendship” declaration that they were never, ever going there, that Arthur was destined to get with Guinevere (that was the societal wall i.e. class, that he had to jump over) and they weren’t ever going to do anything but straight and hetereosexual on Saturday night on BBC1 (an opinion I changed for Sherlock but very quickly changed back when I saw the same tone and delivery grabbing for and successfully pulling in the audience who so desperately wanted to see what they were being teased at. Merlin and Sherlock really coincided at the sweet spot of queerbaiting (which incidentally is when Cas joins SPN, and coincides with the most queerbaiting seasons of SPN as well.) But I was at ground zero for Merlin, before shipping Merthur was cool, and you can betcha that the writer declaring that there were only straights here put a dead end to that before it could begin. Just imagine a writer saying something like that now. We track all the panels, we record everything. We’d tear them to pieces in a second flat.

The mood in S2 just changes. Here’s a bunch of clips from S2. I’ve stuck it on a late timestamp, but that’s only because that particular scene is a standout example: gay 4 comedy. By the middle of S3 filming, everyone is well briefed on the interest in the ship. The baiting gets really hard and comedic by season 4. I’ve jumped to some of the worst offending moments in this series of clips here. And remember Sherlock’s first season aired just before this, thus my accusations of a queerbaiting heyday. It was all getting into stride about this time, carte blanche to suck in queer viewers with no intention of following through and use ‘they might be gay’ both as an endless mockery, as in these Merlin clips, and as a way to add seriousness to some scenes. My memory of feeling mocked and ridiculed by Merlin is just so strong, and reviewing some of the episodes really nails that down for me. Having known where the writers come from, knowing the sentiment behind their approach to their queer audience…it drives me up the wall even right now.

So season 5 they pull it all together, and - spoilers - Arthur dies in Merlin’s arms, and there’s an unspoken I love you, and Merlin waits for centuries for the return of the Once and Future King. And this, coming back to the strongest part of the story in order to deliver the final emotional punch, the part that carried it through (the relationship which could be misconstrued between the main characters) and offering a flimsy not quite there delivery of yet more subtext (because you have to be in on the queer reading to see it), was a final spit in the eye. It’s why you’ll see a bunch of people in fandoms who are disgusted by the idea of a kiss in the last scene, they die together, or a subtextual drive off into the sunset ending, because it’s such a familiar and heart wrenching and aggravating cop out. It’s not even Thelma and Louise, you know? Because over years and years, you’ve been driven by this show, by what you’re seeing on screen, and your reward is a lacklustre nod in the last few seconds; what you’re there for you never get, and yet at the end of the day you’re supposed to be delighted they gave you even 50% certainty that your ship would end up together. Fuck you.

Merlin could easily have been read as not queerbaiting. That’s the thing. Some people will outright tell you that Sherlock is easily read as not queerbaiting too. Those people will also say ‘why is it that two guys can’t have a relationship without people thinking it’s romantic.’ Well, they can. They can. But I point you to the word ‘bromance’. These shows deliberately either take romantic storylines and apply them to those characters, or play up the gay for laughs. Especially at this sort of 2008-1016 sweet spot, pre The 100 drama, they absolutely did. They didn’t see the harm, and what they got back in return from fandom involvement and viewership and repeat viewing was absolute justification for those choices. Merlin benefits from it’s queer audience, but it also benefits from a storytelling perspective as having been intended as a heterosexual friends only story in the first place, and the first season (and season 3 largely, idk why) play out like that. That’s what lets it off the hook when people are looking for queerbaiting in the show, because it’s absolutely not from the get go. Like with Destiel it establishes naturally, both as a result of the story and because of the vibe the two main actors have with each other. 

Compare to Sherlock, which went for it right out of the gate “Is this a date?” and never backed down, applying the queerbaiting consistently until they were done as though I think to legitimatize the writing choice. “See, it wasn’t queer, that’s just how we wrote it, you’ve all got dirty minds.” That same show will be defended with ‘why can’t guys just be friends’, and implications that any suggestion of physical intimacy doesn’t make it gay and is harmful to guys in general. There may be some truth in that, but there is also truth in the use and manipulation of queer audiences, and there are plenty of touchy feely male/male relationships which aren’t queerbaiting; look at most buddy cop shows (I exclude due South from this), JD and Turk, McGee and DeNozzo, Esposito and Ryan. Well written brotherhood and friendship is out there which does not rely on one character waiting for another to come back from the dead for centuries, or casually delivering that Cas ∴ Cas

I’ve been going on for a while, but I’m going to just make one last swing for it before I conclude. Take in mind that original quote, then. Look at this article. The quotes here are notorious in Merlin fandom, of course, but even from an outsider they leave a bad taste in my mouth. 

“Murphy points to the moment where Arthur finally dies as what the entire series has been building towards. At the “just hold me,” Murphy justifies to a shocked McGrath that, “well, he’s dying, the man he loves is dying, so he’s holding him.””

Maybe it wasn’t queerbaiting to start with, but Merlin knew what it was doing. S1: “Merlin is about a friendship between Merlin and Arthur, and they do care about each other hugely, but um it’s not necessarily, you know, it isn’t a gay love story, no.” vs. S5: “I think you maybe just confirmed what a lot of people thought, and I’m glad that Julian could do it, because he’s probably the only one who could have gotten away with that commentary.”

I don’t know where Merlin fandom stands on this. I know there’s an undercurrent - because I’ve read it - that some people like the ending as it is because they don’t think that all love has to be shown in smooches. But that would be fine if it wasn’t raising a strawman to argue against (I see it a lot in these conversations). Nobody is even talking about kissing. A relationship of any shade which is confirmed and genuine is fine. But queerbaiting specifically is this kind of stringing people along by dancing around the suggestion of something, and then coming back to state that it was there all along, or worse still just go “Maybe~ If that’s the way you see it~”. Nobody is saying they have to bang it out in a clearing in order for it to be legitimized, but that’s a whole other level from ridiculing people who see it that way, playing it as a joke, or stringing those people along right to the very last gasp.

For sure, if you don’t think it was queerbaiting then that’s great, and I’m actually glad for you! I’m sure people disagree with me on a handful of things I’ve said here, but Merlin was a huge disappointment for me as a creative. I wanted to play in that universe, but the seed was planted that every hint of homoerotic subtext was targeting me, or making a mockery of me, and it poisoned that well from the get go. That I’m still harboring those feelings a decade later probably shapes the way I interact with canons now, but it also is an indication of how strongly I feel about Destiel that I can get over it; once burned twice shy usually applies; it harmed my viewing experience of Merlin, Sherlock, and Hannibal, and I won’t deny it affects me when I watch SPN (and some other shows) too. It’s part of why I think this show has such an opportunity to do something different. But there’s still that tugging part of me that insists that because this is a show nurtured in that sweet spot, I have no reason to believe it should do anything outside the norm. Perhaps the situation with The 100 doesn’t affect it, or maybe it will have learned from it? Some things, like the queer hires to the writers room, fill me with hope. But who knows? That’s unfortunately the state of the uneasy relationship I have with it, particularly as a queer person who wants to see those stories on TV. To tell the truth, this uncertainty and unease is the damage that queerbaiting causes in the long term, and we deserve better stories.

This got super duper long, so thanks for sticking with it.

[1shadowhole]

BLESS

As a total Merthur Stan I am the first to admit that it isn't the healthiest ship dynamic, but that is just part of its appeal. The way they love each other so fiercely is just so perfect... They were literally destined... What else could you want from an OTP?

But the """"" toxicity""""" doesn't come from Arthur, (sweet baby, I will protect and defend him against the haters) but it stems from Merlin, his secret, lies and the way he chose to revolve his life and ideas around Arthur. How he unwillingly manipulated him into hating magic while he was supposed to do the opposite, needed, WANTED to, but failing many times.

Is it 100% his fault? No! Not in the least.

He was a good person at the start, but his moral compass got destroyed by the weight of an entire kingdom on his shoulders. It's in each and every single intro and I don't think people realize how terrible that is. In season one the boy couldn't POSSIBLY be older than 18.

Picture a 17-year-old boy being told that his life and magic have one purpose and one purpose only... That's fucked up, and the longer he lives with this burden the more "bent" he becomes. Can you blame him? No, or at least, I can't. How could I?

Every single character had terrible, evil things happening to them that weren't their fault.

Merlin, who is forced to hide his secret to his closest friends and growing closer and closer to the son of someone who would have him killed. Being afraid of failing and regretting his past decisions.

Arthur, who, as mentioned by the others, is simply a great person who wants to do the right thing, but doesn't know what the right thing is because everyone keeps lying and betraying him. Having to grow up with a father that shows a more loving side of him maybe once a year, acting like an asshole the rest of the time (and maybe killed his mother as well??? I'm sure Arthur never stopped asking himself if what Morgause showed him was true or not)

Morgana, who, like Arthur, was a kind-hearted girl that cared for her friends and the common folk. She grew afraid and resentful. Gwen, who almost lost her life and later on her own father to Uther because of his hatred of magic. Gaius, who was forced to chose which one of his friends to help, Uther, or other sorcerers; and tried to help everyone, while doing this meant he was a traitor to both sides.

Even Uther. The King who adored his wife and wanted to have a child with her. Trusting magic, magic that will later take Ygraine's life. Isn't that what basically happens at the end of season one to Merlin? But unlike Merlin, Uther doesn't have magic and couldn't change what happened, and in his grief, which later turned to madness, he decided to get rid of the evil of magic from the kingdom, so that no one of his subjects will suffer the way he did (that was what probably happened in his distorted mind anyway)

SO

With this on mind, it's basically impossible to find a ship that isn't "toxic" or a character that isn't "problematic".

If you claim that Arthur is problematic, Gwen (just to make an example, since she is always seen as a ball of sunshine. And she is, but she is also incredibly flawed like the others) is just as problematic, if not more. Unlike Arthur, she didn't grow up with a magic-hating father. She didn't inherently believe that magic is evil and corrupts the soul. She saw firsthand what this rhetoric causes. And yet, once she is queen, she does nothing to change the unjust laws of the kingdom she rules.

BBC Merlin's characters are neither good nor bad. They are all (EXCEPT FOR AGRAVAINE. That one is just a jerk and deserves no respect whatsoever) morally in the grey scale. Some more dark than others. But that is what love more about this stupid show that I adore so much.

Saying that charter A is flawed is like saying that the earth is round, the Sun is bright and Pizza is perfect. No shit? Of course, we already knew that. It isn't an excuse to "cancel" them or to hate on the people who like them.

This works for the ships as well.

The fact that Merthur's corner in the fandom is basically half OF THE ENTIRE ROOM doesn't help, I'm sure, but hey... It's a wonderful ship, I personally think it deserves the popularity it has.

And.

That's it.

Be kind to people

If you don't like someone else's ship or outright hate it, just ignore it, or make a civil reblog. Having healthy discussions isn't a bad thing, as long as the other party is fine with having it.

PEACE✌️

The thing about Arthur critical ppl that bugs me is that they seem to love to ignore all the wonderful things about Arthur make him out to be this jerk. Esp in regards to Merlin. I've seen Merwaine shippers act like Gwaine is the only one who cared about Merlin. As if Arthur didn't risk his life and go against his father for Merlin after knowing him for a couple of weeks. Or defy his father again to help him save his village. And that was just at the very beginning. I'm not saying Arthur didn't have plenty of flaws but the thing is so did the others including Merlin. But Arthur was also an inherently wonderful person who did his best and it frustrates me how ppl try to gloss over that or downplay his trauma.

YOU'RE RIGHT AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT. Thank you so very much for this!

Honestly, Arthur's character was the most inconsistently developed out of them all and it was frustrating. But even then, it's super easy to make out which scenes were in character for him and which weren't and I feel Arthur haters refuse to see that on purpose, just to have an excuse to mindlessly hate on him. I'm not saying he was perfect or that he didn't have faults but he was without a doubt one of the best characters on the show. He was complicated and made bad decisions sometimes and there were moments when he was a little oblivious and lost too but at his core, he was fundamentally a good person, who ALWAYS strived to do his best, to improve himself, to be a better king for his people and TBF 200% had a better moral compass till the end than most of the others. Gwaine stans should understand that their fave decided to follow Arthur and pledge him his undying loyalty for a reason.

Anyway, don't even get me started on how annoying it is when his pretty heavy trauma is ignored and dismissed, especially when it's done so in comparison to Morgana. BOTH OF THEIR TRAUMAS WERE DIFFERENT BUT EQUALLY DAMAGING AND THEY BOTH DEALT WITH THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS. Don't fucking talk to me if you think differently.

Coming on to a different topic, Merwaine is a great ship, just like most ships in the show. I see the appeal in it, I lowkey ship it myself but what I'm really tired of is Merwaine shippers (or any other non-Merthur shippers) using their ship as a goddamn weapon to undermine Merthur and establish their ship as superior or better. Maybe there can be multiple good things in the same franchise and people have different tastes and enjoy different things? Maybe live and let live? Maybe let people ship whatever they want without trying to shove some far-reaching "toxic" elements of a ship down their throat just because you're salty that their ship is more popular than yours? I've seen this sort of meaningless activism a lot in this fandom and it's unfortunately put me off some great ships.

Anyway, I should stop before I get personal lmao. Thanks for the ask, you're totally right!