Crack Fic! Where Everyone thinks Merlin is the reasonable one.
Everyone loves Merlin and thinks he’s the sweetest person, who couldn’t hurt a fly. So, they’re all annoyed when they see how Arthur treats him. The King is constantly overloading his manservant with work, ordering him to do massive tasks and coming up with ridiculous excuses to keep Merlin from taking a break. So, the knights and others constantly try to find ways to pull Merlin away from Arthur’s side and give him a break but Arthur always finds a way to mess up their plans.
Gwen and the other maids sometimes try to help Merlin with his chores
Gwen: Arthur you can’t actually expect Merlin to clean the entire throne room by himself
Arthur: *shrugs* Yes. I’m hardly asking him much
Gwen: It usually takes five maids to thoroughly clean the throne room. It’s ridiculous to ask one person to do so much work and then, to place Lancelot as a guard to make sure none of us can help him.
Arthur: Lancelot wouldn’t have to guard anything if you all weren’t so ready to disobey my orders. I said Merlin will clean the throne room ALONE and that is final
Gwen: I never knew you could be such a cruel person and to Merlin of all people
*Gwen storms off*
Gwaine, Leon, Percival, Elyan and some of the other knights try to steal Merlin away to the tavern to relax
Gwaine: Come on Princess. I’m sure you can survive one night without Merlin
*Gwaine tries to pull Merlin to their side but Arthur grabs hold of Merlin and pulls him back*
Arthur: Need I remind you, Merlin is my manservant and doesn’t have time to play around. He still has very important duties to complete
Elyan: What could he possibly have to do at this time? Most servants have gone home for the day?
Arthur: Well Merlin is the King’s manservant as I keep reminding you and still have very important things to do
Gwaine: Like what?
Arthur: *pauses* For one, he needs to clean the mess he made in the closet
The knights: *trying to process the bullshit Arthur just told them*
Arthur: *crossing his arms, 100% serious, daring them to challenge him*
Merlin: It’s fine guys really, probably next time *pulling Arthur and himself back into Arthur’s chambers and locking the door*
Or when something terrible happens to Merlin like the time he got kidnapped and everyone went into full panic
Arthur: *staring hard at Lance* Merlin’s been kidnapped?
Elyan: They ambushed us out of nowhere and before we knew it they were off with him.
Leon: Don’t worry sire, I’ll gather a search party immediately to have him found.
Gwaine: We’ll make them sorry they ever thought to mess with our Merlin
Arthur: *holding up a finger and turning to Lance again* Merlin’s been kidnapped?
Lance: ..... That is the story
Gwaine: Princess, have you not been listening. We need to hurry every second counts.
Arthur: I heard, just wondering why he couldn’t have chosen a better day to get himself kidnapped
*Everyone gawks at Arthur in disbelief*
Basically, everyone thinks that Arthur doesn’t appreciate Merlin and that their cinnamon roll deserves better and formed a protection squad to help Merlin get the treatment he deserves.
Meanwhile in Reality....
Arthur knows about Merlin’s magic. He is fully aware of how powerful Merlin is and finally sees that his manservant isn’t an idiot. He’s just a bloody madman.
===In the throne room===
*Arthur and Merlin both staring at a dark purple swirling vortex on the floor*
Arthur: *takes a deep breath* Merlin, why is there a hole in my throne room?
Merlin: Well, it's not a hole. It’s a sort of gateway to the dark dimension.
Arthur: Oh, okay. Why is there a gateway to the dark dimension in my throne room?
Merlin: ..... I can fix it
Lancelot: Arthur, I heard you- *looks down at the menacing purple gateway on the floor and then back to Arthur and Merlin*
Lancelot: Should I go guard the door?
===After Gwaine, Elyan and Percival tried to take Merlin out for drinks===
Merlin: You know we both could use a break. I am a bit hungry. Been a while since I had a drink too
Arthur: Well maybe, we can join them after you explain why my Uncle is tied up in my closet
*Arthur opens his closet doors revealing a tied-up and gagged Agravaine making muffled noise*
Merlin: You told me to get evidence that he was working with Morgana
Arthur: And your solution to that was to kidnap him?
Merlin: What better way to hear it than from the man himself?
Arthur: What’s going to happen when people realize he’s missing
Merlin: Don’t worry, one memory wipe spell and he’ll be back tomorrow in his chambers like nothing ever happened
Arthur: You told me those spells were dangerous
Merlin: *laughs* Well, yeah, I’m not using it on us
Agravaine: *making muffled and panicked pleads to Arthur*
Lancelot: Sorry, Arthur, Gaius told me that Merlin needed m- *sees a tied-up Agravaine*
Lancelot: *nods* I’ll go stand guard
=== Arthur, the first to find Merlin after his “kidnapping” ===
Arthur: *folds his arms and looks behind his manservant to see a trail of bodies* Kidnapped?
Merlin: Well they did try to kidnap me. I just decided not to resist.
Arthur: *sighs* Is everyone dead?
Merlin: I was supposed to leave someone alive?
Arthur: *rolls his eyes* Come before I have to explain how my “innocent”, “weak” manservant took out a group of mercenaries.
Lancelot: *already standing guard*
3K notes
·
View notes
BESTIE I didn't know you had Arthurian inspired oc's! :D
Hellooooooo buddy! And why yes, I do!
This is an original story idea I've been thinking about for a while, it's set in a sci-fi fantasy world with mecha and stuff, but follows the cast of the Arthurian legends. Specifically, the protagonist is Mordred who Does Not Have A Good Time throughout this entire story. I don't have a title for it yet, nothing has clicked so far, though a placeholder name is “The Sunset Knight”. (Mordred does technically has an OC tag on my blog however I've been wanting to revamp stuff and the only two original posts about Mordred, I think I might want to go and change a couple things.)
This world has a source of power that fuels ships and mechs and stuff, I haven't named it yet but let's call it Phantasm. It can be utilized both by machine and living things, and the living beings who can manipulate raw Phantasm are dubbed sorcerers. Morgana is a sorceress and Merlin is a sorcerer, for example. Most others rely on sci-fi esque equipment to wield that power without backlash.
The mechs in the Arthurian-inspired world probably have different grading based on mythological beasts or smth, I need to expand on that, and dragon mechs are both the rarest and only a select few with “dragon blood” are able to pilot them, so the Pendragons basically? There might've been other dragonblood bloodlines in the past but they're dead now, dead at Uther's hand because that guy is a massive jerk who conquered everything and beyond. And Arthur... unfortunately holding up that paradigm even though he doesn't conquer, and is actively trying to make things suck less. Anyways, back to the mechs—
Bc the dragons put so much strain on the pilots (or “riders/dragonriders” as they might be called in that world) on energy consumption in exchange for bigger firepower, rare and unique powers, etc, dragonriders unfortunately tend to die quick save for a few who have extensive support and/or a hugeass powerful Phantasmic core. Not all dragonblood are born with such massive reserves! And theoretically, a sorcerer with a massive Phantasm reserves could technically try to pilot one, but... there's a compatibility lock of sorts, incompatible pilots must pour in more Phantasm, and that drains them faster than it would drain a dragonblood.
Arthur is a dragonrider, blessed with both intensive support from Merlin's end, and in possession of a large amount of Phantasm thanks to his maternal side.
(I'll get to the actual protagonist, I swear, I just gotta set the stage first)
So Uther... conquered Igraine's kingdom (planet?) (Igraine was the ruling queen, queen regnant, and her husband Gorlois was the consort, I forget what I named this place), killed Gorlois, took and wed Igraine by force, and had Arthur with her because he wanted his offspring and heir to have massive power. Igraine's line was that of powerful sorcerers. Morgana was Igraine and Gorlois' daughter, who is very much not happy about what Uther had done to her family and homeland.
Years pass, Uther dies, Arthur is revealed to be heir where before he was raised in secret, he becomes king and starts trying to fix and calm stuff down, and Morgana, fed up with Uther's bullshit, very strongly demands that her kingdom be given back to her. And Arthur, who's grown to be this cold, sharp, exhausted individual who's trying to put out the fires his father had started, says “no, absolutely not, I'm trying to bring peace and if I give in to you now others will want the same and it will be chaos all over again because the threat of you hovering over the horizon. just have faith in me, your home planet will be fine, I promise. also you're married to a lord, you have a domain, go and take care of that.” and Morgana's having none of that because she doesn't even like Lot, it was an unwanted marriage forced on her by Uther who wanted her as far away from her homeland as possible. She wants her birthright restored, for the wrongs committed against her mother righted, just... she wants justice. And she's not getting it from Arthur. So fed up, she books it, builds a faction of her own to rebel against Uther's legacy, the one Arthur is trying to uphold.
Morgana, with her extensive knowledge and resourcefulness and creativity, creates a dragon mech. So those things require a specific core, so to speak, harvested from true dragons, those impossibly huge, cosmic sort of entities, nebulous and so incomprehensibly large... Okay, you know whale falls, right? A whale's corpse falls to the ocean floor and critters feed on it, never having known a living whale? To them, a whale's body is just an impossibly large bounty? Yeah, kinda those vibes. Maybe the true dragons are dead, with their corpses floating around in the universe. I see them less as a creature with a body and more a... deity? a collection of stars and planets? I dunno, just incomprehensible. So Morgana makes one, somehow obtains Arthur's genes (I mean, in the myths they have incestuous sex and out pops Mordred from that, but this is sci-fi, and because it's me so many characters have a wonky gender axis going on so they might not even be cis, who knows), and creates Mordred for the purpose of piloting the dragon she created. Man that thing needs a name.
So the mech Mordred's piloting, it's... one of the more energy-intensive ones specifically crafted by Morgana's faction to be extra destructive, and yet Mordred is not terribly affected by it— they still are but not to the extent they should have, and everyone chalks up to the dragonblood genes. But there's something else going on under the surface. But I'll get to that later.
So Mordred's character is... someone who's been so intensely shaped by their surroundings and circumstances. They were born to fulfill a certain role. They are unable to see themselves outside of this role they play, this mission they have. The quote “you need the sickness inside you like a body needs a spine. you may survive without it, but oh, how deformed and misshapen you'd become” basically is their whole deal. Their loyalty is madness, and their madness is loyalty.
Still, though, there lies a hole in their heart, a yearning, a hunger, a want. What it is that they want, they can't articulate. They don't understand. They don't understand the hole, so they don't understand what would fill it. It is why they try to dedicate 110% of themselves to their role, in hopes that it'd fill the hole, or at least not make them think about it.
Still, they yearn.
Later in the story, it would be revealed that they're not actually Mordred, not the one Morgana created with her and Arthur's genes. That Mordred? Dead. Dead from the strain of piloting the dragon Morgana made. They were a child, and they've been long dead. Morgana uploaded their conscious into the dragon mech to assist the new pilot and help take on some of the strain. Serving the cause, even beyond their death.
So then, who is this Mordred?
From another world.
Yes, folks, this is an isekai. From the moment I conceived of this idea, I wanted it to be an isekai. The pain of being unable to return home. The realization that even if you got back to your home world, you would no longer fit into it. The horror of having been forced to change so much that your home becomes unrecognizable to you. And being unable to bear this world you're in as well. You don't have anywhere to go anymore.
The realization breaks something in Mordred (this Mordred, not the dead one). So in a fit of desperation to be away, away from the place that they can't see the same anymore, they leave. They leave Morgana's side, and enters Camelot to serve Arthur in the vain hope that they might be able to choose something for themselves, make themselves anew, be free and happy for once even if they can no longer go home. Maybe, just maybe, they could make a home out of Camelot.
(Remember that the earliest written version of Mordred wasn't really said to be against Arthur or a traitor or a villain, or even Arthur's son, it only describes the battle of Camlann as just “The strife of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell.”, not indicating at all if they were on the same side or against each other or if Mordred was responsible for Arthur's downfall. In fact, in early Welsh sources, he seems to have been described as “Arthur's strength, the good nature of Medrawd”. Kinda relevant to this Mordred, kinda not, just an interesting thing to keep in mind.)
This is when they meet Guinevere.
In one (or several?) version of the Arthuriana, Mordred weds Guinevere by force, in mayhaps another version she may or may not have gone willingly with Mordred? And in one of the versions (probably French, I forget which one, help) that follow that line of events, uh, Guinevere is slain by Lancelot for betraying Arthur and Mordred is either buried alive with her corpse or gets locked in a tower with her corpse. And he cannibalizes her body out of desperation, and still dies of starvation.
So, yeah. This version of Guinevere becomes Mordred's love interest and so the doom clock starts ticking :)
Also, Guinevere's gender is a big ol “???” by design. Male? Female? Cis? Trans? Who even knows, Guinevere goes by both he and she. Anyways, moving on from that—
Mordred meets Guinevere, this gentle-handed fella who loves plants. And they grow a close bond, which slowly but surely develops into romance.
In this version, Guinevere isn't in love with Arthur, though he does idolize the King, believing in his vision and wanting to support that. There might or might not be push from others for the two to be betrothed to each other, I don't know how such things would work in a world like this just yet but well this is still just a fledgling idea— Arthur takes one look at Guinevere and is like “that is an entire child” and refuses to wed her.
I... am not sure whatever the hell I want to do with the character of Lancelot.
Like, I know how the cultural context surrounding the Arthuriana shaped and influenced his character, his courtly love turned into adultery etc etc, but I don't know what spin I want to put to his character. Yet. Currently leaning towards a fucked up sense of codependent devotion towards his king. Like “my king only deserves the best and by the dragons I will fucking give it to him no matter what anyone else has to say about it” and maybe he sees Guinevere as something extraordinary and thus... by imposing his own view on him he tries to yoink Guinevere for Arthur and... hm. Still up in the air, honestly.
How long has this fucking post gotten?
Okay imma just try to rapid-fire the ensuing stuff bc it's not like I have the details yet anyways: Mordred enters the Round Table -> Mordred and Guinevere fall in love -> things are fine until they aren't -> some revelation breaks Mordred's faith in Camelot -> maybe Morgana is slain, she's out of the picture for some reason -> Mordred forms their own faction from the remnants of Morgana's, goes against Camelot -> it goes on -> CAMLANN -> in the meanwhile Lancelot gets to Guinevere, uh-oh -> Arthur vs Mordred, big showdown, Arthur dies and Mordred is seriously feeling the consequences of the strain + pretty sure the mech is barely holding together at this point -> an exhausted Mordred and broken mech get their asses whooped by Lancelot, probably -> entombed alive -> cue cannibalism -> Mordred may or may not get isekai'd again at near death -> now they have to navigate this while ridden with guilt and grief and truly having nothing
So... yeah! This is a gist of what this story is about! Many details are still yet up in the air, I completely omitted the post-cannibalism stuff, the broken traumatized mess Mordred becomes by that point, if you'd like to know more I'll tell you but for now... this is it!
Oh! Almost forgot— I've drawn little concept sketches for Mordred!
Original Mordred on the left, the current Mordred before they became “Mordred” on the right, both as young children.
Current Mordred, having lost their face and memories for a long, long time.
13 notes
·
View notes