#oh the potential

[pineapple-coffee]

criminal minds has unintentionally set up the best coming out storyline for jj. she was raised in a strict household, almost forced to hide that she liked women. her sister’s death made her want to be the golden child even more. she loves will, she really does, but she never expected to have children with him. she marries him for the stability he can offer, for the life he can help provide for their children. and then there’s emily, and jj isn’t stupid. she knows how she feels about her. but to admit that would mean recognizing the feelings she’s kept at bay.

[gd-dollopole]

I cannot stop thinking about the comparison between BBC Merlin and Smallville.

As the directors of BBC Merlin have said, an inspiration has been taken from the ten long seasons of Smallville, an US TV show I always loved, and literally grew up with, and since a few months back, I also made a re-watch of Smallville, I can’t stop thinking about the potential BBC Merlin could have had, if it actually followed some bits of the storyline of Smallville.

We can already see some of the similarities between the shows:

Merlin wears a red neckerchief with a blue tunic and viceversa, like Clark Kent, and whenever he’s hopeless or sad or angry, he wears worn out grey colours, and as an avid fan of Smallville, I can assure you that Clark Kent wears the same things;

Clark Kent has to hide his powers in a world that would hurt him, kill him, or experiment on him, if he let on his deepest secret, and for that, he not only loses the people he cares about the most, much like Merlin does, which are his father, his friends, his lovers, and almost even his mother, but forbids himself to fall in love, and therefore pursue any kind of relationship;

he’s witty, yes, like Merlin, but also shy and brave and lonely.

But the difference between Smallville and Merlin is that in Smallville, there is the closure I would have liked to see in Merlin:

Clark kent does hide his secrets, and he is good at it, until everyone else finds out about him, all on their own.

We’re talking about everyone (maybe because Clark/Merlin are not as sly as they think):

Lex and Lionel and Luthessa Luthor, Lana Leng, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, Oliver Queen and so many others, either because they already had their suspicions or because someone else showed them.

And this brings the right amount of angst in the show, mixed with the betrayal and the lies and the secrets and the love triangles and the tropes that come out of them.

But where is Arthur in this picture?

Oh, this is the good bit.

For very obvious reasons, apart from the fact that he doesn’t talk as much as her, Arthur is definitely Lois Lane.

FROM THIS MOMENT ON, SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T WATCHED SMALLVILLE:

Lois Lane makes her appearance as a main character in the later seasons, after Clark understands that he has officially lost Lana, and starts working at the Daily Planet, in the same office as Lois.

But, unlike Arthur, Lois loves Superman (or The Blur, as he’s called for the entire ten seasons of Smallville, because he’s always caught on camera, but just as a blur). She talks to him in secret, and Clark masks his voice through the phone, he helps her and she helps him, he saves her innumerable times (does this remind you of anything?), and each time Lois compliments The Blur, Clark gets angry, because it’s his alter ego who gets the praise for a job well done, and not him, the clumsy idiot of the Daily Planet, much like everyone else in Merlin’s life has always got the credit for saving Arthur’s life, instead of him.

But what they should have given us in Merlin is what they gave us in Smallville, and it would have honestly made for the biggest magic reveal:

once Clark needs to fend off another enemy of the year, and thinks he’s going to officially die, he goes to say goodbye to his friends and his most loved ones, Lois included (“I’m happy to be your servant, until the day I die”).

Although, unlike in Merlin, where Arthur is a sweet himbo, who doesn’t inspect, and who doesn’t suspect anything, Lois had her suspicions, given that she and Clark had not only started falling in love, but now worked together too, and since she cared a whole lot about him, she follows Clark.

In the Smallville TV show, Lois hides behind a building from where, minutes later, Clark falls from. Lois believes he’s dead (Clark is immortal, and this begs the questions again: does he remind you of anyone?), and notices that he’s been stabbed in the chest with a blue crystal (context: the blue kryptonite removes Clark’s powers, and renders him human, and therefore mortal, unless the kryptonite, much like the green one, gets away from him). Following her guts, and sad and desperate that the man she loves the most might die, and believing in her suspicions and instinct, Lois pulls the crystal from Clark’s body, but the moment she hears some clutter, probably thinking they’re the enemies, she runs away, and goes back hiding.

And there, she sees him.

Clark grunts, gets up, completely safe ad healthy, sees that the crystal may have fallen by itself, or simply disappeared (and actually asks himself how that could have happened) and runs away:

by using his super fast power.

And Lois sees him.

Now, what could have been perfect was, if Arthur did the same.

After an attack gone wrong in the woods and losing sight of Merlin, he goes searching for the idiot, yelling something very along the lines of, “Where’s that useless buffoon?”, when he’s actually worried sick, and finds Merlin stabbed in the middle of a clearing.

Now, Arthur despises magic. He loathes it, he doesn’t trust it, yet, bless him, he still tries to understand it. This could have happened after Uther’s death, the moment Arthur’s reign begins.

He watches Merlin.

Arthur’s alone and shocked and scared and sick, so he drops to his knees next to him. He does not cry, he does not scream, he does not faint, that’s not really him at the end of the day, right? (Lois is the same. She grew up in a strict household with a strict solider father, and has lost her mother, and she had to be the parent to her older sister… Very, very much like Arthur). Or that’s what he thinks, and out of pure desperation, and something that sounds a bit like love, just like Lois Lane, since Merlin flinches, when he should be dead, for goodness’ sake, and out of instics and probably destiny, Arthur pulls whatever has stabbed Merlin out of his abdomen.

But as soon as he does, and as soon as he hears the knights coming close to him, and not to alarm anyone, and because he does not want them to see him in this sort of shocked state, Arthur hides behind a tree.

And there, he watches as Merlin, half dead and half alive, calls for Kilgharrah.

And Arthur has the same reaction of the finale.

He does not act on what he just discoveres.

At first, he’s sceptical, once Merlin comes back like he always does (and now he knows why and how), so he avoids him, he makes awful jokes, or hints about magic and about how powerful and dangerous it can be.

But once he’s sort of gone over this phase, noticing that Merlin hasn’t done anything with his big powers, like showing him off or anything of the likes (because Arthur has always known, magic or not, that Merlin would have never hurt him or Camelot), Arthur becomes… Curious.

And here comes the part that aligns with Smallville (we can also add the sexuality/gender identity/coming out metaphor):

much like in Smallville, and with magic and superpowers, and like in real life, someone does not force this information out of people, but Arthur, like Lois, is dying of curiosity, and just wants Merlin/Clark to trust him/her and tell him/her his secret, because he/she already knows of it.

So Arthur starts doing what Lois did.

The day after everything is well, and Lois now certainly knows about Clark’s superpowers, and the fact that he is The Blur, she goes to work, until Clark arrives too, and tells her that he must be quick for something, and needs some documents for a research. Lois stalls, and pretends she’s being SUDDENLY clumsy and a bit of an idiot (this would go perfectly well with Arthur, because he is an idiot, and he is also smitten with Merlin), and let her pen fall under the desk, to see what Clark would do.

And he uses his powers.

So imagine a wild Arthur in his natural habitat (his chambers), bored like no one else, and on the verge of imploding, because his manservant and best friend and love of his life he’s being stubborn and an oaf and an idiot and a toad.

He lets the apples or the sword or the belt fall under the table, pretends he’s keen to an act of kindness, and picks up the items himself, instead of letting Merlin do it, while he instructs said servant to do something else in the meantime.

Shocked at first, but following through with the orders, Merlin does as he’s being told, after throwing several sceptical looks at his prat of a king, and as soon as Arthur gets up from his crouched down position on the floor, the bed is already done, and the clothes are already folded, and Arthur goes mad, because, oh, he was right, and what else can Merlin do?

The curiosity gets him as much as his developing feelings for the cretin, with apparently super magical powers, who could also break a neck with a flick of his eyes, if he wanted to, and Arthur starts pretending to be even more of an idiot to see more magic, without Merlin knowing that he’s actually showing Arthur his abilities.

And the best part of it all?

The magic reveal.

I love Smallville, because the way Clark confesses his secret to Lois isn’t anything grand or majestic.

Yes, Clark does take Lois flying; yes, he also shags the living brains out of her, IN THEIR FARMS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE (I must do this again but, does this remind you of ANYONE/ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR?), but he’s just built and hot and intelligent, but also very, very shy and a bit silly.

That’s why I love Clark the most as the best version of Superman, and Merlin as the best version of the famous wizard.

So Clark calls Lois to meet him in one of the Daily Planets departments, where documents and papers are stashed and kept there, on the last floor of the building, and where no one ever goes, and he fidgets a bit with his fingers, and he stammers a lot, and Lois is about to lose it, because still, after all these years, and our love? And how can Clark not tell me? Does he not trust me? Does he not want me like I want him? And all these emotions are well encompassed on her face, because Clark fails to tell her, and he says that he’s sorry, he can’t lose her, he can’t take that risk, he has lost so many loved ones already, and what does Lois do?

She understands, because she loves Clark, and she does not want to force him.

She gulps her tears, she miles brokenly, she nods, she tells Clark that it’s fine, but when she’s about to turn on the elevator, Clark realises that the love of his life is about to slip away from his fingers, and just blurts his secret out like a bloody moron.

Much like Merlin would do.

“I’m The Blur.”, he says, and Lois smiles, she turns around, and she runs to him, and literally jumps him, until they both fall back together, and laugh and stutter out their words and yes… They end up snogging.

Now, I want you to imagine a wild Arthur standing on one of the towers or balconies in the Camelot castle, while Merlin is being the usual insecure, oblivious man Arthur’s known for over ten years, and he turns around at the confession, and he runs to Merlin, and he pulls him to him, and while in this version, Arthur gives Merlin a concussion, as he hits the stone floor (because they are romantic, but also more stupid than Lois and Clark, since they’re, you know, a bloody gay disaster), he snogs the shit out of him too, and they start working together, and getting rid of the enemies together, and form a bond that is even deeper than the one they had before already, and Arthur meets Hunith’s mother as someone else entirely, while the chaos ensue, and so do the messy feelings:

like it happened in Smallville, but did not, because Lord forbid the gays, happened in BBC Merlin.

The knights of The Round table are the other DC superheros, and Guinevere could either be a superhero of her own or the wise and smart counsellor, who would be the journalist in Smallville, and Morgana is still Arthur’ sister, good or evil, it does not matter (she could either be after Merlin or after him, the options are innumerable).

Morgana is basically the obnoxious sister Lois’ has always had, who even gets a fake crush on Clark/Merlin to manipulate the two (these TV shows are too similar, I swear).

But I’m not done.

Oh, no, I’m not.

Because imagine all of this, imagine Smallville, but as a literal crossover with Merlin:

a fanfic where Merlin is the apparent imbecile employee at the Daily Planet, who actually has so many super powers, and he’s invincible, and his boss is Arthur Prat Pendragon, who is sceptical of superheroes, and his father Uther haunts them down, and is the owner of said Daily Planet, and loathes Merlin, because he talks about superheroes in his newspapers, and about his dad, because sodding fucking hell, he could control dragons.

Imagine the mess as these two fall in love, even if Merlin thinks he hates the rich, twat boss, whose order he has to follow, while Arthur treats him like a servant, rather than a journalist; Gwen could be either Chloe or Lana Leng, the best friend or the past lover, and Lancelot becomes Guinevere’s Jimmy or Oliver Queen, and Pete Ross is Will for Merlin, and Uther, is still the mad man they have to defy.

Merlin could have had so much potential, and a plethora of ways to have the magic reveal happen, and yet it was not used, and yes, if you didn’t notice, I’m still so mad over it.

I cannot fathom the amount of happiness I would have felt if they actually merged two of my favourite TV shows ever together, a good crossover between Smallville and the Arthuriana, in this case, BBC Merlin in particular.

[rocker-by-heart]

listen the scenes that oliver and devin have together is more than likely between buck and kim

BUT HAVE WE CONSIDERED the possibility that it could be a flashback scene between buck and shannon??????

[the-innefable-idiot]

Daniel being Louis' annoying younger brother LETS GOOOOO

[gurakos]

TIANSHAN CODED

[tifa-simp]

I want to see RedXIII square up to Dark Star in part 3. Can you imagine the cheeky insults he'll throw at Dark Star and maybe Rufus? It's gonna be hilarious.

Or even better, Tifa & RedXIII vs Rufus & Dark Star. It's gonna be sick!

[darlingfreddie]

Dirty dancing au of any of ur blorbos will literally drive you Insane. Trust me

[minteaspoon]

@sleeplessdreamer123 this is for you, you magnificent angst-obsessed bastard>:,(

•._•._•._•._•._•._•

Has anyone here read that one mcyt fanfiction called flowers from 1970?

Yeah, imagine that, but lucemond - separated by 50 or so years apart, and only being able to fully and truly meet the other when one is on his deathbed, with a final call cut off by said man’s child in the future. It ends very bittersweet:)

In my head Luke fills George’s place and Aemond’s Dream, and he’s just living in Aem’s childhood home, and seeing handprints and letters and paintings of Aemond’s love for him while being gifted flowers from Aemond in 1970. Aemond knows this love between them can’t last, and is unhealthy while Luke develops a dependency on Aemond through their calls. One day, Aemond calls and tells Luke to go to a hospital and is met with Aem’s son - who Luke doesn’t know. But the son knows about Luke, and knows about his and his father’s relationship, as absurd as it sounded, but he believed his father when he sees Luke with the phone in his grip, his father’s younger voice emanating from it quietly. He leads Luke to an old Aemond on his deathbed, and young Aemond says his goodbye before he cuts off, and the phone is forever broken by the son. Maybe older Aemond or the son comforts Luke by telling him that younger Aemond loves him, he just couldn’t love him in 202X, as his heart belonged to him then in 1970, and flowers couldn’t last that long, and Luke was his flower - a love he would cherish forever, as one would with their first gifted flower or gift from a cherished lover, but one he knows can’t last forever.

[that-granite-floor]

A balcony with the shingles facing in!

Source: Stunning Interiors

[riversmithmelody]

Oh …OH! OH!

…you know…that technically means Rose is the Doctors child….

Oh the ANGST!

shaun: I have the best girls in the world!

the doctor, who's DNA is running through both of them:

[stellacaerulea]

... Let's discuss

[egophiliac]

last chance to guess what the new round of birthday outfits will be!

[marzipanandminutiae]

I hate "it's not trying to be accurate!" arguments for historical fiction or historically-inspired fantasy clothing choices that just. don't make sense logistically

why is that girl in Br*dgerton tightlacing her stays? what is she reducing- her upper ribcage? not only can you not tightlace in those (hand-bound eyelets can't usually take that strain, in my experience), but there's no reason to because your waistline is under your boobs. and unlike most of the series, they actually commit to the empire waistline for the court presentation gowns. small waists don't matter when NOBODY IS SEEING YOUR WAIST

why no chemise, in so many productions? fantasy/lack of concern for accuracy can't make things not chafe. chafing is not a matter of accuracy; it's a physical reality. did a wizard give everybody in the kingdom Anti-Chafing Spells?

just because you don't WANT a linen underlayer beneath a medieval tunic doesn't mean sweat won't get to outer garments and damage them- or make them need laundering, which weakens the fibers -at a time when all clothing is handmade, custom-fitted, and created from hand-woven fabrics and thus a HUGE investment

you're not just throwing accuracy to the winds as a design choice; you're ignoring How Textiles And Bodies And the Realities of Your Technology Level's Fabric and Laundering Capabilities Work

[lara-cairncross]

take so good im posting it here too

[fantastic-nonsense]

society if Two-Face was Batman's arch-nemesis instead of the Joker:

[nenoname]

It's still interesting that TBoB called more attention to Stan's control over his mindscape (And if you go with the interpretation that the lost pages are partial truths that are heavily influenced by Bill, then he's the one insisting that only someone with training should be able to have that much control over the mind.)

Meanwhile we have a memory!Stan. Someone who apparently knows too much and is rather aware for being a simple memory.

From the Wheel of Shame, we know Bill was able dig up all kinds of dirt on Stan but... that wasn't why he was there in the first place, was it?

Bill couldn't find the code immediately despite a memory of Stan opening the safe being a few hours old at most and decided to have Mabel try find it for him (The original concept of the ep had it far more hidden but this was likely cut because of time constraints)

Ford did experiments on Stan's mind which likely meant using Project Mentem and actually looking around his mindscape, and his only reaction was to comment on his jokes-- despite what little we the audience know being enough to render us sobbing wrecks

(yes I refuse to shut up about this part cos the book's intro is extremely underrated)

Stan was able to replace his memories of Ford with the swingset instead and managed to hide Ford in his Bar Mitzvah memory. And that's not even mentioning the lack of visible Portal and Stan o' War which noticeably show up in Ford's dreamscape (the broken swingset manifesting anyway pains me tho)

He subconsciously has misdirects for his secrets that are both silly and manages to disturb everyone too

And while Bill-as-Soos being bored by the vending machine memory is a joke that's basically the crew's way of going "hey remember the thing way back in the first ep that's going to show up in the next one?" and in-universe appears to be Stan slipping up, it's interesting that they had Stan input the wrong code when it's consistent literally every other time its inputted (especially when it shows up correctly in the very next episode)

It's even possible that the safe code that Bill found could have been a misdirect too but we'll never know since the safe got blown open by dynamite.

Stan was able to buy time by making his mind blank despite being genuinely terrified when Bill enters his mind (to the point that he breaks character and uses his own voice to yell), and could conjure up his living room (in colour opposed to his mind's regular greyscale) to make sure Bill didn't have enough room to flee, slamming the door in his face before the effects of the memory gun kicked in.

(EDIT: Random door analysis here)

And maybe the twins eventually told him that Bill had already been inside his mind after their W3 reunion, but all we know was that his conscious self was left in the dark for ages and wasn't really aware of Bill until Weirdmageddon.

TBoB showing McGucket's dreamscape also brings up the idea of the effects of the memory gun manifesting differently to each person. To Stan's mindscape, the memory wipe manifests as blue flames which immediately brings to mind Bill's powers but it's a far lighter shade (maybe to more closely match the memory gun and its eventual fade to white?)

The end of TBoB and the website poem also firmly reminds us about Stan's connection to fire but there's also the question if Stan himself is actually aware of it...