#okay ok this is why peach shouldn't be down ever

[googledocsdyke]

what would have happened if bbc merlin ran for fifteen seasons do you think. answerer's choice if that means 2008 to jesus christ 2023 or 1997-2012 or anything in between.

sam first of all i need to let you know that i have been thinking about this ask for the last nine days. not to any productive effect just rolling it around in my head like a shiny little marble and not denting its surface whatsoever

secondly i'm going to roll with the original 2008 pilot date here because i TRULY do think that the concept "what if we did a show about arthurian legend but completely randomly and arbitrarily made the central idea of the show that magic is both illegal in camelot and a metaphor for homosexuality, an idea which is not even remotely present in the original myths that revolve around the CENTRAL premise that merlin is 1) an ancient man and 2) does magic with arthur's full knowledge consent and encouragement" could really ONLY have been pulled off in its particular homophobias of that era. well i wouldn't really know i was like doing multiplication tables in 2008. but it's just SO early 2000s network tv. also as previously established anthony head was doing buffy in 1997 and i refuse to sacrifice rupert giles for anything.

ANYWAYS. i really do think that a 2013-and-beyond merlin would have to finally sacrifice its core premise of "nobody KNOWS about merlin's MAGIC" and actually you know sort of conceptually attempt to deliver on what was promised from the pilot. again like merlin would still be terrible i need to make this what merlin WOULD be not what i would WANT it to be but i AM picturing like. arthur survives by the skin of his teeth in diamond of the day part ii. merlin carries his wounded body home and maybe like....... seasons 6-10 are The Slow And Painstaking Legalisation Of Sorcery Across Camelot. like i'm talking star wars prequels space bureaucracy level of vibes. merlin has never been particular interested in the "details" of how "a government" might "work" so i'm picturing like whole episodes dedicated to arthur pitching up to some town where his father enacted unspeakable crimes of heinous genocide and being like "right listen chaps! why don't we all just get along :)" and some pale limp-wristed local sorcerette gets all pissy at merlin specifically and tries to do murder about it and there's a Very Big Fight that lasts for Twenty Minutes except for merlin gets to use magic in front of arthur and the knights this time and it all ends with some brisk handshakes and "the treaty has been reached good job old chap :)" and they gallop on home with some light-to-medium horseback slapstick

merlin starts dressing differently throughout this, to signify that He Is A New Man Who Has Earned Arthur's Grudging Respect. his neckerchief is purple now and he's getting into burlap cloaks. the whole shenanigan is interspersed with Soft Touching Scenes of arthur Trying To Figure Out His Fraught Relationship With This New Magical Merlin where they like almost brush cheeks before somehow making physical fart noises about it. like they will play this queerbait fiddle till the cows come home. the phrase "two sides of the same coin" increases to a frequency of once every 2 episodes. nobody does anything about it.

season 11 gaius dies. it's DEVASTATING. people make gifsets upon gifsets about it. colin morgan does that little scrunchy thing with his eyes and hearts break everywhere and there's a whole episode musing on the nature of fatherhood. luckily nothing ever stays dead on [bbc merlin] and the entire 11th season the big bad is like The Notion Of Ghosts Themselves. they bring EVERYONE back. buddy they're running out of ideas i'm talking ghostmorgana, ghostgaius, ghostelyan ghosttom and of course our dear best friend ghostuther. they pull some tertiary arthurian character completely out of context to be the Ghost Mastermind and it's all very heavy-handed stuff about how you can never escape the bearing of the ones you love. web-weavers go wild.

season 12 ratings are dropping like a stone and someone points out that maybe it's like, not a great look that gwen is the only living woman and only living black character on the show and has been reduced to like a clothesrack for medieval gowns. so this season is SUPER gwen-centric. arthur gets stuck in an enchanted megabog or something so the whole season is just merlin desperately hunting down arthur (why mess with perfection?) while gwen rules the kingdom with the knights by her side. it's executed incredibly poorly, and everyone eats it up. she girlbosses her way to like finding an optimal way to redistribute albion's grain stores and gets really into forging weapons agai wait actually i love this. gotta circle back to make it worse.

season 13 big bad is some totally real guy who actually lived in a completely different period of history. quite possibly king louis the xivth. there's discourse about merlin's nascent francophobia. there's only one bed. there's a gag episode where the guest star is david walliams with the head and tail of a donkey. season 14 they REALLY double down on the hibernophobia for no reason and also, unrelatedly, ealdor burns down. the villain is like king mark of cornwall or sir lamorak. merlin is like a total mary sue by this point who can dissolve castles with a snap of his fingers. he still cleans arthur's armour.

season fifteen and GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH IS BACK BABY to engage in constant recording of arthur and merlin's exploits. the whole season is a VERY poorly conducted but nevertheless compelling debate around how "greatness" is to be "remembered" as albion crests into its age of great glory and good english hearts swell or whatever. there is no conflict until the final episode WHEN arthur is randomly stabbed by a farm boy raiding the food stores. merlin's powers are incapacitated and he dies in his arms as before, BUT NOT BEFORE, muttering and uttering the words, "i love you," sending the internet into a tailspin. sorry for doing supernatural again but it's the only way i can conceive of anything occurring, ever, for all of recorded time. just call me geoffrey of monmouth.

finally, and this is key: merlin never once apologises

[inglourious-imagines]

The Only One (Lewis Nixon)

Requested by: @dontfearthereaper-09

Summary: You're Colonel Sink's granddaughter and you're helping out with paperwork - you eventually fall in love with Lewis Nixon and start dating. However, every relationship has its ups and downs.

Prompt: a requested one - I wish I'd never met you.

Author's Note: I struggled so hard with this and I'm not proud of it at all, but hope it is what you wanted. A big thank you goes to for @alienoresimagines and her great help as always!

Taglist: @alienoresimagines @teenmagazines @meteora-fc @eugenesmorphine @band-of-brothers-cz @real-fans  @not-john-watsons-blog @tealaquinn @ok-roemanov @mrseasycompany @punkgeekchic @wexhappyxfew @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant @rayofshanshine @mavysnavy @easynix @stressedinadress @georgeluzwarmhugs @easy-company-tradition @immrsronaldspeirs @snafus-peckuh @curraheewestandalone @warrior-healer @justamadgirlinabox @happyveday

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"He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began." - Anna Karenina, L. Tolstoj

Y/N had never in her life shooted from a rifle or even held it in her innocent hands. She had never known combat, real combat, where men kill and die. She had never endured real physical pain.

And still, Y/N was standing in the middle of Camp Toccoa during the hot summer days of 1942 with a huge grin on her face. She finally persuaded her grandfather to let her join the paratroopers. Well, she was there to help out with paperwork mainly, to be there at hand for the intelligence officers, but she also managed to pull a few strings so she will be undergoing the combat training like every other soldier even though she's not allowed to go and fight in France.

The first weeks were exhausting - physically and mentally - with the combat training Y/N volunteered for. She constantly felt like she's at the verge of giving up and going home. 

But Y/N didn't and neither will she. Even though it was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life, it seemed right. This is where Y/N Sink belonged.

But thank God it wasn't just exercise, work and signing documents. One evening, when everything was finished for the day, her grandfather Sink took her with him to a certain celebration, more like an occasion to get drunk and forget that a war is going on just across an ocean. 

It was certainly the most eventful night during her stay in Camp Toccoa, Georgia. Y/N lost her grandfather nearly 10 minutes after they walked in the pub. She immediately befriended two guys - George Luz and Joe Liebgott. It seemed like they'd known each other for years. The soldiers heard all about the mysterious woman that had been helping out in their training camp weeks ago now but never really got the chance to talk to her.

George introduced her to the rest of his friends within Easy Company and they spend the night together laughing, downing shots one after another, dancing and joking around. Y/N felt relaxed and genuiely unworried that night so when they were told to break it up and get some sleep for tomorrow, it suddenly saddened her. The Easy Company boys were the most welcoming, kind and funny men Y/N'd met during her stay and she was sure that she's not gonna have a chance to talk to them like that night for a long time.

There was a soldier waiting for her outside of the pub to escort her into her room but Y/N kindly told him to fuck off and he made sure to be quickly on his way. 

So there she was again, standing under the starry night in Georgia, a warm summer breeze dancing through her hair while she struggled a bit to remain on her feet due to all the alcohol flowing in her veins. 

"Have a trouble finding your way, Miss Sink?" a deep voice filled her ears and Y/N jumped a bit on her spot as she didn't see him coming from behind.

"I'm perfectly fine, soldier." she tried to answer with a firm steady voice but a quiet giggle escaped her lips.

"I can see that. Let me help you there, Miss." he offered his help kindly, smirking. The Moon was illuminating his face making his hair appear darker than the night itself and his eyes shined like two stars up at the sky.

"I assure you, Mr Nixon, that I have no trouble at all. I can manage myself." Y/N stood behind her words but a part of her desired his gentle hand on her lower back steadying her. 

"I'm surprised you know my name." Nix laughed raising his eyebrows as he took a few steps closer to her.

"And I'm surprised it was just a can of peaches." Y/N replied boldly looking directly into his dark eyes.

They were covered in silence for a few moments but they burst out laughing in the next second earning some "shut the fuck ups" from the nearest barracks.

The duo spent the rest of the night walking around the camp as they eventually ended up in her room talking about nothing and everything. By the next morning, Y/N knew every little thing about Lewis and he knew every little thing about her. 

It was no surprise, to Easy Company boys or even his grandfather, that the two of them started dating just a couple of days after the party. Richard Winters soon payed Y/N a visit informing her how he's never seen Lew so damn happy and cheerful all the time.

•••

At the end of May, 1944 when all the preparations for D-Day were finishing, another party was thrown in honor of the paratroopers that had earned their jump wings. Y/N persaued Sink to take her to Britain with him so she was able to celebrate with all of them. 

She was a bit tipsy already because George Luz made her drink three beers and the forth was already on its way. 

Lewis Nixon glared at the duo with a bottle of whiskey in his right hand and a cigarette in the left. He watched how Y/N's lips curled into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen at something George whispered in her ear. She burst out in a hearty laugh as she touched Luz's shoulder gently and this simple action reminded Lewis the night they met for the first time. An uneasy feeling burned through his chest - it suddenly became hard to breathe. Nixon clenched the glass in his hands and he'd have break it eventually if Richard didn't shake with Lew's shoulder.

"Not now, Dick," the intellingent officer snapped immediately, "we'll talk tomorrow. I'm heading back to my room."

And with that, he stood up and walked out of the pub without any other glance toward his girlfriend. The bottle of Vat '69 was left on the table half full.

•••

"Baby? Why did you disappear so quickly?" Y/N barged in his room while he was sitting behind his desk looking out of the window absently. 

"You seemed quite happy with George." Nixon murmured quietly, he didn't even bother to turn and face her.

"What is this all about? Is there a problem?" she asked kindly moving closer to her broken soldier. The sweet tone of her voice was making it even harder than it already was.

Lewis Nixon looked at her for the first time. "I think we shouldn't be seeing each other anymore." He sounded decided, strongly convinced in his statement.

Y/N suspiciously eyed his face whereas Lewis tried to avoid her concerned look. "Is this about George?"

"No, it's not about fucking George!" Lewis raised his voice and stood up from the little chair, "you are better without me, okay? I drag you down, Y/N."

She stared at him in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about? I love you and only you, damn it!"

"You just think you do!"

Y/N's eyes began to water and when the first hot tear rolled down her cheek Nixon's heart broke into million pieces. He hated himself for hurting the most precious human being on the Earth but he had to do it. There was no other way.

"I wish you trusted me more, Lew." she breathed out reaching out to caress his cheek but changed her mind in the last second and her hand fell to her body.

Lewis pressed his eyelids tightly together forcing the coming tears stay inside of his soul. "I wish I'd never met you."

•••

The next days hit Y/N harder than her first days at Toccoa. No combat training, no amount of paperwork had ever made her feel so broken, tired and demotivated. As weird as it sounds, even after the relatively short relationship with the Easy Company intelligence officer, Lewis was a big important part of her life. He made her feel so many new emotions, he fulfilled her soul and heart like nobody else did.

And now, it was all gone.

Everyone noticed the sudden cold behaviour between Y/N and Lewis but they didn't really know what happened. Y/N brushed it off every single time when someone asked her and no one really dared to approach Nixon. 

It wasn't like the duo stopped communicating absolutely. Lewis after the argument stormed off and got drunk, he was genuiely wasted, but he also realised what a mistake he did. It was the first time Y/N told him she loved him and he was still able to make the person who cared for him the most go away.

When Y/N tried her best to avoid Nixon, he tried his best to talk to her as much as possible, every day he left her a note at her desk along with a flower and every time she accidentally glanced at him he sent her an apologetic smile.

Y/N knew her anger and hurt was slowly fading away. Lewis felt truly sorry - alcohol and jealousy wasn't really a great combination.

•••

My dearest Y/N,

I know you don't want to have anything to do with me, and I don't blame you, but there's still something I need to tell you. I'm just gonna hope that this sort of letter is not lying in the bin already.

I want you to know that I regret every single word I said that night. Clearly my jealousy and my alcoholic problem (as much as you hate me right now, please don't tell anyone I just admitted that) came in the way and I thought you're better off without me.

I'm not the perfect boyfriend, Y/N, and I never will be. I'm not funny as George, and I guarantee you there's gonna be more arguments between us. But I can assure you that no matter what happens, I will love you for the rest of my life. 

Hope you can forgive me,

I'm sorry.

With love, your Lewis

A tear soaked into the piece of paper as she pressed it to her heart. Little did Y/N know that she will love the idiot forever.