women in PHLEGM (poetry, history, language, english literature, ghost stories, music)
Golden Age King Arthur accidentally gets sent back in time to the beginning of his reign. While making his way to Camelot hoping to find Merlin and figure out how to get back to his own time he runs into Agravaine making his own way to Camelot for the first time. Knowing he was a traitor working for Morgana in his own timeline, Arthur kills him and decides to take his place. No one had seen Agravaine since Ygraine's death, there were no portraits of him in the castle, and Arthur's premature greying hair has to be good for something other than Merlin calling him a silver fox. He can pass as his own uncle and be the caring advisor that young him deserved damn it!
Sliding my timely fic into the reblogs here. Credit for the prompt goes to @futurepastme
Love Hold You 'til the Morning Sun
https://archiveofourown.org/works/61994113/chapters/158533081
Teen and Up | No archive warnings
At the whims of his magic and the demands of the world's various turnings, sleep never came easily to Merlin, that is, until he met Arthur.
Or
Lifelong insomniac Merlin discovers that he sleeps better next to Arthur, and better still in his arms.
You cannot convince me that Merlin and Arthur didn’t cuddle on trips through the forest. Like come on, Arthur literally sleeps holding his pillows and you cannot convince me Merlin doesn’t run cold in his sleep. There’s no way they didn’t cuddle, even if they didn’t mean too, they definitely woke up curled around each other. They never spoke about it, but it just got to the point where they’d place their cots right next to each other because they knew they’d end up snuggling at some point through the night.
Why I Should Have a Dragon (a personal hypothetical philosophy in zine format)
Now that I have small captive audience and 2024 is ending, please find hereunder my favourite new song from this year, Seven Years Below the Flowers by Luki. It's fun, it's wonky, it's high fantasy and it's so very worth a listen
Okay audience, you're free to go
Nooo Tragic Cosmic Solarpunk Jesus whhy 😭!!
Amazing art for one of my microfics, thank you so much @merthurotica 🥺!
Not to Merlin-post in the year of our Lord 2024, but I love Gwen as a character. She goes through too much honestly. She deserves such a good life and so much love. I want to see a spin off show about Gwen's reign as queen because that would be awesome.
FULFILLING THE GREAT PROPHECY
I was always frustrated because I felt like the "Arthur is going to be this great king and unite Albion" thing never came to pass or only kind of did sparingly BUT maybe it's that thing with prophecies where they come to pass in unexpected ways.
So maybe the great prosperity and uniting of Albion happens because of Gwen's peaceful, fair, and progressive reign, which technically happens because Arthur made the choice to marry when she was a commoner. She wouldn't have been on the throne otherwise. I'm calling it. I believe she would be a freaking great queen. With her empathy and intelligence and bravery? Hell yeah!
It's very likely that she had the guts to finally lift the ban on magic during her reign (and all that entails) which Arthur was never able to do because he had trouble /didn't have the chance to work through the negative feeling about magic that had been instilled in him by his father. Merlin was never able to push him to do so because he became too entrenched in supporting the current power structures because he was blinded by his love for and devotion to Arthur. Maybe they could have gotten there in time (there are hints of that), but instead the revelation is made inadvertently and the end of the show happens before they cross that boundary. That's one of the great tragedies of the show. It painfully demonstrates how power corrupts and people can be forced to try to work within a system that is actively harming them, especially when they love and believe in the people entrenched in that system.
Maybe Morgana had a twisted sixth sense about this too because she's peculiarly focused on Gwen being queen for a lot of reasons (SHE EVEN HAS VISIONS ABOUT IT).
Anyway, I'm sure someone has said this before.
Thoughts?
She/Her | 31 | Herbal Tea EnthusiastInterested in: hurt/comfort, fairytale retellings and folkloreCurrently down an Arthurian rabbitholeLeMightyWorrier on Ao3
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