Merlinktober Day 11 (on Day 15): To Bear Golden Fruit For A Golden Age

women keep coming up to me giggling and blushing and running their finger along the edge of my mighty greatsword like STOP theres literally evil afoot

Eugene gets me

arthurian gothic

there is scratching in the woods. they tell you it is the questing beast. you’ve never seen the questing beast. you don’t even know what it is.

a knight introduces himself. he is a cousin of gawain. you have never heard of him, but no one thinks anything of it.

there is something wrong with the lake. everyone whispers that there is something wrong with the lake. no one will say what.

everyone keeps telling you the queen is the most beautiful woman in the world, but you can’t get past her eyes. they are dead.

there are footsteps in the hall. there are always footsteps in the hall. there are not always people.

you have never seen the king. some say he is the man in velvet. some say he is a war hero. some say he is a sad old man. he is a roman, someone tells you. another one insists angrily that he is a knight. a third says he is gone.

no one sits in one of the chairs at the round table. you ask if you can sit down. a knight crosses himself.

you are on a horse. you can’t remember how long you’ve been riding. “where are we going?” you ask. “on a quest.” it is always a quest.

the queen is no longer the most beautiful woman in the world. there is another girl, under the pavilion in the forest. her eyes are black.

the red coat of arms on the back of a chair has been removed. there is a different coat of arms, now, and a new knight sits. no one remembers the old one.

castle carbonek is beautiful, they tell you, but be careful. you see a door cracked open. the light that streams through blinds you.

you are speaking with a woman who insists she is elaine, but you know better. elaine was a different woman yesterday. all the women are elaine.

you see a telescope in the castle. you are confused. you have never seen anything like it, but they insist it has been here since the time of the romans.

one of the knights is missing. you ask what has happened, but all anyone will tell you is that it was a fit of madness. he is back the next day.

there is blood on the rose bushes outside the queen’s window. they are trampled.

everyone wears black in may. you ask why everyone is wearing black. no one answers.

just finished my rewatch of all five seasons of bbc's merlin, and my sister and i decided it would be fun to keep count of how many times merlin saved arthur's life throughout the show, so here is an accumulated list:

(disclaimer: it is absolutey possible that we weren't always watching attentively and that we might have missed a case or two, but i like to believe that it is kinda accurate)

times arthur would have died if merlin hadn't saved him

• 1x01: dagger thrown at arthur ⟶ merlin slowed down time to pull arthur out of the way

• 1x02: snakes supposed to poison arthur ⟶ merlin exposes the snakes and arthur kills them

• 1x04: poisoned cup ⟶ merlin drinks from it instead

• 1x05: a griffin attacks them ⟶ lancelot fights it, and merlin enchants his sword/spear so that it’ll work

• 1x07: arthur is to be sacrificed to the sidhe ⟶ merlin saves him

• 1x10: ealdor gets attacked, including arthur, and they’re doomed ⟶ merlin creates a huge wind gust to save everyone

• 1x13: questing beast attacks arthur ⟶ merlin kills it

• 1x13: questing beast bites arthur, the poison is fatal ⟶ merlin gets water from the cup of life to save him

• 2x01: arthur gets attacked by a huge boar (?) ⟶ merlin uses magic on a crossbow to save him 

• 2x01: camelot gets attack by living stone statues ⟶ merlin destroys them

• 2x02: assassin tries to kill arthur during a tournament on horses ⟶ merlin uses magic to make the assassin fall off his horse

• 2x12: dead stone statue thingies attack arthur and his knights ⟶ merlin uses magic to make the ceiling cave in and pulls arthur to his side, separating them from the statue thingies

• 2x13: arthur's wounds are getting worse ⟶ merlin finds balinor in time and has him help him (HONORARY MENTION)

• 3x04: arthur gets attacked (again) ⟶ merlin uses magic to save him (again)

• 3x07: morgause tries to kill arthur with a fire beam ⟶ merlin uses magic to make the fire beam explode before it reaches arthur

• 3x08: arthur gets attacked by wyverns ⟶ merlin uses his dragonlordness to stop them

• 3x08: arthur wears the eye of the phoenix bracelet (sucking life-force out of someone) ⟶ merlin takes it off him

• 3x12: arthur gets shot by a poisoned arrow ⟶ merlin uses magic to help him, then brings him to gaius

• 3x13: an army of immortal deads attacks camelot ⟶ merlin empties the cup of life of their blood to “kill” them all

• 4x01: dorochas attack arthur ⟶ merlin pushes arthur out of the way to get attacked instead

• 4x04: their food gets poisoned ⟶ merlin uses magic to save them

• 4x05: arthur fights in a duel and is about to be striked down ⟶ merlin makes the opponent’s sword fall out of his hands with magic

• 5x01: arthur and their men get attacked by morgana’s men ⟶ merlin saves arthur and gets them away from the battle

• 5x04: arthur almost got beheaded by odin ⟶ merlin created an earthquake with magic to stop that

• 5x06: dark tower traps ⟶ merlin parries an arrow with magic

• 5x07: arthur gets poisoned ⟶ merlin saves him with magic

• 5x08: someone wants to shoot an arrow at arthur ⟶ merlin attacks the shooter and saves arthur

• 5x11: kara tried to stab arthur ⟶ merlin uses magic to save him

and the one time he fails: 5x13, mordred stabs arthur with a sword forged on a dragon’s breath — merlin doesn’t get him to avalon in time

which brings us to a total of 27.5 times that merlin has saved arthur's life throughout the show

we also kept track of all the times arthur saved merlin's life, so here is that list:

• 1x03: merlin tells uther he is a sorcerer to save gwen (which would’ve gotten him a death sentence) ⟶ arthur convinces his father that merlin is lying out of love for gwen

• 1x04: merlin drank from a poisoned cup ⟶ arthur gets the antidote for him

• 1x11: arthur drinks poison so that merlin won’t have to ⟶ it was actually a sleeping draft though (HONORARY MENTION)

• 1x13: questing beast attacks ⟶ arthur pulled merlin out of the way

• 2x12: dead stone statue thingy attacks merlin ⟶ arthur strikes it down

• 4x01: a dorocha flies towards merlin ⟶ arthur pushes him out of the way

• 4x08: the lamia was about to kill merlin ⟶ arthur comes in at just the right time

which brings us to a total of 6.5 times that arthur saved merlin's life

it's kind of crazy to me to compare it like this, because on the one hand 27 near-death experiences across 65 episodes doesn't really sound like a lot. but at the same time i can't believe that arthur would have died 27 times if it hadn't been for merlin. and to think that arthur only saved merlin's life 6 times though?? oof

on my next rewatch, my sister and i want to make a list of all the moments that contributed to arthur's death (a so-called "doom list" with moments like merlin poisoning morgana in 2x13 etc), but that one is definitely going to be more subjective, since it'll be based on things that we think could've prevented arthur's death if they had gone any different

very excited to debate all the things that could go on that one!

The horror of Eric Carle

Becoming a dad has really been a reminder of all the half-forgotten books that got me interested in horror: the ones that I will definitely share with my kid (The Minpins) and the ones that I probably won't (Not Now, Bernard)

And then there's Eric Carle, and now it's all coming flooding back - the very first time in my life that I experienced terror. Seriously, what the fuck is this?

Carle's most famous book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is in its own way uneasy and strange (the caterpillar's voracious and growing hunger is presented ambiguously both as an unavoidable and natural process of change and something greedy and grotesque; the caterpillar appears to devour its own place-of-birth and then feels good about it) but it flies under the radar by being very unCarle-like. The caterpillar is largely tiny and cute, we get plenty of colourful close-ups of tasty-looking food, and there are only two pages and a cover which feature Carle's favourite preoccupation: giant animals with irregular, scissor-cut eyes staring unhappily at the reader as they threaten to grow larger than the page itself.

I genuinely remember feeling deeply unnerved by Carle's first major piece of illustration work, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, written with Bill Martin Jr., but only now do I understand why. Holy shit, I have so many questions.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I see a red bird looking at me.

Why is the rhyme-scheme so frantic and breathless, like it's being chanted out during an escalating ritual somewhere deep in the forests? Why are the animals - textured via collage as if half-carved from wood themselves - staring directly at us, the audience, before then revealing that they're actually looking behind us at something else which is staring back at them in turn? Why do so many of the animals look so fearful and haunted as they acknowledge the vast web of visibility which exists between them?

Why does the 'white dog' page - perhaps the only-genuinely-friendly-looking animal - briefly plunge us into night-time, creating the impression that these creatures are somehow watching each other across spans of time and space, when Carle is fully capable of just drawing an outline around the dog?

Why is the teacher's neck extending like a xenomorph's tongue as she glares with narrowed eyes down at the children (what horrible act have they caught her doing?) Why is the cover of follow-up Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear clearly depicting a Tuunbaq stalking the reader?

What seems remarkable and bizarre is that Carle, a talented artist, deliberately chooses to draw animals for infant readers which are neither cute nor charming but which consistently embody the internet joke about hares - feral wilderness prophets who've glimpsed the truth of the universe and gone mad - and has made a stunningly successful career out of doing so.

Carle's beasts know something terrible that they do not fully understand, and which they are incapable of sharing with us.

I'll avoid the crass temptation to draw serious biographical inferences here (Carle believed he had PTSD from an adolescence spent in Nazi Germany, and his works were inspired by his childhood walks with his father, who returned home psychologically shattered by his own experiences as a Soviet prisoner-of-war) and just say that there is something wonderful, awful and innocent in the fact that perhaps the most popular baby-book artist of all time, when asked to draw a goldfish, would respond with what is clearly a monstrous open-mouthed leviathan rising up from black depths to devour us all.

Look at this horrible fucking thing. It rocks.

Armored whump

- The heavy clunk of a Whumpee in armor brought to their knees.

- A sword slammed into the ground in an attempt to keep themself from falling right over.

- Arms trembling as they try to keep themself up, the weight of their armor pushing them further down, bearing on their bruises.

- They're already succumbing to gravity. They're panting, barely holding on, leaning heavily on their sword, or their staff, their lance.

- Making the effort to use it to push themself to their feet again, pulling the sword back out of the ground, swooshing their lance as they find the strength for another round.

- The sound of a sword clanking against stone when it's twirled out of their grip or when they no longer have the strength to hold it.

- A sword kicked away. Or worse, a heavy boot crunching down on it just as Whumpee manages to close a hand around the hilt.

- The soft clinking sounds of defeat drawing nearer when the enemy approaches slowly, fully aware Whumpee is already defeated. Metal crunches with each step. Armor jingles with his soft movements, when he crouches down in front of Whumpee.

- The tip of a sword scratching along over metal, teasing over their chest plates until it finally finds the weak spot of the armor and slowly pushes through.

- Also, armor is heavy :) Give me exhausted armored characters, dragging themself along. They are supposed to stay ahead of the rest, be their shield... but every battle and by now every step has been wearing on them. And it won't take long before they'll just collapse.

Amazing art for one of my microfics, thank you so much @merthurotica 🥺!

do yall know about this

imagine being the cuck in ur own story for centuries and then all it takes is a magic twink with drinkable eyes and all of a sudden there’s thousands of stories where you’re the main love interest, getting it in every which way. happened to my friend arthur pendragon