Spin The Wheel And Whoever You Get, You Have To Fight In One To One Melee Combat. You Can't Run Away.

Merlin Missing Scenes Weirdness

I re-watched the Labyrinth of Gedref episode with a friend last night and I'm obsessed with the weirdness potential of the missing scenes...

Arthur and the knights saw off the unicorn's horn while an upset Merlin looks on and idk, they leave the body behind in the woods? Seems like a waste but I guess taxidermy hadn't been invented yet.

Merlin actively ignores the rat problem.

Uther and Arthur leave Camelot to go stare at a barden field together.

Merlin spends time trying to find that really specific turn sand into water spell.

Gaius collects Merlin's bath water lol.

The rat goes to town on some tasty prince boot.

The single, anachronistic cherry tomato that Arthur leaves on his plate is eaten by the rat, probably.

Merlin straight up kills the rat, carries it around the castle, skins, cuts up and stews it for Arthur.

Gwen commits kitchen thievery under the dreaded Cook's nose. Maybe she finds Merlin there stewing the rat.

Merlin runs around the woods in circles or else he's kept out by some kind magical barrier while Arthur fights the fake thief.

Gaius catches two beetles for his and Merlin's dinner.

Uther congratulates himself that he's convinced his son to be a cartoon villain, just like his papa.

Merlin manages to impart to Arthur the conversation he had with Anhora out in the woods and it somehow goes well. Does he explain why tf he was out there alone? Gathering herbs might not be believable with all that's going on with the crops...

The vines in the labyrinth deposit Merlin onto the beach. Also Anhora ties him up.

Arthur wakes up on the beach. Just when he thinks he might have reached the afterlife Merlin appears and kisses him chews him out for being a stupid, self-sacrificing clotpole.

Merlin and Arthur learn to get along again on their long horse ride back.

The crops randomly grow back in an afternoon and somehow, in a kingdom where magic is outlawed and generally regarded with fear and suspicion, this is treated as Totally Fine and Normal, Actually™

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

Art by Rolf Mellstrom, 1916

genders in the Blue Fairy Book, ranked

7. The knight rescuing Golden Locks

Can’t complain about a Knight. Fun ears on the helmet, impractically Triangular shield, little creature companion. Also that is a delightfully deranged dragon and I feel that merits consideration.

6. The maiden with the Brown Bull of Norroway

delightfully androgynous haircut and drapey robe, an excellent excellent bull, and an even more excellent little horned creature in the shadows going 😛

5. Aladdin

10/10 gay sprawl, delightful little mustache, and extra points for the bifurcated land mermaid genie situation

4. The Master-Maid

huge bonus points for those bootie shorts and knee socks, points detracted for this not actually being a picture of the Master-Maid, but of the prince friend, because I think we can all agree that “Master-Maid” is a *chef’s kiss* gender

3. The King of the Goldmines

the cape. the third position ballet feet. the casual “oh these dragons and harpies and eagles etc I just killed? nbd” position of the sword. an icon and a legend.

2. The Fairy in Disguise

this one does need a bit of context, because that fairy in the back right is in disguise, but when the disguise comes off, it is described as “the fairy, throwing off the hermit’s robe in which she had been disguised and appearing before them”, which to me implies that she just has that beard, which I think is very neat of her

1. Prince Darling transformed into the monster

look who wouldn’t want to at once be an ethereal, flower-crowned hottie and also a chimeric monstrous beast. 10/10 no notes.

You can't blame Merlin for calling Arthur a ‘Lazy-daisy’, if this is how Arthur looks like whenever he sleeps/wakes up:

See, our first mistake was trying to have a civilization in northern Europe between October and February. The darkest three months of the year should be for staying home under the blankets, midwinter festivals, and getting blind drunk when the sun goes down at 4 pm like the bog gods intended.

I really appreciate that the Alliterative Morte Arthure is giving Kay a solid 45 lines to go full batshit mad scientist on his feast preparations, featuring

Peacocks, plovers, pork, porcupine, herons, swans, beef, wild boar, barnacle goose, young hawks in bread, cranes, curlews, rabbits

By my rough count, approximately eight different kinds of wine

On-fire blue stews ("wavy with azure sauce all over, they appeared to be flaming")

More fire: "pheasants adorned in flaming silver"

Poison-proof gold cups: ("So that if any poison should go secretly under them [in the cup],/The bright gold would burst all to pieces with anger,/Or else the poison should lose its power because of the virtue of the precious stones")

Whenever arthur gets a new bethrothed

Merlin: Gaius she's evil

Gaius: you cant say that about every woman arthur tries to marry merlin, at this point you might as well marry him yourself if none of his suitors are to your standard

Merlin already making the plague rats sew together his wedding dress like cinderella: im prepared to make that sacrifice

the lady of the lake