elisa

Why did you never tell me?

It's not like Gwaine's that old although he's def the second oldest knight but he's what 23, 24 in his first appearance? And yet he just doesn't seem young however wild he is. Maybe it's bc he's already so world weary bc i feel like him at 18 would still feel old :(

Merlin: What are you waiting for?

Arthur: To see if it's safe.

Merlin: So if I don't die, will you take yours?

Arthur: Precisely. Go for it. Well, at least we know it doesn't kill you instantly.

They’re both joking around about who’s going to drink Gaius’ potion first because they both KNOW it’s safe. Gaius wouldn’t willingly harm them, and would likely be able to reverse any effects if they were to arise. But then we compare that to this scene…

Arthur: We have to find a way to determine which goblet has the poison. And then I'll drink it.

Merlin: I will be the one to drink it.

Arthur: This is my doing. I'm drinking it.

They know that this one is completely UNSAFE, and are bickering over which one of them gets to sacrifice themselves for the other.

Ah, fanart. Also known as the art that girls make.

Sad, immature girls no one takes seriously. Girls who are taught that it’s shameful to be excited or passionate about anything, that it’s pathetic to gush about what attracts them, that it’s wrong to be a geek, that they should feel embarrassed about having a crush, that they’re not allowed to gaze or stare or wish or desire. Girls who need to grow out of it.

That’s the art you mean, right?

Sports is a fandom. It requires zealous attention to “seasons,” knowledge of details considered obscure to those not involved in that fandom, unbelievable amounts of merchandise, and even “fanfic” in the form of fantasy teams. But this is a masculine-coded fandom. And as such, it’s encouraged - built into our economy! Have you *seen* Dish network’s “ultimate fan” advertisements, which literally base selling of a product around the normalization of all consuming (male) obsession? Or the very existence of sports bars, built around the link between fans and community enjoyment and analysis. Sport fandom is so ingrained in our culture that major events are treated like holidays (my gym closes for the Super Bowl) — and can you imagine being laughed at for admitting you didn’t know the difference between Supernatural and The X Files the way you might if you admit you don’t know the rules of football vs baseball, or basketball?

“Fandom” is not childish but we live in a culture that commodified women’s time in such away that their hobbies have to be “frivolous,” because “mature” women’s interests are supposed to be marriage, family, and overall care taking: things that allow others to continue their own special interests, while leaving women without a space of their own.

The concept of fanfiction formed and forged the earliest stages of literature in Europe. Because the majority of authors in France, Germany and Great Britain looked at that funky little Celtic dude Arthur and thought “hey, he’s neat. I wanna write about him”.

The entire concept of a book outside of religious purposes was born out of fanfiction in my country.

There is no “first canon” for Arthur where he came as the prince of Camelot, with his sidekicks Lancelot and Merlin and his endgame love interest Gwen.

Arthur was some random hunter when he started out.

Someone’s fanfiction made him a prince.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him a round table.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him Merlin at his side.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him Morgana, gave him Gwen, gave him his swords.

And, to this day, we still write Arthurian fanfiction. Literally last year there was a movie adaptation that is, by all intends and purposes, fanfiction, because it wasn’t even close to a literal adaptation of the source material (The Kid Who Would Be King). Heck, BBC’s Merlin, itself an Arthurian fanfiction, remains one of the biggest fandoms that people today write for on AO3.

You were a joke in the middle ages if you tried to write your own stuff. Who’s interested in your stuff? You were only a respected author if you wrote fanfiction. The most famous medieval German authors are famous because they wrote fanfiction about some knightly OCs they created who served on Arthur’s court. That is the literary legacy of the middle ages. Arthurian fanfiction.

Yet somewhere along the way, this concept of “I find x story/element cool and want to elaborate on it more, shift the focus onto an aspect of this original source material” has gotten this “eh, it’s fanfiction” connotation and lost respect.

Even though this very concept is still being used - even outside of the actual medium of fanfiction - and it is still being used for the very same purpose it was used for in medieval times. Original movies often don’t get as much recognition as adaptations of existing source material that the audience is familiar with. People see a movie about a character they’re familiar with and seem more inclined to buy a ticket to see the 10th new interpretation of Batman or Superman or Snow White. How are these new interpretations of familiar source material that usually add to the lore, reinterpret characterizations and dynamics, any different from fanfiction?

prestigious historical ‘original’ literature? All of it was influenced by something that came before it - paradise lost (a lucifer’s pov of what happened in the garden of eden), romeo and juliet (a famous play on a ballad of two young, star crossed lovers) and the three musketeers (a book based on another book the author never returned from the library: Mémoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan)

Every single piece of historical literature we have, is quite literally, fanfiction. Even the oldest ones? They were just Built upon folk stories and were also influenced by culture over centuries. They kept evolving and changing over time, and people kept adding to them - leaving their own special mark on the stories they’d heard around them for years.

Lancelot was a self insert character by a french author in the crusade eras, his love for Guinevere once seen as noble; was, in a few centuries, seen as something horrible and ‘unholy’. In the christianised retellings, Lancelot was not allowed to see the holy grail.

Everything’s been influenced by one thing or another, people cutting and changing parts of the story to fit their own interpretation, like a beautiful and rich collage of people’s thoughts and mindsets. Although one may not agree with all of them (and how should you? Everyone is so very different, ideas will always clash) it’s important to see how much people’s own take on stories have affected them over the years.

Bless you Tom!

Look at your kids :

Rest in peace.

Quest 02 : Let Leon Live!