Mappa🧭

The first thing he did after getting out of jail was break into Hannibal’s house—implying he somehow knows how to break and enter well, and it was only Hannibal’s enhanced sense of smell that betrayed him— and hold him at gunpoint again while mocking him and grinning when he mimed cowering, even though Hannibal could’ve definitely used that to fully crush his career after all or land him right back there by telling Jack. He snaps at Zeller during the organ harvester case about the corpse in the bathtub being too crude to be the Chesapeake Ripper’s work, calling the Ripper an “artist” and often complimenting him before quickly pairing that with more negative sentiments. He worked the Ripper case pre-canon and the way he describes his mind when asked isn’t even just the Ripper— it’s a description of Hannibal’s, down to those rooms in the basement of his mind palace he keeps boarded up. The staggering depth of that insight makes me think that his excuse of “having a date with the Chesapeake Ripper” may have had more than awkward humor behind it after all, he’s clearly put a ton of dedication and effort into diving into the Ripper’s case and mindset before. He tells Bedelia her fate is sealed because he’ll free Hannibal and knows that he’ll do whatever he tells him to, kill whoever he tells him to even if it’s someone he previously saw mental and physical appeal in who was his second choice for an escape partner.

Bedelia doubts this, calling him reckless and egotistical and saying he’ll get killed alongside the rest, but there’s clearly a niggling worry that he’s right despite her knowledge of Hannibal and his fixation on supreme control that only Will supersedes. Will enjoys hurting Hannibal and is aroused by ideas of it, possessing him, being important to him, being the only one he will show mercy to, the only one he’s challenged by, the only one who throws the intense control he has over his life into disarray, bucks it and steps in to replace it. In the end it really only comes down to the question of which person is the one anyone would say seems crazier: a murderous cannibal, or someone who knew everything about the murder and cannibalism and threw their life away to own theirs not despite that, but because of it? The answer seems clear to me, at least.

AU where, before Arthur, Morgana had Guinevere first. That is, until Uther got in the way.

What do you mean Merlin will never die but the object of his devotion did??

What do you mean Merlin is still waiting for the moment he can stand next to his King??

Someone play "Would you fall in love with me Again" and leave me to weep

Ending.

Why make fanart about a 14-year-old series (since its sad and bitter conclusion)?

Because I felt like it.

No, seriously, BBC's Merlin was one of my favorite shows as a teenager and one of the first where I heavily shipped the main characters (maybe even one of my first gay ships… I was 13, understand me! Merthur always in my heart… and I think I had a mini-crush on Morgana… although I realized it sooooo much later…)

Anyway, as a professional shipper and a fan fiction lover, I'll offer you a couple of advice for some of the Merlin fan fiction on AO3 that I enjoyed the most!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/689934

"𝔄 𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔣 𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔶 𝔥𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔪𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔰 𝔦𝔱 𝔴𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔢. 𝔙𝔢𝔯𝔶 𝔰𝔬𝔬𝔫 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔩𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱."

A Merlin and an Arthur collage for the square - Art form: Black and White @merlinbingo