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Plot twist: Ed Sheeran has been Sir Leon this entire time
As an apology for my last post, here’s a better edit of Leon :)
He’s just finished taking over Camelot xx
Here, have this picture I edited of Leon being eaten by a snake which I made instead of writing an essay due for tomorrow 🤗
Poor Sir Leon :(
gaius, politely informing uther that his wife is a troll: she also has, what appears to be, a set of fangs.
sir leon the long-suffering, also very politely: i wouldn't so much as call them fangs
gaius:
uther:
leon: they're more like tusks.
LEON SWEETHEART YOU ARE A GEM
My absolute favourite trope in Merlin fanfic is when they all find out about Merlin’s magic and Arthur is brooding or feigning annoyance but truly doesn’t care, Elyan and Gwaine are asking so many questions because they’re so intrigued and need to know absolutely everything and somehow aren’t surprised in the slightest, Leon is weary but slowly indulges in the conversation, eyeing Arthur every so often because he’s nervous to display such behaviours about magic in front of his King but he still knows Arthur would never touch Merlin even if he was afraid and Percival is just so confused because he thought everyone already knew and just refused to speak about it
Merlin: It’s not that big of a deal. we don’t have to speak about it.
Elyan: Oh, no we absolutely do!
Gwaine: Yeah, c’mon Merlin, show us something cool, like money falling from the sky, or a pint in my hand, right now, come on.
Elyan: Can you really do that?
Merlin: *Sarcastically* If it’ll get Gwaine to shut up.
Arthur: Oh, so you can pour Gwaine a pint in the middle of the woods but you can’t clean my chambers?
It goes silent for a few moments, Merlin wonders if now is the right time for a joke but Arthur’s brow is furrowed and through the light of the fire he can see the firm press of lips on his face, he decides now is not the time. Gwaine rolls his eyes from across the flame before them.
Gwaine: He’s just saved all our arses, can you be grateful for two minutes?
Leon: Gwaine-
Merlin: He has every right to be upset-
Arthur: Do not address me as if i’m not even here, you owe me that at least.
There’s a tense silence as Merlin’s hand stills where it pokes at the fire with a stick, Leon eyes the King cautiously and Percival fiddles, wide eyed, with the frayed edges of his tunic. Merlin sighs and focuses again on the fire, it’s the only heat he can find.
Gwaine: What kind of things can you do?
Merlin is hesitant to answer but Elyan looks at him expectantly and even Leon has turned his attention to him now, seemingly awaiting either an answer from the servant or an order from his King.
Merlin: I- I can do small things like move stuff around, tell a broom to sweep or a rag to clean.
He thinks that’s enough but by the excited look in Gwaine and Elyan’s eyes it isn’t.
Merlin: I can light fires, fell trees, sense a nearby threat, anything… really.
Gwaine: That’s so cool
Arthur: So you could’ve been useful this entire time and you chose not to be.
There’s another lull as Arthur picks apart leaves and tosses them into the fire but as Leon speaks up even Arthur turns his gaze.
Leon: How long have you been able to do all this?
It’s hardly an innocent question but Leon’s tone is honest and Merlin cannot feel cornered by his words.
Merlin: Since birth.
Arthur: Lies.
Elyan: Is that possible?
Gwaine: What?
Leon: Is that all you can do? Move things? Will them to your command?
Now that question is loaded even if Leon means no ill will. Merlin swallows, he nods.
Merlin: Yes
Leon: What else can you command?
Merlin: The seas
Arthur: A mermaid are you, now?
Merlin: The trees and the ground.
Arthur: A nymph perhaps?
Merlin: The skies
Arthur: Now you’re just being absurd-
Merlin: Lighting.
Merlin cuts in quickly. He was never proud of it, bringing the bolt down so harshly and eradicating the sorceress to nothing but a pile of smouldering ash but Arthur will find out one way or another. Banishment or pyre he will make sure Arthur hears of his crimes before he goes.
Merlin: Nimue. I killed her. A bolt straight through her body. There was nothing left.
The group maintains their silence for a few moments and Arthur finally turns to look at Merlin for the first time since they’d stopped to make camp
Arthur: Prove it.
Merlin: Sire-
Arthur: Don’t call me that and prove it.
Merlin: Why? Hoping i’ll mess it all up and strike myself down? Save you the trouble of building the pyre?
Arthur: If I wanted you dead you wouldn’t be speaking so stop moping, get off your arse and prove. It.
Merlin doesn’t need to get up because the second Arthur stops talking Merlin’s eyes are sparking gold and the sky erupts in a violent flash of colour. tendrils of brilliant white crack the darkness apart, coating the forest in a momentary burst of day before the light fades and in its wake leaves behind the fading outline of the Pendragon crest in the forks of dying white.
The group remains still, staring upwards at the now pitch black sky before Elyan is laughing out loud and Gwaine is excitedly smacking Leon beside him.
Gwaine: Oh my god, we could do so much. We could strike Lord Harold down and he wouldn’t even know what hit him-
Arthur: shut up, Gwaine
Arthur is still staring at the sky and Leon speaks from beside him.
Leon: Forgive me for asking, ignore me next time
The Knight is almost blushing in his place and Merlin manages a small huff of laughter at that before he resumes poking at the fire but his moment of silence is inturpeted
Arthur: Sir Percival, you’ve been unusually quiet. Please, what are your opinions on all of this.
Arthur seems pissed off, but not in an angry way, more of an i’ve been outvoted and i’m not happy about it way. Percival shrugs, picking away at the skin of nails like he has no idea what this conversation could possibly be about.
Arthur: Percival?
Percy: Mhh hmm.
Arthur raises an eyebrow. Percival stares back at him.
Percy: Yes, Sire?
Arthur: Don’t play dumb with me.
Percy: I don’t know what you mean, sire.
There’s a moment , a beat, barely a second.
Gwaine: You knew?!?!!!?!???!?
Elyan: You sly bastard!
Leon: oh lord-
Percy: I didn’t, I swear-
Arthur: Percival-
Merlin: How-
Percy: I THOUGHT WE ALL KNEW-
Gwaine: WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT-
Elyan: HOW WOULD WE HAVE KNOWN-
Leon: Kill me.
Percy: IT WAS SO OBVIOUS-
Merlin: HANG ON-
GWAINE: WHY WOULD’NT YOU TELL ME?
Elyan: Gwen’s going to be so pissed off she missed this
Gwaine: I THOUGHT WE WE’RE FRIENDS-
Merlin: HOW WAS IT OBVIOUS-
Percy: WE ARE, I JUST THOUGHT WE WEREN’T ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT
Leon: please lord,
ELYAN: WHY WOULD’NT WE BE ALLOWED TO- Oh, no, wait, yeah got it, continue.
Percy: I THOUGHT YOU WERE ALL AWARE AND JUST NEVER MENTIONED IT CAUSE IT WAS SUCH A CASUAL THING THATS WHY I WOULD ALWAYS GIVE YOU A CLAP ON THE BACK AFTER AN AMBUSH OR-
Merlin: I THOUGH IT WAS CAUSE I DIDN’T DIE
Leon: Finish me off
Percy: YEAH, CAUSE YOU SAVED US. WITH MAGIC
Leon: I beg of you
ELyan: Holy shit-
Gwaine: Have we really been that blind?
Percival shrugs and Merlin still looks at him like he’s just betrayed his entire blood line.
Leon: Please, it would be the kind thing to do
Elyan: What?
Leon: What?
Gwaine: Did you tell him?
Merlin: Why would i tell him?
Percy: ouch.
Arthur: Percival.
Everyone pauses, Leon stops praying to a deity he does not believe in and Merlin stops looking so offended but Gwaine and Elyan still hold that child like wonder in their eyes.
Arthur: I’m not entirely sure what to threaten you with right now but I will think of something and trust me you’re going to wish you were never born.
Gwaine: Fair do’s, that
Percy: So Merlin gets away scot free but not me?
Merlin: OI-
Arthur: Oh, i’m not even started with you.
Gwaine: Oh, c’mon princess, don’t act like you didn’t have even the slightest hunch.
Arthur’s head spins at a pace that’s frankly alarming to look over at Gwaine. He narrow his eyes like he was lining up his next arrow for loosening. There’s another beat before Gwaine’s eyes widen
Gwaine: OH MY GOD YOU DID-
Then Arthur is launching forward, over the fire and it takes the four others an hour to get Arthur to release the impossible grip he has on Gwaine’s hair and another two to get Gwaine to apologise for the black eye now blooming on the King’s face.
Arthur: There's no way he likes me back.
Leon: Merlin would throw himself in front of a moving car for you.
Arthur: Merlin would throw himself in front of a moving car for fun.
i’ve never posted anything, ever. but i have a headcanon so…
OKAY this might have already been written in the vestiges and nooks of the never-dying, long-suffering BBC’s Merlin fandom. And it has definitely been thought but
Arthur heals a lot faster than others - whether it’s from sickness or minor wounds and injuries. Merlin canonically SUCKS at healing spells but tries to do what he can when he sees Arthur wounded and he’s like helping him change and stuff or putting gauze on it.
Also im a strong believer in the fact that Merlin is Emrys and has an insane, unlimited supply of magic so he could definitely learn healing spells. I’d think at some point he’d start learning them to heal Arthur faster but in a way that it wasn’t suspicious, not like “oh i had a massive scar cut into my arm and now it’s suddenly gone” but more like “huh that healed quicker than i thought it would”
Also I’d like to think Leon notices that Arthur heals quicker but doesn’t comment on it.
Since my last modern au idea was a hit, here's another one!
In this au, old man Merlin's still waiting on Arthur by the shore of Avalon, even in the 21st century. He's mostly isolated, but occasionally ventures out into the nearby town to buy groceries and chat with some of the locals.
It's on one of these trips that he hears something he wasn't expecting to: apparently the BBC is making a show about him and Arthur, and the first season has been pretty popular.
Intrigued by this, Merlin does some digging (and watches the first season of the show), and he finds out that the BBC are casting for some minor characters to add for the second season. And, seeing as how Arthur probably isn't waking up any time soon, Merlin decides to brush off his old shapeshifting skills and audition for the show, figuring that he'd get a good laugh out of it at the very least.
Sure enough, the casting directors loved his audition, and he was added into the show as a minor character with a few guest appearances throughout the season. And his name?
Leon.
(And Merlin then convinced that directors to not kill off his character under any circumstances, just for the fun of it.)
In case anyone was wondering about the context, this was 100% Leon reporting to the Round Table about these very important misleading statistics while Mr. Magics Georg himself stood right behind him!
"The average citizen of Camelot has committed treason" factoid is actualy just a statistical error. The average citizen of Camelot has never committed treason against the crown. Magics Georg, who commits treason every single second by simply existing, is an outlier adn should not be counted.
I am once again pushing my agenda that the druids could bypass the "Life for a Life" requirement with the cup of life if they had the power and support of a god for the ritual. I have two ideas about how this would go:
I would like to think that one of the gods of the old religion looked at Leon and said "Man, you know what would be even better than killing one of Uther's head knights? Forcing him to live for-fucking-ever and denying him the sweet release of death!" And then the god punished Leon by transferred all of the years that Leon's victim during the Purge should have lived (had their lives not been cut short) onto Leon. Needless to say, that's a LOT of years.
The Druids were like "Hey, isn't this guy chill with Emrys? Maybe we should call him in." And they called upon Emrys's power to keep Leon alive, unbeknownst to Merlin. So now, Merlin's endless magic is what keeps Leon alive, leading to his immortality.
Still wondering who died for Sir Leon when the druids saved him with the cup of life. 👀
Ah yes, I love my favorite cockroach man, ✨Sir Leon✨!
im aware this is an insane thing to say but i fucking. love characters that are just cockroaches. and i dont mean like. gross i mean they just do not fucking die. they can survive anything. they will outlive EVERYONE because they just will not die no matter what be it because they have a reason or because they literally cannot stop surviving the odds i love it i love it
Hello everyone! I've (finally) finished the latest chapter of "What to do When an Eldritch God Decides that You're Friend-Shaped: A Guide by Sir Leon the Long-Suffering"!
Here's the link if you want to check it out, and feel free to let me know what you think! 😊
If any of the knights possessed a single observant brain cell, Merlin would be in a lot of trouble lol!
I absolutely love this, it's giving me some ideas!
What if magic, the ambient natural magic of the world, loved Arthur? It recognizes Arthur as its own creation, destined to be with its physical form one day. So, even before Merlin and Arthur met, the magic of the world loved Arthur, knowing what he would one day become to Merlin.
As Arthur grows up, the magic that exists around Camelot aids him in whatever way it can. It can't do much without a sorcerer harnessing and guiding it, but it can influence the world around it in subtle ways, with a conveniently placed root tripping over an attacker here, or a branch falling from a tree there. Nothing that couldn't just be written off as good luck, but it happens so frequently for Arthur that he assumes that it's normal. After all, he's never known anything else.
So, when Merlin finally arrives and takes Arthur's protection into his own hands, Arthur doesn't notice anything amiss. Tree branches fall and knock out bandits all the time, that's just what always happens. His opponents, no matter how experienced, trip over roots. That's just the way it goes, nothing out of the ordinary.
So, when Leon tries to explain to Arthur that no, your attackers suddenly being rendered unconscious is not normal, Arthur doesn't buy it.
When Leon tries to prove it to Arthur the next time bandits attack, Leon's opponent is succinctly tripped over by a root and crushed by a falling tree. Leon just stands there in shock, while Arthur walks over like "See, I told you so! That's always what happens during fights! It always has."
And Leon's just standing there trying to figure out a) what the actual fuck just happened and b) how his king was such an oblivious dumbass.
Meanwhile, Merlin's laughing his ass off in the background.
*after battle*
Leon: Something strange is going on. During that fight a tree just... fell on one of the bandits when he was about to kill me
Arthur: Don't be ridiculous, trees and buildings and chandeliers fall on people I'm fighting all the time. It's normal
Leon: What?
Merlin: Hey look a distraction!
This poll has me on the edge of my seat! I'm sorry, I love Leon a lot, but Merlin has to win this one! I have to spread some Merlin propaganda here!
He's so cute in the earlier seasons and don't get me started on season 5 buff Merlin! Leon's good-looking, but he doesn't have a "Really? Get out." moment like Merlin does. I mean look at this man!
Please, he can't lose in the first round! 😭
THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE
Sir Leon, BBC’s Merlin (2008-2012) Portrayed by: Rupert Young
“Camelot's loyalist and hottest knight. He was with Arthur from the beginning and stood by him throughout (even when Merlin started teaching him poetry). Leon the long-suffering deserves to be recognized in his own right for the tall, wavy-locked master of the sword that he is.”
Merlin, BBC’s Merlin (2008-2012) Portrayed by: Colin Morgan
“He looks like a fae for four out of five seasons of Merlin. You look at him and he's the definition of PRETTY. Full lips and long eyelashes and killer cheekbones and the bluest of blue eyes and dark hair and a profile that makes you want to take up painting and delicate wrists and he is SO!!!!!!!!!!! Pretty as a picture I swear. And he is so cute!!!!! But he can also be deadly!!! He smiles and he looks like a ray of sunshine!!! And he has dimples!!!!! But then he gets angry and he's suddenly so hot!!!! And he also has that Victorian Maiden Effect in that he's always, always covered up, and as soon as he takes his neckerchief off you go GASP!!!!! Neck!!!!! Collarbones!!!!! Oh!!!!!!!!! And THEN!!!!!! You watch season five and he is still pretty but he's also suddenly got SHOULDERS and ARMS and a BROAD CHEST and you go uh???????? When did this happen????? And yeah, suddenly he's a bit of a hunk and your brain short circuits a bit. A tiny bit. A tiny big bit. You'll never recover.”
For Sir Leon:
“This man. Cannot die. He was originally supposed to be toasted in his first appearance like every other redshirt knight in Merlin, but he was so hot and cool, and fans loved him so much they kept bringing him back and even made him a supporting lead.”
[Gifset]
[Gifset]
For Merlin:
“asjgljgsakldghajskldghajkslhgaksjghalskjdh cheekbones”
[Gifset]
[Gifset]
[Gifset]
[Gifset]
“look at the dimples - and the cheekbones - even if he weren't the world's most powerful warlock he'd deserve to win for looking so beautiful through all the tragedy”
Hello everyone! I (finally) finished the next chapter of "What to Do When an Eldritch God Decides that You're Friend-Shaped: A Guide by Sir Leon the Long-Suffering"! I've given Leon lots of pain and character development, so check it out if you're interested! I hope you all enjoy this new chapter! :D
Also, I saw that part 2 of the "Merlin accidentally conquers Camelot" au won the continuation poll, so I'll be working on that soon! Until next time!
The first bonus scene for the "Archeologist Merlin and Immortal Camelot" story has been posted on ao3! This is the first of three bonus scenes that will serve as the epilogue for the story! In this bonus scene, the noble Knights of the Round Table embark on a brave quest to find an elusive magical artifact for Merlin: the treasured "grant"! (And ignore any banks they rob along the way!)
I hope you all like this new chapter! :D
I'll be finishing up and posting my Lancelot au idea in the next few days!
See you all again soon!
New chapter of my main project, which features an eldritch Merlin befriending Leon, has been posted! I hope you enjoy it! :D