A slightly angsty Merthur fic idea/ mini fic where a magic reveal goes slightly wrong, and Merlin and Arthur are captured by bandits. Things are still raw between both of them—think of their interactions in Diamond of the Day—but they’re stuck together anyway. They’ll have to depend on each other to escape (they will, but angst first).

The bandits know that Merlin has magic and give him cold iron shackles so he can’t use it. Worse, their leader is bragging how much coin they’ll get if they hand over their new sorcerer (Merlin) to Cenred.

Merlin’s fate seems to be uncertain: even if he escapes with Arthur, Arthur could still have him arrested for magic. Or he could end up being forced to fight for Cenred. (I think it’s headcanon that known sorcerers are forced to serve Cenred in Essetir and that’s partially why Merlin had gone to Camelot in the first place.)

So, as soon as they’re alone (in a cell or tied to trees away from the bandit camp), Merlin asks Arthur to kill him. (He would rather die than serve Cenred, and he knows execution probably awaits him in Camelot anyway.)

Arthur is obviously horrified that Merlin would ask him to do that. He asks why.

Merlin doesn’t bring up that he doesn’t really see a way out of this for himself. But he answers honestly: he doesn’t want his magic to be used as a weapon. (Merlin feels no loyalty to Uther, but he has no wish to harm Camelot or anyone else. *cue Nobody’s Soldier by Hozier*)

His answer is what brings Arthur to look at him fully again—stranger and friend, sorcerer and servant. (Basically Arthur goes from not recognizing the Merlin he thought he knew, to realizing he’s the same fool he’s always known.)

They escape later, and there’s much for Arthur to relearn about his friend, but they work together to bring magic back

the name "theresa" is so funny like. theres a what

de naam 'eris' is zo grappig. er is wat?

Navnet "erik" er så spøgst. Han er ik hvad?

الإسم فيفي مهضوم كتير. في في شو؟

Göran är också kul. Gör han vadå?

tuomas tapani karhu on hassu nimi. tuomasta pani siis mikä?

Hey what happened to tht tower yall were building?

Ho, tiu afero estas tute fikita.

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

This is a good thing to keep in mind! It is often and unfortunate that a really good fic doesn’t get love because its formatting makes it too difficult to read!

I think I figured out why this happens!

AO3's posting form has two modes: Rich Text and HTML. the vast majority of people write in Rich Text editors, aka any normal word processing software (MS Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, what have you). but when you first open it, the posting form opens in HTML view. if you paste formatted text into HTML view, it erases every piece of formatting, including paragraph spacing.

this is an easy fix. when you go to post your fic, make sure the posting form looks like this:

ALT

not like this:

ALT

and please spread the word! this is an important piece of computer literacy that nobody is teaching to the new generations and they deserve to know

Oh, if you're posting by copying from tumblr and pasting to AO3, use Rich Text. It'll keep the paragraph spacing. If you don't, you get the jammed up version.

Just want to add, if you post in HTML you can still go in there and add line breaks/paragraph breaks.

Sometimes I have to adjust the breaks in rich text, too. Point is you don't have to leave a wall of text as-is. You can fix that before posting. Please do!

evangelicals being like "god made men to do This and be like This and women to do That and be like That that's just how it is" and it's just a picture of a white man and woman following traditional gender norms makes me so insane like you boring fascist fucks. god made 2 million species of beetles. god made whales, ducks, humans, and 1500 other species capable of same sex behavior. god made fish and amphibians that change sexes. god made more than 30 different intersex variations in human beings. god, in his infinite curiosity. wake up!!! fuck!!

"god wants women to have perfect no-makeup makeup looks and stay at home not talking back and upholding capitalism" god??? that guy who made lizards that shoot blood out of their eyes?? that guy who made salmon do whatever the fuck that is?? are you fucking crazy???

really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.

Source

Source

JURY. NULLIFICATION.

Forever using this post as a reminder that Food Not Bombs has chapters all over the world. Check to see if your city has one and volunteer or donate.

I worked with my local chapter for community service learning at school and they really are amazing. Feeding people is important. You CAN help.

Something I found on Twitter that really puts things in perspective as a creator.

i don't care if it's nazis, mormons, or a bunch of misguided autistic people. if anyone ever tries to tell you your soul is from another planet and you're actually part of the class of impressive people that secretly did everything cool in the world but is now extinct and lives on through your broken genome, you RUN. YOU WILL RUN AWAY. YOU WILL SPRINT FULL SPEED AWAY FROM THAT.

grabs you by the shoulders listen. listen to my words. i understand the urge to make fanfiction about yourself and to find a reality in which you're super awesome and great and everyone who hates you is wrong and dumb. i get it. you're better than that. you can love yourself without putting other people down, dehumanizing and generalizing, and retaliating against your oppressors.

there's no NPCs. there's no aliens coming to save us. we're not the next step in human evolution. our hyperconnected nervous systems give us terrible sensory overwhelm more often than they make us geniuses. neurotypical people are sentient, conscious, aware people who are capable of understanding you. we're more the same than we are different. we're more the same than we are different. we're more the same than we are different.

Also stay away from people who say shit like "sexual attraction and romance addles the mind and makes you crazy and irrational and this is why being aro/ace makes you intellectually superior." I've seen that a couple times times on this hellsite. Stay away from anyone who tries to convince you that your racial identity/cultural identity/gender identity/sexual orientation/neurodivergence/any other intrinsic quality makes you a member of some master race that is inherently superior to the other humans.

You are not immune to exceptionalist propaganda.

Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.