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Take Me Up, Cast Me Away

@emrys-the-wild

he/they | burgeoning arthuriana enthusiast, bbc merlin truther

THANK YOU CANADA WE LOVE YOU 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

merlin and hunith. because their relationship means the world to me.

Merlin | 4.12 "The Sword in the Stone - Part 1"

I think there is a misunderstanding (that kind of irks me) in Shane's coming out to Rose, saying Rose helped Shane discover he was gay as if he was entirely oblivious of it to this point. He begins their date by saying he can explain. He's self aware, excruciatingly so. He knows himself well enough to know he has to explain something and maybe he's about to lie but Rose gives him a doorway to the real explanation. He's not, in that moment, realizing he's gay - I think he knows this even if he hasn't said it internally to himself - he's being given the permission to say it. Shane is just as much burdened by people's expectations of him as Ilya is and being reminded over and over what he means to everyone else, having space for himself to say these things out loud is hard won. Rose is giving him that space. She's leading him nowhere he's not already got a foot in. Every question he could back away from but in that moment someone had enough grace and understanding for him (the brand deal, the model hockey player in skill and persona, the good son, the minority representation, the kid who kinda stopped loving hockey the way he used to because it became his job) to let him walk through that door himself. To say he didn't know on some level until this moment is vastly underestimating Shane. He needed someone to step back and say, "Here, say exactly what you need to about who you are with no one else telling you beforehand". I desperately need people to understand how vital it is that Shane knows this about himself first rather than saying Rose told him who he was. He knew, he's known, even without saying it. He needed someone to tell him he was allowed to say it and nothing bad would happen.

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