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Oh you're writing a gay smut fic with a fantasy setting? Don't forget to give one of your characters a
It’s not that mysterious though.
Anyone carrying a bladed weapon carried oil. (More on that in a sec) Oil is what you use to clean and condition steel, especially, since water will rust it.
Many people in the Middle Ages used scented oils for their skin and hair from noblemen to lowly serfs.
Oil was incredibly abundant and quite cheap. The TYPE of oil however does matter in this.
Sheep oil (rendered from their fat) was very common and used for all manner of things from making soap to treating skin conditions. Rendered sheep fat has a very light texture and is a decent carrier oil without too pungent of a scent. Unfortunately it did rancid fast so it was common to add lots of herbs to it to help preserve it, especially rosemary, borage, marjoram and citron peels. This is how it became a common “perfume” oil used to scent hair skin or clothes. Nearly anyone would have had this handy somewhere.
Rendered pork oil was very common too and was most popular as a cooking oil.
Vegetable oil made from walnuts, almonds and flax seed was by far the most common non-animal oil. Nearly anybody had a bottle of almond or walnut oil in their pantry or on their person. These were by far the most popular oils used for conditioning steel, with walnut oil preferred because its tannins also gave armor a patina that kept it better. Only the absurdly wealthy ever wore polished armor. Everyone else blackened it to make it keep better. Walnut oil is good at doing that.
Walnut oil also works well as a lubricant. People back then DID use sexual lube by the way. No prostitute would be caught dead without it. Their favorite types were walnut and olive oil, though almond oil might be used in a pinch. They also used watered down acacia gum in southern Europe, which was sticky but slick and easy to re-wet.
Olive oil though was THE oil in Europe. It was expensive, comparatively, but obviously people considered it well worth its cost because it was found everywhere south of the Seine and frequently seen in even minor lordly houses or knights quarters much farther north. Considering quite a few people of the time thought it had aphrodisiac qualities when applied as certain way (likely because raw olive oil has a warming effect) I think you can imagine the most common reason it was sought after by men in particular.
Olive oil was also used in medicine and just about any church had some floating around somewhere because it’s conveniently good at treating minor infections and is wonderful for toothaches.
So the mysterious vial of oil isn’t at all mysterious and even if he were carrying it around with the sole intention of using it for sex, that wouldn’t actually be that strange either.
Reblogged charmed101
[close up, titled and clean version under the cut :]
Reblogged charmed101
I had an epiphany whilst brushing my teeth.
ooh ooh this is something we've talked about in the server!! i'm very happy i'm not the only one who sees it!!
Reblogged charmed101
seeing fans call arthur “merlin’s true ride or die” as if arthur didn’t dismiss merlin’s beliefs and suspicions out of pocket then overwork him despite merlin’s obvious exhaustion and second job every episode for all 5 seasons
multiple times gwaine and gwen and lancelot had to search merlin out to support and reassure and defend him because of arthur’s lack of faith in merlin’s abilities and overall demeaning attitude towards him
where are gwen gwaine and lancelot’s trophies
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honestly arthur is SUCH a bitch for ragging on Merlin during his BESITIES FUNERAL for not telling him sooner that said bestie was (incorrectly) a sorcerer??? like??? BROOOOO NOT THE TIME!!! YOU ARE AT A FUNERAL ACT LIKE IT!! I KNOW YOU WERE RAISED WITH MANNERS USE THEM
And then Hunith has the audacity to say they’re a fucking coin. YOU DONT KNOW THAT BLONDE MAN COMFORT YOUR SON HE JUST LOST HIS BEST FRIEND
#i swear hunith just did not like will and cared more about merlin being in good standing than in good company#she’s very much painted as the perfect fairytale mother figure but this girl did in fact see her son’s magic as a Problem#rather than the bigotry against magic as a problem#I think that after all those decades she and balinor would have naturally grown apart anyways had uther not forcefully separated them#show critical#arthur critical#hunith critical#bbc merlin#merlin meta
Reblogged charmed101
If you were to apply the trolley problem to the Disir the decision Merlin made was to kill one to save many. The decision Arthur made was to let the train run over the one then stab the many people on the other tracks himself. Just saying for all those who blame Merlin for Arthur's decision. Whose choice should we be judging more harshly..
@sneakyboymerlin tags
Revisiting this post and thinking about how Arthur literally was confronted with the trolley problem and his response was unironically to let the train run over the one person that he liked so that he HIMSELF could continue killing the larger group of people he didn't like tied to the other tracks. Also he was the one who tied them to the tracks. And he is the train crushing people. I'm KFKFJFDKSKSKAASSJJCDKSK
#we have been saying this for years and years… like holy shiiiitttt lmao#also narratively i feel like the only reason they place that responsibility on merlin at all is to absolve arthur of his culpability in the#genocide that he is actively leading#like yeah they did it to be tragic too. but i think the effect on the audience (blaming merlin and coddling arthur) is the exact intention#rather than an unfortunate side effect#the same thing goes for the plot of 2x08. the whole idea is to put arthur on an untouchable pedestal and put the blame for arthur’s faults#AND morgans’s faults!#onto merlin instead of the autonomous royals who made the final decisions.#fandom critical#show critical#merlin meta#my meta#my tags#bbc merlin
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i know i persecute your kind and uphold a law that makes your very existence punishable by death but that doesnt mean u can be rude to me..... im a nice guy but there are limits like u know i have feelings too right? youre being a bit unreasonable to me right now 😭 i didnt even burn you at the stake yet and ur already mad at me :( boohoo merlin console me.... tell me have i not brought peace and justice upon this land ? have i not been a good boy
How dare you not tell me your life ending secret when I have shown time and time again I not only uphold my fathers beliefs that all of you should die but I am an active and willing participant in killing you guys 🥺 how dare you not trust me when I have shown you that being a servant is vastly beneath me and I humiliate and belittle you for your status as a Poor all the time! 😭How dare you not tell me things when I have never believed you in the decade of partnership I have known you and when you were proven right and I never acknowledged it after the fact
Reblogged charmed101
I would like "The difference between Arthur and Morgana is Arthur grew away from Uther while Morgana grew towards him" supporters to explain how exactly S5 Arthur "is still committing genocide btw" Pendragon is different from Uther
#they both became like their father in different ways it’s not all or nothing#they have to find ways to defend their respective tyrannical rules as a good deed just as uther did#but because the narrative is biased in arthur’s favor… audiences just buy into whatever they’re told-not-shown#which is why death of the author is so vital#we’re told these things about arthur but we’re never really SHOWN them !!!!!!!!#fandom critical#merlin meta#bbc merlin
Reblogged charmed101
the thing that bothers me most about the whole exile arc isn’t even that arthur exiles gwen necessarily (though i maintain that the way it was done was still absolutely unnecessarily cruel) but it's more so the way that the narrative presents it. like the narrative framing the writers chose to go with is essentially that what he's doing is wrong because WE, the audience, know that she didn't actually cheat - therefore he’s overreacting about something she didn't do. instead of it being that a) regardless of whether she cheated or not it would STILL BE WRONG for him to exile her even if she did - because she’s a commoner without status and a single woman being thrown out of the only home she’s ever known without provisions or a place to go on the pain of death, and that he’s abusing his power without realising it. (like what happened to all that about class equality... ok!!). and also that b) regardless of whether she cheated she would still be sympathetic and that one mistake doesn't define you and that relationships are messy and people have flaws. idk it is just so ridiculous to me that she’s not allowed to make even one mistake before he exiles her after all that talk about how he would give up his kingdom for her. its a choice!
like ultimately regardless of whether she did it or not. how he responded was still wrong and it really bothers me that that ENTIRE arc (which did nothing but traumatise her!!!!) is made to about arthur and him deciding to take his mistake back and realising he regrets it. like SHE GETS EXILED and somehow the story is still only interested in arthur…. like truly what the fuck. they just put her through trauma and then discarded it all without ever giving it the space it needed to be processed either by her or the audience. it’s the way her pain and trauma are just sooo constantly sidelined by the show's narrative in order to better serve arthur and his 'character development' or whatever. im just so done !
#THIIIIIIIISSSSS it honestly would have made way more sense if she had pulled a lancelot and left of her own accord#but also they could have shown how the rumors and misogynistic and christian-enforced vitriole influenced her decision and molded her shame#that story should have been about HER not arthur#the entire show would be SO MUCH STRONGER if gwen was centered instead of arthur#that man simply does not carry.#show critical#arthur critical#merlin meta#bbc merlin
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Insane parallel
Merlin 1x05 Lancelot and 5x07 A Lesson in Vengeance
Thanks @godmerlin for bringing this to my attention
Mind you this is the actual king that can change the law and has gone against it multiple times
He’s used magic for his own benefit how many times by now?
Reblogged charmed101
I’m tired of the escalation and growing frequency of this fandom trend where people believe that any unique loyalty that Merlin earns from, say, Gwaine or Lancelot, is somehow an offense to Arthur, or taking from him the loyalty and companionship he is ~entitled~ to. He is not actually entitled to anyone’s friendship because he might be “lonely” or jealous or what-have-you.
Posts like this also stress that Arthur would be put out by his knights choosing Merlin over him in the case of a magic reveal, which I find ridiculous since they’ve lowered the stakes from Arthur is committing a genocide against Merlin’s people down to… Arthur will be sad if their companions pick Merlin over him. Regardless, Merlin earned the friendship and loyalty of these people through his own kindness and understanding. Arthur is not entitled to the same just because it feels ~unfair~ that Merlin might have more friends.
More recently, I found a post that, intentionally or not, specifically downplays Gwaine’s friendship to Merlin in favor of casting his loyalty to Arthur as greater than it is in reality. I understand that it’s easy to see a post like that and, without knowing the proper context, conclude that it must be accurate, but most posts on here are working backwards through confirmation bias to prove a point, and therefore will disregard any context that does not fit the argument being made.
Because people believe that the king is entitled to an equal amount of love from Gwaine as his servant is (I wonder what subconscious bias that idea comes from…), they will look at the series through whichever lens fits their objective. But this is the crux of the argument: no one is entitled to anyone else’s feelings, in friendship or romance or sex or duty or any other relationship type.
In truth, Gwaine gains a begrudging respect for Arthur towards the climax of his introductory episode, not a friendship. While he considers Arthur to be a “brat,” he recognizes that Arthur does not apparently base a person’s worth on their background. By Gwaine’s standards, this makes him an exception among nobles.
Despite this, he does not become close with Arthur as far as canon proves, and he still explicitly regards Merlin above Arthur, both in words and in actions, consistently so even after he is knighted. Again, his sense of duty to Arthur does not automatically make them friends, nor does it necessarily conflict with his loyalty to Merlin. Most importantly, there is nothing wrong with Gwaine placing Merlin above Arthur.
Overall, Gwaine does have a sense of loyalty towards Arthur. Is he shown to actually be friends with him, though? In short, no. Although Gwaine already shows four episodes prior to the events of 3x08 that he is willing to die to defend Arthur based on his sense of morality, he explicitly does not consider Arthur a friend (to Merlin: “You’re the only friend I’ve got.”). Rather, he feels duty-bound because he believes that Arthur is decent (for a noble) and actually worthy of his title. In truth, Gwaine is closer to Gwen than he is to Arthur, despite their shaky start.
Arthur is someone who Gwaine has deemed good enough for his position as a leader, but it is Merlin who he is utmost loyal to. This is imperative to understanding Gwaine as a character, and it is ultimately an overarching motif that defines who he is—someone who defies classist expectations, who sticks to his own sense of right vs. wrong, and who is deeply loyal to those who he believes deserve that loyalty. But there is no such thing as “deserving” someone’s love. Gwaine offers that to Merlin freely, and it’s never a conscious choice to feel that way. Arthur cannot be “owed” the same. Gwaine feeling duty-bound to Arthur does not mean that they have the same emotional connection or depth between them that Merlin and Gwaine have. It doesn’t have to mean that.
Arthur is not entitled to Gwaine’s friendship or loyalty, and it would not make sense for Gwaine to place Arthur above Merlin to begin with, for all of the aforementioned reasons and more. If Gwaine chose Merlin over Arthur in the case of a magic reveal, this would not be “unfair” to Arthur, and it wouldn’t matter if it made Arthur feel “lonely,” because in this scenario, Gwaine is doing what he believes is right, rather than standing by Arthur based on a sense of duty—one that is dependent on his belief that Arthur judges people based on their actions instead of their birth circumstances. And if Gwaine was forced to choose between Merlin and Arthur, at the end of the day, the answer to that is fairly obvious:
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The worst thing fandom did was hear the utter dog shit self-deprecating speech Merlin said about how he was born for Arthur and his magic is for Arthur and took that as some romantic moment instead of the absolute terrifying and horrific thought that it is.
That speech meant Merlin needs to separate from Arthur and learn to be his own person again not that those two are so cute together
This is not a shit on Merlin blog or post
Him tying his self worth to Arthur is literally not good for HIS health and that’s why I hate fandom turning it into a cutesy scene.
I was specifically making this post because of Fandoms response
#i made a much wordier post for this exact sentiment. maybe i should work on my precision…#it’s fucked up though. it’s like how twilight and 50 shades are seen as romance by some and as horror story by others#because these are horrible abusive misogynistic and predatory examples of relationships…#fandom critical#merlin meta#bbc merlin