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coinofstone · 4 years

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5x03 The Death Song of Uther Pendragon

Arthur went out to collect firewood while Merlin watched over the dying lady 🥺

They saved a woman from being burned at the stake for sorcery and she repays them with a super powerful magic artifact

"He's always like this at the anniversary of his coronation."

"I thought it was a cause for celebration?"

"It is, but it's also the anniversary of Uther's death."

I would like to refer everyone back to my 4x03 post where I point out that Uther was stabbed on Arthur's birthday, which is also the anniversary of his mother's death. Uther would've died a day or two later. So within the span of let's say, half a week, Arthur's got his birthday, his mother's death anniversary, his father's death anniversary, and his coronation. He needs a hug. It's gotta be the hardest week of the year for him, every year. Speaking from personal experience, I know I wouldn't be anywhere near as upright as Arthur is, for all his thousand yard staring.

It's a very nice sarcophagus but what is going on with Uther's left leg?

No srsly wut is this

Is it reeeeally swollen? Did he break his ankle in the fight or perhaps when he fell?

Ok I'll stop being mean

The ONE time Merlin knocks

You think this was a sex thing? I think it might've been a sex thing.

Spirit!Uther, while traumatizing in his own right, still isn't as frightening as actual King Uther could be.

Oooof I have Things To Say™️ about this. The reason Arthur chooses to use the horn, to use magic, is because, "there isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of the thing I wish I'd said to him." But when he gets to speak to Uther, he doesn't actually get to say very much at all, because Uther immediately begins criticizing everything he's done as king. Arthur doesn't get what he sought at all, instead of an opportunity to tell his father any of the things he wished to say, he gets spoken to, harshly criticized. It's a major blow. And he says as much, when the single man tear spills over and he says "this can't be the last time I ever see you" - yes the line is foreshadowing Uther's haunting of Camelot but it's also signaling that Arthur's been traumatized; he went from having had his father mortally wounded in saving Arthur's own life, to having seen his father 3+ years into Arthur's rule as King of Camelot, and point blank being told Uther is disappointed in him. Not proud of him - actively un-proud. We don't really know what exactly Arthur wanted, if he'd hoped his father would've seen all the good his way of ruling had done and praised him, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that was on the wish list.

Be careful what you wish for indeed.

I AMUSE MYSELF. (I spent two hours figuring out how to create this please appreciate me)

Merlin's angry face when Arthur tells goin what Uther said is literally all of us.

I feel terrible for this but when Percival is leaving Gaius' chambers and he stops to look at the wall-torch, I immediately flash backed to Alice Troughton on commentary in S4 saying "Percival's a bit of a wuss isn't he?"

This is also awful but this episode kind of makes me miss the castle-centric contained episodes of S1

Never any guards around when you're being attacked by the ghost of your husband's dead dad, typical.

I understand Merlin bringing Guinevere to Gaius but putting her in Merlin's bed??????

The way Bradley and Colin both convincingly jumped when they turned around and found Gaius had snuck up right behind them kills me every time.

"Poetry". What he means to say there is, 'why didn't you just tell him we were fucking, since that would actually sound less gay'

So. Merlin took the ghost visibility potion but he can't see Utter knocking over barrels and shelves and things to trap in that store room.

Also why is there a pigeon in a windowless store room? Now I'm wondering why there aren't more birds randomly flying into the citadel, cuz they do have quite a lot of open windows... you'd think that might happen now and again.

Mmmmmmmm

Hmmmmmmm

Ooooof I love a bamf husband coming through to deal with a shit-for-brains abusive father... ghost.

^^actual canon scene

Was Tony shot entirely on green for this? That unearthly blue glow even in close ups where he doesn't look like he's on a green scene makes me wonder.

The 'horseplay' scene at the end was so full of sexual tension and d/s undertones that I literally do not want to say anything lest tumblr flag this post for content.

Commentary is Angel and Rupert. The two regulars who were in the least number of scenes in this ep. Since this post is already crazy long I'll keep this brief.

Aaaaand it's the first time either of them have seen this episode 😂 wow.

They've made 'horn' jokes and Rupert's gone full on tongue in cheek dad jokes.

They are also cracking jokes on Colin being all jacked up for S5 compared to previously when he was so skinny hehe... personally I ain't mad at him 😂

Fifteen minutes into the episode and Leon makes his first appearance

The little bottles and decor things in Gaius' chambers are part of a static set so they pretty much just sit there... Angel says that some of the contents have started to go moldy and they found maggots in one of them 🤢

They're talking about Gwen's new hair and while Angel is being really diplomatic, I get the impression she's as annoyed as I am by it. It literally doesn't match her own hair at all. But she also said some people saw her without the piece on and just said 'omg you cut your hair' so I guess 🤷‍♀️

The scene where Gwen is knocked out by a vase smashing her head - Angel says she was hit with the heavier bottom piece of it, which hurt more than she was expecting, and she wound up with a bump on her head from it.

Not a word about Colin picking up Angel 😢

They're talking about childhood pets and a beverage called lilt? Anyway Angel is really clever and Rupert's corny af but he's funny and I love them both.

Oh this is interesting: Rupert says he and the director talked about having Leon walking through the corridor hand in hand with the cook when he stumbles upon Merlin and Arthur's 'poetry lesson', but they weren't allowed to do that bc it would've been just a little bit too much, or a little too tongue in cheek. Which I'm taking to mean, would've accentuated the subtext of 'poetry' too much.

Angel and Rupert didn't know how they got Uther all glowy either, though Angel said it was probably lighting

Rupert says the line where Utter got caught off, what he was gonna say was "Merlin has ... been to the gym!" 😂😂😂😂😂

They really are great together doing these things

Rupert's story was the horse he had been riding all season had a foal, and nobody even knew she'd been pregnant. They just came out one morning and saw she'd given birth, and he got a call to inform him. That's kind of sweet. I wonder if he sent them some apples or something.

#bbc merlin #bbc merlin spoilers #merlin #merlin spoilers #merthur #onceandfuturerewatch #5x03 #5x03 the death song of uther pendragon #bbc merlin 5x03 #merlin 5x03 #the death song of uther pendragon

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himbowelsh · 7 years

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I'm not sure if you still take those so you can totally tell me to fuck off, but I have this prompt idea for winnix (cause of those cute baby Dick pictures): Canon or Modern, Nix spends Christmas with Dick and his family. Dick's Ma tells him all her favourite stories about little Dick and shows him pictures from his childhood. Nix tries very hard to suppress his heart eyes. They share a room and it's fluffy and warm and christmasy and Nix never felt so good during holidays.

AN: irl dick’s father died not even a year after he got back from the war, in june ‘46. he was out in nixon at the time, and rushed home as soon as he heard the news. since i want to keep this happy, in this story dick’s father’s gonna still be around. (fiction -- it’s a magical thing.)

He’s not really sure what he’s getting himself in to when Dick invites him home for the holidays.

They’ve been back home for over a year now, and most of that time has been spent in Nixon, New Jersey. Dick took the job as personnel manager in January. Since then he has met the family, won rave reviews, and proven himself to be Lewis’s father’s favorite son. His father’s new (much younger) wife flirts shamelessly with him; and Lewis’s sister thinks he’s a great guy. Dick is getting used to life in Nixon and finding his rhythm at the company.

In the midst of all of this, Dick has still taken several opportunities to go back home -- his home, all the way in Lancaster. He’s reunited with his family. He spent Easter and Thanksgiving with them, and celebrated his sister’s birthday. Lewis was asked to come, of course, but he turned the invitation down each time.

Dick is better off spending holidays there. Those are his people, the type of family who cooks Christmas dinner together and eats it around a warmly lit table. Nixon holidays are a rush of glitzy, alcohol-fumed parties. Dick wouldn’t fit in there. Hell, he would hate it. He’s much happier celebrating back home, and Lewis is glad for it.

Dick has his place, and Lewis has his. That’s what he swore by up until Dick presented him with a neat, cream-colored envelope five days before Christmas.

Lewis’s first thought is that it must be a gift. “You shouldn’t have,” he says; then he sees that it’s postmarked from Lancaster. “You really shouldn’t have.” His fingers fumble as they tear open the envelope, revealing the letter inside written in open, spidery print. “Dick, you got your mother to write me?”

“She wants you to come down,” Dick replies. Smugness exudes from his voice, barely masked by that boyscout charm that makes everything he says sound so genuine. “It would make her very happy.”

He can say no to Dick all he likes, but there’s no way Lewis can turn down an invitation from his mother. He knows it, Dick knows it, and he’s bet his stash of VAT 69 that Mrs. Winters probably knows it too.

Lewis sighs, sets the letter down on the table, and turns to Dick. “Well,” he says, “Guess I can look forward to a Pennsylvania Christmas.”

Edith Winters is, in many ways, very much like her son. She is tall and long limbed, with a long face and bright blue eyes. Her features are more delicate than her son’s, however, and instead of being red her hair is a mass of blonde curls fading to grey in places, pinned up on her head in a loose bun. She greets Dick with a warm embrace and a kiss on the cheek before turning to his travelling companion.

“You must be Lewis,” she says. Her smile is almost an exact mirror of Dick’s. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that they’re standing on the middle of a train platform out in Nowhere, Pennsylvania, and that Lewis can feel his eyeballs freezing inside of his skull. He feels warm, and for the first time in a long time realizes he’s excited for Christmas.

“That’d be me, ma’am,” he replies, and accepts her tight embrace. His surprise must show in his expression, because Dick chuckles over his shoulder. Lewis shoots him a glare, but there’s no fire in it. If this is what a Mom Hug feels like, his own mother ought to take notes.

“Take it easy on him, Mom,” Dick pipes up. Lewis thinks he’s taking pity on him for one second before his friend’s lips quirk up. “He’s still got to meet Ann.”

That’s the moment Lewis realizes he has no idea what he’s getting into.

By the time Lewis is settled in at the Winters’ home, he understands and appreciates Dick’s insistence that they both get some rest on the train ride over. If he hadn’t had the extra sleep, he doubts he’d be able to begin keeping up with the lively, warm home atmosphere that is so completely different from what he knows.

He’s heard a lot about the Winters family. Dick never shared his hesitance to talk about his home life during the war; in fact, he was the exact opposite. He enjoyed reminiscing, and would often take quiet moments to look back on his roots. Lewis thinks he knows what to expect from the Winters home -- a nice rural homestead, with a barn and small stable in the back. In a lot of ways, he isn’t wrong. Dick’s house sits on a lengthy expanse of land. There’s a tire swing hanging from a tree in the backyard. The farmhouse looks almost stereotypically domestic, painted white with a warm glow emitting from the shuttered windows. They’ve got a trellis, real chickens -- they have a white picket fence, for christ sakes.

If Lewis feels a bit like he’s stepped into an alternate universe, it’s nothing compared to actually meeting the family.

Dick’s father doesn’t say much aside from greeting him; he is even more laconic than his son, and at first glance seems serious enough to make Lewis uncomfortable. Ann Winters more than makes up for her father’s reticence, however. Lewis only has to look at her bright red hair and lively blue eyes to know that she’s a chatterbox.

In fact, Ann hasn’t left him alone since he walked in the door. She pelts him with questions about everything from his life in New York to the war, and he can barely answer one question before she’s launching off with some anecdote, joke, or a new question all over again.

“Dick took me into New York City a few years back! We got to see Sons of Fun, and stayed at this really nice hotel. He even let me have breakfast in the dining room all by myself! I ordered pancakes, and fruit, and they put powdered sugar on it and everything --”

She talks more than his father’s second wife, and is a lot harder to ignore. Lewis’s head is spinning.

Even so, he loves her. She’s like a tiny, spunky version of Dick, and though she’s nothing like his own younger sister Lewis feels a sense of fraternal affection towards her almost immediately. Dick has spoken of her so often that it doesn’t feel like Ann is a stranger at all. He practically knows her already, and will tolerate her endless questions just to see her (and Dick, out of the corner of Lewis’s eye) smile.

Dinner itself occurs not long after they’ve arrived at the house. Lewis has never seen so much homecooked food in his life. The array of turkey, stuffing, beans, potatoes, cornbread, and vegetables could hardly rival the splendor of Nixon family dinners, but it’s obvious how much time and effort was put into making it all. Everything is delicious, of course; but the real highlight of the dinner is conversation. The Winters’ banter back and forth with a lighthearted ease. Stories and jokes flow here like alcohol back in Nixon, and Lewis (his own glass filled with water -- Dick’s entire family doesn’t drink, and Lewis made a point of respecting that) feels like a fish tossed into a completely different ocean.

It makes him sad, for a minute, because this has never been something he’s had before. How often had he longed for this as a child? How many holidays did he spend yearning for this warmth and easy familiarity?

Then he looks at the happy faces around him, and his heart feels light once again. It’s yet another of the many differences between him and Dick, but this is something Lewis can be a part of now. This is a Christmas present (there’s no better word for it) and he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He thinks nothing can top dinner, but inevitably he’s proven wrong. Afterwards, when everyone is gathered in the living room by the light of the Christmas tree, she does what is potentially the most Mom thing imaginable.

She takes out the baby photos.

“This is one of Dick when he was no more than a year old. The cowboy hat was a gift from his uncle.”

Lewis’s eyes flash to the grown-up Dick, glistening with glee. He can only look away from the picture for a second, however. He wants to memorize every last detail of all of them. This is a side of his best friend he never imagined he’d get to see, and it’s absolutely amazing.

“What a darling,” he comments appropriately, and Dick’s mother beams with pride.

“And this one --” She pulls out a school photo, showing a middle school-aged Dick with a truly regrettable haircut. “This was around the time Ann was born.

“He was thirteen when we had Ann, and she couldn’t handle mother’s milk -- it was too much for her stomach, you know, milk still is -- so we had to make her her own formula. Dick watched me like a hawk while I’d make it. Then the day came when he insisted upon making it himself. Wouldn’t you know, he did a very good job. After that he wanted to feed Ann, of course, and he did that well too, so he became officially in charge of feeding the baby from that day on.” His mother covers her mouth with her hand as she chuckles. “He was so proud of himself!”

“Less proud when Ann would spit up on me, though,” Dick pipes up from where he’s lounged on the couch, leaning into Lewis’s side. From her seat under the Christmas tree, Ann makes a disgruntled noise. “It’s true!”

“I don’t do that now, of course,” Ann hastens to amend, sounding very self-important.

Her father raises an eyebrow. “I should hope not. Please don’t start, or we can make you very comfortable sleeping in the barn.”

Lewis snorts, and doesn’t bother covering it up. It turns out that Dick’s father is as funny as him, in that same quiet, unexpected way. They have the same sense of dry humor, though Nix has discovered the elder Winters’s unexpected proclivity for puns. For such a serious-looking guy, it’s completely unexpected. Lewis loves it.

Dick’s mother flips to another photo, and Lewis feels his heart catch in his throat. Dick can be no more than five in this one, sitting on his front porch with his elbows braced on his knees. There’s an impish grin on his face, revealing a gaping hole where his front tooth ought to be.

“Dick, what a little cad you were,” he remarks. Dick elbows him in the side, hard enough to make Lewis chuckle and nudge him back.

When he leans over to take a look at the picture, Dick’s chin winds up resting on Lewis’s shoulder. “Oh, I remember that! We tried everything to get that stubborn tooth out. The apple, the towel, and --”

“The doorframe,” both of Dick’s parents chime at the same time. Ann snickers, and Dick’s face flushes a charming red. “We remember.”

“Blood everywhere,” Dick’s father says. “It was awful.”

Ann perks up. “Sounds neat.”

“Awful,” her father reiterates, not seeming at all surprised by his daughter’s interest. “Dick cried for an hour --”

“It wasn’t a hour,” protests Dick, sounding disgruntled. Lewis has to stifle a laugh when he realizes that his friend is actually pouting.

“He was a crybaby,” Ann sing-songs. “Even after I was born. I never cried half as much as him.”

“I wasn’t a crybaby!”

“You were, darling, a bit,” Dick’s mother replies -- and presses a kiss to his temple before he can protest. “It’s alright, you were a very sensitive child! There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Lewis has never had this -- the easy affection, the teasing, the childhood pictures and stories looked back at with such fondness. That familiar melancholy returns to him, but it is mixed with something warm. It is impossible to feel alone in this environment. Dick grew up in the loving household Lewis never knew. Compared to a farmboy, the son of a millionaire is privileged in many ways; but it’s obvious that in this area, Dick is the one who struck gold.

Lewis couldn’t imagine a nicer way to spend Christmas. He presses a bit closer into Dick’s side, hoping his friend can understand how grateful he is to have been invited here.

If the tiny smile on Dick’s face is any indication, he understands.

#winnix #richard winters #lewis nixon #i clUNG to dick's biography while writing this #his father actually wrote 'we have to be PARENTroopers to a PARAtrooper' he was a total dad joke guy #also i love ann winters can you tell #my writing #Anonymous

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