PLAYER INFORMATION Name: Chlor Preferred pronoun(s): She/her Contact: chlorophylls @ plurk
CHARACTER INFORMATION Name: Merlin Canon:Fate/Grand Order (or just general Fate/ series if you want to lump them all together) Canon point: Post-Lostbelt 6.5: Realm of the Thanatos Impulse, Traum. Age: 1500+ years old, being an ageless half-incubus from the time period of medieval Britain around 500 AD. Physically, in his mid-to-late-20's.
Personality:
» What traits do your character admire in a person? What Merlin truly admires in a person could be said to be a mix of heroism, determination, and competence. But if you asked him directly, he would simply word it thus: "a beautiful heart".
A heart that refuses to give up (different from thoughtless stubbornness), that gets up no matter how many times the owner is knocked down (different from physical resilience), that keeps beating in search of a dream that may be impossible (different from naivete). A heart that spurs its owner to fight (different from a warrior's pride), even if they'll lose everything (different from hollow self-sacrifice), even they'll become hated by everyone (different from self-righteousness). A heart that wishes to protect everyone (different from patronizingness), and wishes for the happiness of others (different from pity). A heart that drives its owner to face the impossible in order to grant hope to others, to become a shining star for those who need something to cling to, to continue expressing the goodness of mankind. A heart that leaves behind a precious dream or fantasy, that has lived a life the owner thinks is worth boasting about, untarnished until the end, when it stops beating.
» What do they dislike most about themself? What Merlin dislikes most about himself is how contradictory his existence, and he himself is. He's a hybrid who can't "pick a side", so to speak, and trying to justify to himself what he does by using one side or the other as his reasoning (excuses) causes him internal conflict that he'd rather not think about...but is sometimes forced to do so anyway.
If he was solely an incubus, he could live his life nigh-mindlessly feeding on human mental energy without a care in the world, operating solely on his purpose and whims while imitating the personalities of the humans he feeds on. He could while away his days in Avalon, exploring it freely, where all the other faeries went to after the Age of Gods ended. If he was solely a human, he could live his life just like other humans, vices and virtues, forming genuine connections and knowing how to truly feel love and hate the way other humans do. And he wouldn't have to concern himself with helping Chaldea figure out how to tackle the incineration of humanity or the bleaching of the Earth, because more likely than not, he'd be completely ignorant of the cosmology of the Fate universe, as well as just dead. As a hybrid who can never fully belong in either world, Merlin thinks his life would be so much easier if he just could.
To his credit, after living as long as he has, he's (mostly) made his peace with what he is, though: an incubus with a purpose he chose for himself. A non-human that's an ally of humanity, even if he's rotten to the core.
» What discrepancies are there between their inner self (who they feel they are) and their outer self (how they present themselves to others)? Merlin's existence is a walking, talking bundle of discrepancies by nature of being the half-human, half-incubus hybrid he is.
His outer self is a wise sage, a trusted and revered (but also, on some level, feared, because humans tend to fear what they don't know) mage beholden to the king's court. His general attitude is refreshing, friendly and easygoing, seemingly without a care in the world. He likens himself to "your big brother from Avalon", the sort of annoying older sibling who'll lend you a hand one moment, only to pull a prank on you the next, and you can't stand him because he's so smug about it but also can't deny that his advice is solid and that his assistance is appreciated. Merlin's perfectly capable of getting along with people on a surface social level; he'll participate in parties, strike up engaging conversation, crack jokes, flirt, schmooze, mess with and tease people, and prefers to keep the mood light by injecting a bit of hope when all seems gloomy.
His inner self is his incubus self, in more ways than just physical. It's not that his easygoing big brother personality is a complete bald-faced lie or anything; he does genuinely find enjoyment in playing pranks on people, listening to the latest hot gossip, and doling out advice from time to time. It's just that in Merlin's eyes, he's nothing more than a monster pretending to be human, and the main reason humans accept a creature like him is because of the role he plays for them. To him, he's a being who coldly eats their emotions, takes in their flavors without truly being able to completely understand or replicate them, uses the nutrients as fuel, and goes on with his life.
And then underneath his inner self is his inner, inner self that he finds difficult to acknowledge, a self that has let his human side drive him than he even realizes. For all his talk about how he can't feel love or hate the same way humans do, about how he's nothing more than playing pretend to blend into human society, about how he doesn't care for individuals, about how he's a scoundrel who will do anything to see the ending he desires, there are a couple of things that indicate otherwise.
For one, he's outright admitted pain over saddling Bedivere, a fellow member of the Round Table, with the unenviable, painful task of returning Excalibur to the Artoria of the Camelot Singularity, and didn't want his old friend to suffer if it could be avoided. In Babylonia, although he did ally himself with Ana, the child form of Medusa/Gorgon, out of necessity (since her help was necessary to defeat Gorgon), he also still went out of his way to take up a pseudo-guardian role for her, including trying to assuage her concerns about her non-human nature in private. (LB6 spoilers) Although per Nasu, the only Artoria for him is the King of Knights, he still seemingly felt a pang of pain upon thinking that Artoria Caster's entire essence was indeed used up to forge Excalibur. After that, he felt bittersweet respect for Muramasa sacrificing himself to take Artoria Caster's place in aforementioned forging. Finally, he admitted that he felt bad basically demanding that Artoria Caster be the only one to sacrifice everything this whole time, which is why he didn't mind that the Cernunnos emergency-button-dream-reversal spell he cast nearly cost him his Spirit Origin. Also, Merlin does actually get a bit flustered when he receives genuine, wholesome gratitude from people he's helped, with no expectations placed on him. And even he has lines he won't cross, such as wanton cruelty or thoughtless, casual, unnecessary pain.
To sum it all up, Merlin is certainly not as good a person as mankind thinks he is, yet neither is he as heartless a being he himself thinks he is. He is both something akin to an Evil of Humanity, beings that threaten human history despite being (or rather, because they are) born out of a love for humanity, as well as someone who's genuinely dedicated his entire life to being an ally of humanity and ensuring it achieves a happy ending. He loves mankind and the tapestry it weaves, but claims he doesn't love individual humans. Sounds simple, right?
» Who are two influential people in their life (can be positive or negative)?
Saber/Artoria Pendragon: The King of Knights, the once and future king of Britain. His king, his liege. The child he raised as a swordplay instructor, a magecraft tutor, a foster father, the king's advisor, and a court mage all in one. His greatest pride and joy, as well as his greatest sin. Merlin cares for her deeply, so deeply that he admits outright to Ana that trying to justify and reconcile his internal conflict between adhering to his life's purpose (wanting to see a happy ending for humanity) and wanting happiness for Artoria (something that could never happen if she was to be the ideal nameless king for the people's sake) tore him apart and resulted in him locking himself in that tower in Avalon. On a more mundane level, Merlin instinctively does fatherly things every now and then, such as quietly remark to himself that Artoria would probably enjoy the kind of candy apple he's eating (but can't taste) at the moment.
The Morgan le Fay of Proper Human History: Frustratingly, Nasu still refuses to come clean about what exactly happened between her and Merlin (shakes fist), but what's known for sure is that the Morgan of Proper Human History (Lostbelt one is an entirely different matter) is not only the Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend who contributed to the downfall of Camelot, as well as Artoria's sister, but also one of his former pupils in magecraft. Most importantly, she's the one who imprisoned him in a tower in a Garden in Avalon, where he is, and forever will be, trapped in the inner soul of the planet, watching over everything until the end of the world. He can't leave, barring some exceptions such as the incineration of humanity or the bleaching of the Earth.
» What do they get excited about? Stories. More specifically, "stories" meaning the journeys of people's lives, as well as the overarching "story" of mankind. He's made it his life's purpose to witness the final human's dream, to see a beautiful, happy ending for humanity as their end approaches. He consumes them like an insect would a flower, a child would a tasty meal, and a reader would a book. He wants to watch and know about their triumphs and their tribulations, their achievements and their failures, their love and their hate, their benevolence and their cruelties, who they've saved and who they've sinned against, all in equal measure.
And when all those stories are said and done, when he's done helping carve a path for the happy ending people have all worked so hard for, he'll watch their backs as they walk off toward the future, and quietly take his leave, disappearing from everyone's memory.
» What is something they are very bad at? Muttering incantations quickly. He gets tongue-tied. Pretty embarrassing for a Grand Caster.
More seriously, Merlin is bad at emotionally connecting with others. Some of this is due to his nature as a half-incubus; he has a great deal of trouble with trying to process and feel emotions the exact same way as humans do, and has a skewed sense of morality that lets him shrug off some things that most people would be rightfully appalled by or disdain, such as crafting that love potion for Uther to use on Igraine and conceive a child together, facilitating a conception without genuine love. Some of this is also due to his own behavior, as he intentionally tends to keep others at arms' length, ironically creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"He's often seen as a perfectly happy person, with no worries at all, but Merlin himself realizes that he is an outsider in human society, and so he can't tear down the final barrier of being able to call someone a dear friend."
He considers himself an outsider who can never blend in with one side or the other. For his human side, he knows that he isn't like them. He doesn't age like them, he doesn't eat like them, he doesn't have the same worries as them, like survival or how to make the best of the limited time they have on this earth. For his incubus side, he struggles to behave and see things the way a pure-blooded incubus can, due to his experience in human society and ego born of his human side. He can't bring himself to solely see humans and humanity as only merely sustenance, as he's already had a taste of these pesky things called "emotions" and "human relationships", and made it his life's purpose to see them weave a happy ending for themselves when the end of human civilization comes.
Connecting with others, getting emotionally intimate with them and vice versa, requires two things: vulnerability on his side, which he doesn't like to show because it's not becoming of him as a worldly sage that others come to for guidance and to place their hopes and dreams onto what he says next, and what he considers favoritism. To him, "favoritism" means meddling in their personal lives more than necessary, pulling strings behind the scenes to ensure their well-being above all else, and prioritizing them over fate itself, over what he considers his purpose for living, which is to see a beautiful, happy ending for humanity. He's especially gunshy about getting too involved with others due to his greatest sin being "meddling" with the fate of Artoria, who was a perfectly ordinary country girl before she was saddled with the inhuman, unenviable fate of becoming the ideal king that Britain needed by discarding her human heart.
It's possible to forge a connection with him, as at his max Bond level, he claims Ritsuka Fujimaru (the Master/player character of Fate/Grand Order) has become an important person in his life, and admits that their journey together in Uruk has changed him. He's not some purely cold-hearted hyper-rational scumbag (as much as he himself thinks he is, most of the time), but it is difficult for him to breach that last wall that separates him from forging a genuine friendship with someone.
» What is one thing they would tell their younger self if they had the chance? "Think long and hard before making decisions and meddling as you do."
Casually meddling in the fates of others, arrogantly thinking that it would all be fine as long as he could sway them at the last second, is his greatest sin, and he had never felt shame more keenly than the moment Artoria told him "Perhaps I may have fallen in love with you," before she died at the Battle of Camlann. That the girl he saddled with such a cruel fate looked at him with nothing but pure gratitude and affection in her eyes, and uttered words that he knew were misguided (because she had not yet known romantic love) cut him deeper than any weapon.
» How do they want to be remembered? He's already remembered as a wise sage, the court wizard to King Arthur, along with all the mischief he's caused and the guidance he's provided, and that's more than fine with him. He has also guided others afterwards, such as the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne, but his biggest claim to fame is Arthurian legend, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
Chlor | Merlin | Fate/ series
Name: Chlor
Preferred pronoun(s): She/her
Contact: chlorophylls @ plurk
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Merlin
Canon: Fate/Grand Order (or just general Fate/ series if you want to lump them all together)
Canon point: Post-Lostbelt 6.5: Realm of the Thanatos Impulse, Traum.
Age: 1500+ years old, being an ageless half-incubus from the time period of medieval Britain around 500 AD. Physically, in his mid-to-late-20's.
Personality:
» What traits do your character admire in a person?
What Merlin truly admires in a person could be said to be a mix of heroism, determination, and competence. But if you asked him directly, he would simply word it thus: "a beautiful heart".
A heart that refuses to give up (different from thoughtless stubbornness), that gets up no matter how many times the owner is knocked down (different from physical resilience), that keeps beating in search of a dream that may be impossible (different from naivete). A heart that spurs its owner to fight (different from a warrior's pride), even if they'll lose everything (different from hollow self-sacrifice), even they'll become hated by everyone (different from self-righteousness). A heart that wishes to protect everyone (different from patronizingness), and wishes for the happiness of others (different from pity). A heart that drives its owner to face the impossible in order to grant hope to others, to become a shining star for those who need something to cling to, to continue expressing the goodness of mankind. A heart that leaves behind a precious dream or fantasy, that has lived a life the owner thinks is worth boasting about, untarnished until the end, when it stops beating.
» What do they dislike most about themself?
What Merlin dislikes most about himself is how contradictory his existence, and he himself is. He's a hybrid who can't "pick a side", so to speak, and trying to justify to himself what he does by using one side or the other as his reasoning (excuses) causes him internal conflict that he'd rather not think about...but is sometimes forced to do so anyway.
If he was solely an incubus, he could live his life nigh-mindlessly feeding on human mental energy without a care in the world, operating solely on his purpose and whims while imitating the personalities of the humans he feeds on. He could while away his days in Avalon, exploring it freely, where all the other faeries went to after the Age of Gods ended. If he was solely a human, he could live his life just like other humans, vices and virtues, forming genuine connections and knowing how to truly feel love and hate the way other humans do. And he wouldn't have to concern himself with helping Chaldea figure out how to tackle the incineration of humanity or the bleaching of the Earth, because more likely than not, he'd be completely ignorant of the cosmology of the Fate universe, as well as just dead. As a hybrid who can never fully belong in either world, Merlin thinks his life would be so much easier if he just could.
To his credit, after living as long as he has, he's (mostly) made his peace with what he is, though: an incubus with a purpose he chose for himself. A non-human that's an ally of humanity, even if he's rotten to the core.
» What discrepancies are there between their inner self (who they feel they are) and their outer self (how they present themselves to others)?
Merlin's existence is a walking, talking bundle of discrepancies by nature of being the half-human, half-incubus hybrid he is.
His outer self is a wise sage, a trusted and revered (but also, on some level, feared, because humans tend to fear what they don't know) mage beholden to the king's court. His general attitude is refreshing, friendly and easygoing, seemingly without a care in the world. He likens himself to "your big brother from Avalon", the sort of annoying older sibling who'll lend you a hand one moment, only to pull a prank on you the next, and you can't stand him because he's so smug about it but also can't deny that his advice is solid and that his assistance is appreciated. Merlin's perfectly capable of getting along with people on a surface social level; he'll participate in parties, strike up engaging conversation, crack jokes, flirt, schmooze, mess with and tease people, and prefers to keep the mood light by injecting a bit of hope when all seems gloomy.
His inner self is his incubus self, in more ways than just physical. It's not that his easygoing big brother personality is a complete bald-faced lie or anything; he does genuinely find enjoyment in playing pranks on people, listening to the latest hot gossip, and doling out advice from time to time. It's just that in Merlin's eyes, he's nothing more than a monster pretending to be human, and the main reason humans accept a creature like him is because of the role he plays for them. To him, he's a being who coldly eats their emotions, takes in their flavors without truly being able to completely understand or replicate them, uses the nutrients as fuel, and goes on with his life.
And then underneath his inner self is his inner, inner self that he finds difficult to acknowledge, a self that has let his human side drive him than he even realizes. For all his talk about how he can't feel love or hate the same way humans do, about how he's nothing more than playing pretend to blend into human society, about how he doesn't care for individuals, about how he's a scoundrel who will do anything to see the ending he desires, there are a couple of things that indicate otherwise.
To sum it all up, Merlin is certainly not as good a person as mankind thinks he is, yet neither is he as heartless a being he himself thinks he is. He is both something akin to an Evil of Humanity, beings that threaten human history despite being (or rather, because they are) born out of a love for humanity, as well as someone who's genuinely dedicated his entire life to being an ally of humanity and ensuring it achieves a happy ending. He loves mankind and the tapestry it weaves, but claims he doesn't love individual humans. Sounds simple, right?
» Who are two influential people in their life (can be positive or negative)?
- Saber/Artoria Pendragon: The King of Knights, the once and future king of Britain. His king, his liege. The child he raised as a swordplay instructor, a magecraft tutor, a foster father, the king's advisor, and a court mage all in one. His greatest pride and joy, as well as his greatest sin. Merlin cares for her deeply, so deeply that he admits outright to Ana that trying to justify and reconcile his internal conflict between adhering to his life's purpose (wanting to see a happy ending for humanity) and wanting happiness for Artoria (something that could never happen if she was to be the ideal nameless king for the people's sake) tore him apart and resulted in him locking himself in that tower in Avalon. On a more mundane level, Merlin instinctively does fatherly things every now and then, such as quietly remark to himself that Artoria would probably enjoy the kind of candy apple he's eating (but can't taste) at the moment.
- The Morgan le Fay of Proper Human History: Frustratingly, Nasu still refuses to come clean about what exactly happened between her and Merlin (shakes fist), but what's known for sure is that the Morgan of Proper Human History (Lostbelt one is an entirely different matter) is not only the Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend who contributed to the downfall of Camelot, as well as Artoria's sister, but also one of his former pupils in magecraft. Most importantly, she's the one who imprisoned him in a tower in a Garden in Avalon, where he is, and forever will be, trapped in the inner soul of the planet, watching over everything until the end of the world. He can't leave, barring some exceptions such as the incineration of humanity or the bleaching of the Earth.
» What do they get excited about?Stories. More specifically, "stories" meaning the journeys of people's lives, as well as the overarching "story" of mankind. He's made it his life's purpose to witness the final human's dream, to see a beautiful, happy ending for humanity as their end approaches. He consumes them like an insect would a flower, a child would a tasty meal, and a reader would a book. He wants to watch and know about their triumphs and their tribulations, their achievements and their failures, their love and their hate, their benevolence and their cruelties, who they've saved and who they've sinned against, all in equal measure.
And when all those stories are said and done, when he's done helping carve a path for the happy ending people have all worked so hard for, he'll watch their backs as they walk off toward the future, and quietly take his leave, disappearing from everyone's memory.
» What is something they are very bad at?
Muttering incantations quickly. He gets tongue-tied. Pretty embarrassing for a Grand Caster.
More seriously, Merlin is bad at emotionally connecting with others. Some of this is due to his nature as a half-incubus; he has a great deal of trouble with trying to process and feel emotions the exact same way as humans do, and has a skewed sense of morality that lets him shrug off some things that most people would be rightfully appalled by or disdain, such as crafting that love potion for Uther to use on Igraine and conceive a child together, facilitating a conception without genuine love. Some of this is also due to his own behavior, as he intentionally tends to keep others at arms' length, ironically creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"He's often seen as a perfectly happy person, with no worries at all, but Merlin himself realizes that he is an outsider in human society, and so he can't tear down the final barrier of being able to call someone a dear friend."
He considers himself an outsider who can never blend in with one side or the other. For his human side, he knows that he isn't like them. He doesn't age like them, he doesn't eat like them, he doesn't have the same worries as them, like survival or how to make the best of the limited time they have on this earth. For his incubus side, he struggles to behave and see things the way a pure-blooded incubus can, due to his experience in human society and ego born of his human side. He can't bring himself to solely see humans and humanity as only merely sustenance, as he's already had a taste of these pesky things called "emotions" and "human relationships", and made it his life's purpose to see them weave a happy ending for themselves when the end of human civilization comes.
Connecting with others, getting emotionally intimate with them and vice versa, requires two things: vulnerability on his side, which he doesn't like to show because it's not becoming of him as a worldly sage that others come to for guidance and to place their hopes and dreams onto what he says next, and what he considers favoritism. To him, "favoritism" means meddling in their personal lives more than necessary, pulling strings behind the scenes to ensure their well-being above all else, and prioritizing them over fate itself, over what he considers his purpose for living, which is to see a beautiful, happy ending for humanity. He's especially gunshy about getting too involved with others due to his greatest sin being "meddling" with the fate of Artoria, who was a perfectly ordinary country girl before she was saddled with the inhuman, unenviable fate of becoming the ideal king that Britain needed by discarding her human heart.
It's possible to forge a connection with him, as at his max Bond level, he claims Ritsuka Fujimaru (the Master/player character of Fate/Grand Order) has become an important person in his life, and admits that their journey together in Uruk has changed him. He's not some purely cold-hearted hyper-rational scumbag (as much as he himself thinks he is, most of the time), but it is difficult for him to breach that last wall that separates him from forging a genuine friendship with someone.
» What is one thing they would tell their younger self if they had the chance?
"Think long and hard before making decisions and meddling as you do."
Casually meddling in the fates of others, arrogantly thinking that it would all be fine as long as he could sway them at the last second, is his greatest sin, and he had never felt shame more keenly than the moment Artoria told him "Perhaps I may have fallen in love with you," before she died at the Battle of Camlann. That the girl he saddled with such a cruel fate looked at him with nothing but pure gratitude and affection in her eyes, and uttered words that he knew were misguided (because she had not yet known romantic love) cut him deeper than any weapon.
» How do they want to be remembered?
He's already remembered as a wise sage, the court wizard to King Arthur, along with all the mischief he's caused and the guidance he's provided, and that's more than fine with him. He has also guided others afterwards, such as the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne, but his biggest claim to fame is Arthurian legend, and he wouldn't have it any other way.