Building Camelot

In a land of paper and a time of patience, the destiny of a castle model rests on the shoulders of a random twenty-something year old. Their name? I'm not going to tell you.

[building-camelot]

A while back I got my hands on an amazing build-your-own paper model of the castle of Camelot in BBC Merlin (aka ✨Chatteau de Pierrefonds✨, France). Seeing as I'm obsessed with the show, I simply have to build it.

I actually already started on the model a few months back, but I realised just now that I don't really have many people in my life who are equally obsessed with it as I am. I like sharing about it, so I thought I'd try it here!

I hope to post about my process semi-regularly, I'll have to find a rhythm. First, I'll share bits and pieces of everything done so far.

So, feel free to interact and follow :) In the meantime, I'll continue building this personal archive of mine.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

rip king, truly nobody was doing it for weird sci-fi and fantasy obsessed nerds like you 💔

[khmelisuneliart]

Drawing Arthur in sunlight is my favorite thing

[maybemacdc]

the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy

[virfujiwara]

Waaa Leon my beloved, I was able to cope with everyone else dying as long as he was alive lol

[doriiww]

after a nightmare (wip)

[space-spork]

Merlin drawing i did wayyy back in 2020 that i never posted to tumblr! I luv u merlin fandom you keep me going

[space-spork]

Merlin drawing i did wayyy back in 2020 that i never posted to tumblr! I luv u merlin fandom you keep me going

[building-camelot]

Castle-building continues... This step was quite nerve-wracking.

It's coming to the point where parts I've constructed a long time ago now have to connect to the newer bits. Everything has to fit together and you get fewer and fewer wiggle room.

I took quite some time to glue the roof. Luckily the paper was very mindful of my goal and emotions and I managed to get it mostly right!

I think I remember having struggled with the Ceasar tower before and he again gave me a hard time. The only bit that I couldn't connect as it should was the plateau around the tower. I guess I'll have to be creative about fixing that.

And! Imagine the small drop of my heart when the roof of the Charlemagne tower broke off. Yes, I did that all by myself. I carefully fully pulled it loose and was able to put it back as if nothing happened.

All this in my morning before 12, what an adventure ✨

[family-discord-server]

Had Arthur not been mortally wounded, his reaction to learning of Merlin’s magic should have been bad actually. Because every time Arthur is given a test of some sort, he has to fail first.

He has to test his preconceptions against the world and learn. He has to be wrong and be taught what right is. Not because he doesn’t know how to do the right thing, not because he doesn’t want to do the right thing, but because his story is one of learning to overcome. And there is no greater obstacle than when we take the world at face value.

Arthur is surrounded by people who benefit from social, economic, and political systems. He benefits from those systems. His entire story is one of repeatedly trying to figure out who to trust only to be betrayed. He trusts the wrong advisors, opinions, peoples, perspectives. But he learns.

He would have killed Merlin and then regretted it. Arthur learns through loss in a way Uther was unable to. He allows himself to be changed, to see the consequences of his actions and try to correct for them.

If Merlin was named Emrys, was called immortal, then it’s because the world understood that it had created a man that had to know failure to understand success. And the greater the loss, the deeper the understanding, and the better the capability for success. He is meant to unite all of Albion. He is meant to be a sword forged in dragon fire. He is only able to succeed once he understands the depth of his failure.

Arthur’s treatment of Merlin, at the most critical point of the story, at the moment where all is revealed, should be a failure. Because Arthur has never operated in any other way. It is the final doubt, the last and strongest echo of his father that must be cast off.

[building-camelot]

Let's not forget the tags!

[1st-knight-of-camelot]

Sir Leon (BBC Merlin 5x04)

[eugene-is-tired]

[cloudcatchers]

I love doodlingggg Merlin… YIPPEE

[building-camelot]

It's been a while, but DON'T MIND THAT LOOK AT THIS INSTEAD-

I've really enjoyed making this part, because it's one of the most beautiful parts of the outside of the castle imo. The detail is astounding. If you look closely at the real version, you can see tiny castles on the balcony fencing ✨

It's really getting close. It's also getting more and more difficult to glue all the parts together without accidentally bending or breaking other parts. (So far I've been able to straighten them back up, I hope my lucky streak will continue.)

It's kind of funny that the window-filled tower has its windows running at slightly different heights on each wall. I hadn't noticed that yet the times I visited the castle. Now I have something new to fascinate over next time! 🌟

Wish me luck!

[fishingisuniversal]

I think Merlin would actually fucking hate being Court Sorcerer because that is an actual political position with duties and responsibilities that has to answer to the King, and to a lesser extent the King's Council, which means he cant just like, fuck off for days at a time to murder a few people and then lie and say he was getting hammered

[aemelia]

I was thinking about how much BBC Merlin fic has been published since I joined the fandom, and felt inspired to take a leaf out of data queen @frogmerthur's book and make some graphs about it.

As of 28 January 2026, there are currently 70,125 published works in the BBC Merlin tag on AO3. We are never moving on. 🙂‍↕️

[lumicula]

Merthur never dies

"What Is This Feeling" edits in the year of our lord 2026