#Lancelot discourse

[honeybadger-the-pop-witch]

Something I’ve Been Thinking About in Terms of Arthurian Paganism:

And it deals with Lancelot Du Lac.

Something I find super interesting as I interact with Arthuriana on Tumblr and read/listen to books about King Arthur is how I view Lancelot Du Lac in the greater context of my paganism journey with this pantheon.

I’ll admit that Lancelot is not my favorite knight as a character, and I have not reached out to him as a deity, but Lancelot du Lac as a literary device is fascinating—and has somewhat shaped one of my domains for him.

Lancelot du Lac is a literary device used to explain the cultural trends from the moment he was inserted into canon and onwards. First when Courtly Love became a main trope in literature, Lancelot du Lac represented everything a Courtly Love should be. He did everything for Guinevere and Guinevere, to the best of her station in society, did everything for Lancelot—but they could never be as Guinevere was married to another. Lancelot was used as a vehicle to discuss what intrigued people so much about Courtly Love as well as giving women in loveless marriages a means to escape and think of world where they could be with who they loved.

Then when Courtly Love became a “no no” as shifting cultural values and norms enforced the idea that adultery in any situation was wrong, Lancelot became the vehicle to tell that story in the Post-Vulgate. The reason why Galahad exists to an extent, and, in this telling, the Battle of Camlan, is to show just how much this grievous sin could bring about the damnation of all people’s lives around you. Galahad even warns his father Lancelot to not fall back into his old ways with Guinevere when he returned to Camelot, and, after everything was said and done, the two people who committed the sin of adultery could never be together again—not even in death.

And then everything changed again, and now shipping wars are a more common cultural phenomenon. So the Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur love triangle became the Arthuriana version of Team Edward VS. Team Jacob. You wrote your retelling picking an end game for Guinevere and Sir Lancelot became the literary vehicle to discuss complicated relationships in a new YA format.

And finally, with it being more accepted to write books about queer experiences, Lancelot now becomes a vehicle for that discussion in a literary lens—as seen in tumblr discourse and retellings where Gawain was in love with Lancelot and vice versa. Or painting Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur as a polycule. Or a thousand other different things.

So what does this mean for my pagan path?

Well, Lancelot du Lac’s main domain as of right now are the arts and literature. The humanities, mainly.

We see Lancelot du Lac as one of the best ways to tell a story—his entire character inspires discussion, histories, and retellings. And I believe his domain should reflect that. Lancelot du Lac is one of the best literary mirrors I can think of, so I hope this does him some justice.

[mariana-oconnor]

Imagining the horror of British Arthuriana fandom when France introduced its new OC Lancelot - who's just like super hot and super strong and like... the most chivalrous. He's waaaaay better than all those other knights. He's so hot he's banging the queen! The discourse there must have been.

[queer-ragnelle]

Arthurian Preservation Project Master List

Hi! I’m L, the author and archivist behind the Arthurian Preservation Project that seeks to locate and archive all Arthurian media available from Medieval literature to modern day retellings and films. This is a master post of those contributions to the archive, long informational posts about Arthuriana, history, research, writing, and my character-based recommendations so you can find what you want to read/watch and the information you need.

I have an About Me page and my Ask box is always open.

The Archive

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Beginner's Guide to Medieval Arthuriana

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Arthuriana Quick Bites 🍔

Elegy of an Empire (my book series)

The Moonlit Knight by L. R. Tourmaline

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How/Why did I write backwards? A timeline.

Horror influences in Elegy of an Empire.

#Elegy of an Empire

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➷ Long Posts Below ➷

Best Recommendations

Best of Queens

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Best of Orkney Wives

Best of Orkney Bros

Best of Arthur’s Kids

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Best of Bedivere

Best of Lancelot

Best of Dinadan

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Best of Arthurian Romance/Erotica

Best of Weird Arthuriana

Ask Recommendations

Galahad stories without deceitful conception.

Medieval Galahad appearances + essays.

Mordred stories showcasing his leadership.

Queer Mordred retellings.

Research Deep Dives

From where did Gawain’s purple coat of arms originate?

Who is Galahad’s mother?

Does Dagonet the Jester have a coat of arms?

Dagonet's coats of arms in retellings.

How did Lancelot win Joyous Gard from Caradoc?

The magical rings of Guinevere & Lancelot.

Age gap between Guinevere & Lancelot.

What is “courtly love?”

Which text first described Gawain as red headed?

Kingdoms in Arthuriana.

Lancelot’s mental illness & the history of madness.

Lancelot's suicidal ideation revisited.

Mystery lady of Hector de Maris? Why wikis are unreliable.

Post-Vulgate Pelleas is kind of a creep.

Religion in Arthuriana Legend.

Who is Sir Guinglain?

List of Gawain's many ladies.

My Opinions

What is my favorite “historical” era for Arthuriana?

Arthuriana's grimdark problem.

Are fanfics books?

Is Arthurian Legend fanfic?

Shipping discourse for Medieval characters is stupid.

Guinevere's mistreatment in retellings + more shipping discourse (& what to read instead.)

Owain, Yvain, or Iwein?

In defense of The Bright Sword's "self-indulgence."

Why do I condemn The Mists of Avalon?

Why do I condemn The Once and Future King?

Misogyny in The Warlord Chronicles.

Writing Advice

There is no Arthurian "canon," write what you want!

My philosophy regarding the Arthurian literary tradition.

Anachronism is a feature not a bug.

Anachronism revisited.

Creating lovable Arthurian OCs.

Feature Guinevere in a first-person Gawain story.

Modernizing Mordred.

Depicting trans knights + reading list.

How to shift the Arthurian timeline for your book.

[thesovereignsring-if]

Not to dig up old discourse but I was going through this blog and woof. You had some pretty obsessively upset anons here, huh? Personally, I love the surge in sad/pathetic/victim MCs - it feels cathartic. Especially if all the misfortunes can make the MC either numb or really fucking mean.

Not like, "let me take revenge and (re)gain some power" mean, but 1. "I'm hurting so I'll take it out on the people who still care about me" or 2. "I might not be able to hurt you back physically, but let me devastate someone you love emotionally" or my favorite 3. "I'll make you love me only to reveal you mean absolutely nothing to me, even though you'd still be able to beat me to death with your bare hands afterwards" mean. Examples for each three are MindBlind (1 being cruel to Nick and/or Sally), Crown of Ashes and Flames (2 romance Helios, 1 be cruel to Lancelot) and Defiled Hearts (3 romance Marcus).

Bonus point for unhealthy coping mechanisms like sleeping around, drinking or self-harm (through others or themselves). And sometimes it's upsetting for sure, but that's what the more empowering and/or feel-good IFs are for! I love binging WIPs that make me miserable and then re-reading Fields of Asphodel or One Knight Stand (with a cuckoo MC) or Jolly Good 😂

Sorry for the long message and for dredging all of this up, I'm a new (and a little obsessed) reader so I had to binge.

Oh yes, we were not short on drama here in the early days 😭 it came to the point where I had to block people. Insanity. And I agree! I do messy slightly tortured characters who make messy decisions. I know it’s hard to stomach being small and powerless for so long, but to me it builds (messed up) characters that either make it or break it. :D and like I always say, if people want a story where the main character has more control and power, they can find it elsewhere. Our MC here is very much the underdog with much to prove and more to lose ☺️

But I will admit being mean and cruel to my characters make me sad 😔 but it won’t stop me from doing it haha 🤣

[astralscrivener]

✨ fic directory ✨

i’ve created a post to keep all of my fics in one place. all fics can be found on ao3. (last updated may 4th, 2024)

major ongoing works

STEALING OUR OWN PLACE IN THE SUN

- voltron: legendary defender: a rewrite of vld seasons 4-8. - team focus, broganes, klance, adashi, romellura - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 22/45 chapters, 251k words (december 25th, 2022) - last posted: chapter 22: season 7, episode 3: elliptical orbit

AT SKYFALL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent au in which keith and shiro are captured by the galra at a coalition gala. things become more complicated when the team’s search for shiro turns up someone else: adam, shiro’s fiancé.  - broganes, klance, adashi - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 8/? chapters, 25k words (september 2nd, 2023) - last posted: chapter 8: division and discord

ABCS OF KLANCE

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots, one prompt for each letter of the alphabet, focused on keith and lance’s relationship - variety of aus, some overlap with squad up (2017-19 modern au), mostly established relationship klance - 18 works, 87k words (may 4th, 2024) - a: artistry • b: brutality • c: comfort • d: defeat • e: elegance • f: faithfulness • g: grief • h: homelessness • i: information • j: jealousy • k: knell • l: loyalty • m: mercy • n: need • o: opportunity • p: pain • q: quest • r: rumor • s: sleep • t: trust • u: uncertainty • v: victory • w: worry • x: xenon • y: yearning • z: zero - last posted: lightning in a bottle (y: yearning)

other ongoing works

THESE 20S ARE RAWRING AND THESE DUNGEONS ARE DRAGONING

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au + d&d series started in 2020 as a stress response to quarantine - team focus, klance, adashi, romellua, hunay

• main work: the rawring 20s XD - chatfic that only updates if i think it will be funny - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author notes - 5/5 chapters, 17k words - last posted: chapter 5: there is no easter bunny, there is no tooth fairy, (september 8th, 2022)

- other works include klance-centric oneshots + snippets of the group’s ongoing d&d campaign - 5 works, 37k words - last posted: midnight into morning coffee (february 7th, 2024)

VLD FIC REQUESTS

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots across a variety of aus written in response to prompts from friends and followers - variety of ships, but mainly klance and adashi - some overlap with squad up  - 15 works, 92k words (july 8th, 2023) - last posted: distraction

major completed works

DECEIT SO NATURAL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent trilogy in which lance and keith fool their way behind enemy lines and onto lotor’s ship to steal vital information on the galra empire—only for lotor to become far more dangerous than anyone anticipated. - mainly klance, extremely one-sided lancelot - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura - 3 works, 315k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• WHERE PEOPLE GO TO DIE - lotor mistakenly believes that lance is a galra soldier spying on the paladins, and invites him to return home. keith follows him undercover as a prisoner, and quickly draws lotor’s ire as things spiral rapidly out of control. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 14/14 chapters, 49k words - completed july 9th, 2017

• DYNASTY DECAPITATED - lotor becomes vindictive after having been played for a fool by team voltron, and the team struggles to hold the voltron alliance together while fending off his rapid advances. meanwhile, keith and lance explore a new stage of their relationship and learn exactly what the other means to them. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 18/18 chapters, 67k words - completed august 7th, 2017

• STARS GO DOWN - lotor has captured lance and sentenced keith to death halfway across the universe. lance struggles to hold onto himself as he plays the role of an amnesiac, while keith attempts to fight his way back to the team, alone. meanwhile, the team, down two lions and two paladins, scrambles to bring keith and lance home amidst betrayals and tumult in the voltron alliance. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence, temporary major character death + other warnings in author notes - 37/37 chapters, 198k words - completed june 15th, 2018

SQUAD UP

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au written from 2017-19 to cope with the horrors of being in high school and the transition into college - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura and shiro/allura/matt - 25 works, 561k words - completed may 10th, 2019

• main work: squad up - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last year of high school - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 140/140 chapters, 327k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• main work: a midsummer night’s meme - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last summer before college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 27/27 chapters, 79k words - completed august 31st, 2018

• main work: because guys like us are cool in college - series of oneshots/snippets following keith and lance’s freshman year of college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 84/84 chapters, 83k words - completed may 10th, 2019

LIGHT UP THE PATH (THROUGH A SKY FULL OF STARS)

- voltron: legendary defender: 28 oneshots completed for klance au month february 2019. - klance - variety of aus, including but not limited to modern au, canon-divergent/other paladinsverse, fantasy au, and more - rated M, creator chose not to use archive warnings + other warnings in author note - 28/28 chapters, 49k words - completed february 28th, 2019

additional oneshots not mentioned here can be found on archive of our own ✨ other writing (including drabbles, snippets, and prompts from tumblr ask games) can be found in my writing tag ✨

happy reading!

[watchingcbeams]

Compiled a bunch of reading lists/recommendations in my notes

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees by Michael Bishop

In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Engines of Logic: Mathematicians and the Origin of the Computer by Martin Davis

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Polemics by Alain Badiou

Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns by Kent Beck

Speedboat by Renata Adler

The Dynamics of Creation by Gregory Bateson

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics by Leonard Susskind

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Hard to Be a God by the Strugatsky Brothers

The Invincible by Stanisław Lem

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’brien

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Far Away and Long Ago by W.H. Hudson

The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The Stone Leopard by Colin Forbes

The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny

The Exile Waiting by Vonda McIntyre

Valis by Philip K. Dick

Nova by Samuel Delany

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe

Martian Time Slip by Philip K. Dick

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Lancelot by Walker Percy

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design by Frank Wilczek

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Bicycling Science (MIT Press) by David Gordon Wilson

Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients by Jeremy R. Smith

How to Be Alone: Essays by Jonathan Frazen 

On Beauty by Umberto Eco

On Ugliness by Umberto Eco

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

South Wind by Norman Douglas

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet by Rainer Zitelmann

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm by Lewis Dartnell

The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

This Will Make You Smarter by John Brockman (Editor)

Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society by Jim Manzi

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward Tufte

Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Childhood; Boyhood; Youth by Leo Tolstoy

Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Run Rabbit by John Updike

House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The Coalwood Way by Homer Hickam

Hail and Farewell by George Moore

The American by Henry James

Victory by Joseph Conrad

Collected Poems by Robert Lowell

Collected Poems by W.H. Auden

Guerrillas by V.S. Naipaul

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Sanctuary by William Faulkner

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood

The Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

Victory by Joseph Conrad

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

The Best American Humorous Short Stories by Alexander Jessup

The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

De Facto Inclusions of Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees; The Nonexistent Knight; The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino

The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

The Oxford Book of English Verse

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

The Oath by John Lescroart

Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete Poetical Works

Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

[caer-gai]

For the character ask game: 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, and 16 for Guinevere, Kay, and Hector! ☺️

Yay!! Thank you for the ask!

1 what do you like or dislike about this character?

We'll start with Kay he's easy. I love his loyalty, his grumpiness, the way he keeps ending up mentoring children despite claiming he hates them. The tired old soldier who really wishes the younger generation would shut up and listen. The sibling angst. He's my guy for sure lol

As for Hector he's just a little guy. Just a sad wet guy trailing after an older brother who isn't even aware.... truly a man I love. Surprisingly wild amounts of gender head cannons but we don't have to talk about that yet.

Guinevere.... I'll be honest I'm pretty neutral on her. I do wish we could stop having so much discourse around her because I always feel really nervous posting about her. (For the controversial thoughts dm me I'm not saying anything publicly)

2. What is your favorite canon thing about this character?

Kay it's alll about the loyalty the absolute devotion but also he's not exactly what you expect of a character in that role.

For Hector I just really love the dynamics he has

For Guinevere I think my favorite thing is her defense of Kay in the knight in the cart that was for sure the moment that made me go "oh, maybe I've been wrong about her". Pro tip of you want me to like a character have them be unexpectedly kind to Kay or a similar character lol

3. Least favorite thing about this character

Throwing me to the sharks I see/joking

Ok for Kay it's when he's just mean with no nuance or anything. The complexity is what makes him tasty otherwise he's just an asshole

I don't have one for Hector except that he's NOT FUCKING IN ANYTHING

Guinevere....ok hot take time: she doesn't need to be completely justified or evil guys. She can just be a person. Like she's not even real y'all we can chill out a little and explore possibilities and messiness and rest knowing no one was actually harmed.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Kay: Absolutely not. Never. I'm horrible about assuming people are mad at me and I cry very easily it would not be fun for either of us.

Hector: sure he seems chill I'd just have to hide all of Lancelot whump fics lol

Guinevere: as long as she's chill with me drawing her secret lover in a corset and nothing else. Tbh we'd probably get along pretty well

12. Headcanons....

KAY LOST TO BEAUMAINS ON PURPOSE I SAID WHAT I SAID

Less of headcanon and more of a making my own canon but I think King Ban legitimized/claimed Hector and Hector and Lancelot lived as brothers for at least a little bit.

Big fan of Guinevere being friends with Kay, idk if that's really a headcanon tho lol

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Ok so necessary disclaimer shipping anything is fine it doesn't hurt anyone irl <3 have your fun and let others have fun. That being said...

Kay: Kay/Arthur,and Kay/Gareth. I'll accept Gawain/Kay, I won't pretend that I don't understand it but it's just weird with how i tend to interpret their dynamic. All that said I'm not absolutely opposed to certain extremely dark and whumpy scenerios but that's not something I'm ready to talk about here just yet

Hector: does he have any ships? I legitimately don't think i've seen him shipped with anyone before lol

Guinevere: Once again i'm not sure I have any I don't like that I can think of.

Thanks again for the ask!! <3

[badsalmonella]

You know like THEEE one people would make long angry rant posts about being like "you like this character??? Don't you know they did *grocery list of problematic traits* ???" The one deemed as """the true villain of Camelot""" in those bad take posts. Yes I encourage explanations in the tags.

[gellavonhamster]

Lancelot begins as a typical Celtic aithed (abduction tale), then quickly adopts a resonant religious undertone by quietly invoking salvation history. Two mysterious geographies overlap here: the uncertain terrain of the Breton Otherworld, with its alien allure; and the Christian mysteries of the Passion and the Harrowing of Hell, set in their distant time and inhuman place. The Christian narrative eventually becomes a suggestive palimpsest for the whole Lancelot story. Like the scourged Christ who refused to assert his identity to a power whose punishments he embraced as an act of supreme defiance, Lancelot avoids at every turn revealing his name, multiplying the contempt showered upon him and the trials he is required to overcome. The shameful cart into which Lancelot steps because of his love of Guenevere is a kind of mobile pillory, linked to the Passion narrative by reference to scourging and progression through crowded streets, and then by verbal analogy to the bearing of the cross. Lancelot's voyage to Gorre parallels the apocryphal story of Christ's descent into hell after the crucifixion as told in the Gospel of Nicodemus. Both messiahs free hostage bodies from a foreign land where they have, en servitume et an essil, been awaiting the advent of an infinitely suffering, self-negating liberator. [...] Christ is born again by suffering on the cross and descending into hell; Lancelot is Christ-like in that he also suffers for a captive people, and liberates them by his masochistic embrace of a discourse of power that, having subordinated him completely, trips over his prostrated body and stumbles to the ground. Both messiahs resist power by submitting to the fullness of its force, the dominating power of its discourse. Christ declares that there is liberation in suffering and death; Lancelot finds deliverance in suffering and desire.

— Masoch / Lancelotism by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

[groundbreakingdot872]

Happy, happy birthday!! <3 My birthday is next week haha. We're both Virgos! Hope you have a fun, stress free day with your family and friends. Will you watch Merlin? I recommend The Once and Future Queen for that Gwen and Arwen goodness, as well as The Moment of Truth (bonus Morgwen), and other Gwen heavy episodes that aren't too dark like Lancelot du Lac lmao. Forgive me, I'm blanking. Anyway, happy birthday! I hope you're well <3<3<3

PS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v16ndKJiiMY

ILY MON ✨💗✨ so so much !!

my little siblings have loads of things planned for me (from what I could overhear) so I doubt it’ll be that stress-free but definitely memorable :))

im holding off the merlin for tmmr, my day off, but if there’s anyone i would happily take Gwen recs from it would be you! you’re absolutely right about Once and Future Queen, that ep is such a balm for the soul…

and Moment of Truth with the skittering arwen and momentary (lol) morgwen… im in a dilemna now, damn.

i’ll let you know so you can grill me for arwen diacourse later lololl, and i can do the same :)) and that’s my favorite part of rewatching nowadays, having everything w/ a side of discourse, so im very much looking forward to it <3

- omg is that jungkook you devilll 💗😭 need to spare some love for my boo too ty tyyy

and for YOUR birthday prepared to be persistently annoyed from my thoughts abt the first episode of angel (surprise!) gonna see it and then sprint right back for your commentary, as is necessary ✨😌

[maester-of-spreadsheets]

23, 24, 25?

ship you've unwillingly come around to

Lancelot/Guinevere. I was a hater for years but then I stumbled across Arthuriana tumblr and the Lancelot takes are so delightful in general that it’s changed my POV on it all.

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

What doesn’t these days

Answering with stuff from the kpop trenches feels like cheating

Oh debates about food. It’s all so pointless. I don’t like pineapple on pizza either but I don’t see the point of trying to convince others that it’s disgusting or whatever.

common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Oh god whenever someone somewhere does the annual “””””””data analysis””””””” that’s all like here are the top ships on ao3 and here’s why you’re all wrong for writing so much m/m and people reblog or retweet it like ‘fandom looked like fandom.’

Is it a phenomenon worth thinking about? I guess. But after a while it just ends up like…… okay you can’t make people unwrite those fics. You can’t go in and mass delete all the Johnlock fic or whatever. So what’s really being accomplished here? If people took half the time they spend handwringing about this and actually leave kudos/comments on the stuff they say they want… you’d likely see more of it.

[icharchivist]

I get it. Fandom discourse can be terrifying. You're valid for being wary. Also, I agree on the Gbf ages being weird. I personally take them as suggestions rather than hard fact and then largely ignore them anyway, because the ages seem largely unrelated and these characters have aged like one year in 9 human years, so it's really not that important lmao. As long as they're over 18 it's all good

ikr 😩 a curse, truly, but thank you for that.

and yeah same. Usually i kinda just go "are they an adult or are they a child", and then it's only about mostly relativity to me. Like Siegfried is older than Lancelot and Percival, who are older than Vane. Any other details is up depending on what matters or not, this type of things.

like i mentioned how i think Seox being 19 is just bewildering to me, and it's kinda the mix of wanting to make him younger than Nehan (who's established at 21) but also close in age to MC who is constantly frozen at 15yo (mostly bc of the whole "they could have been adopted siblings had our father tried" thing).

Personally i feel like both of them are too young. But i kinda just take it as "they're over 18 and adults, and Seox is slightly younger than Nehan". the ages themselves just serve as a guideline to me.

and then we have Meg. Meg who lived all of the Auguste summer, and in My Beloved Auguste is mentioned to be coming back every year, and, by the time of the 6th summer..... was 18yo? I'm sure the implication is that the "Auguste Summers" are spread out on like a couple of years rather than one a year and everything, but the event did play it like it was once a year, so that just made her age more confusing. Just making her 20 already would make things less confusing honestly. And considering Mari, who's her age, ended up becoming a political figure in Auguste, making them like, actual adults and not just "barely adults" would probably have been better anyway.

but honestly yeah i'm showing my overthinking there because it's the reason i Gave Up. I don't really care actually, but mostly because i feel like if you try to take the ages too seriously, things are going to drive you insane before you know it.

so just taking it easy and having just some vague ideas of the ages is the way to go imo. No worrying, just chilling, just somewhat mindful about it all, and tadaaaaa.

[marybeatriceofmodena]

I'm seeing discourse about whether killing off a character brings an actual sense of gravitas and stakes to your story, and I will simply add this:

In one of my WIPs, which is basically a very affectionate parody of medieval romance, I have an old abbot character who spends most of the plot being a coward and running away from his problems, while preaching about the importance of self-sacrifice and essentially being a hypocrite. At the end, he does the right thing to protect the people he is responsible for, and he dies as a hero. Having either the male or the female main character die hasn't even crossed my mind, because they're not an illicit couple à la Lancelot and Guenivere (I know some people will object here but that's just how medieval conventions are), and all of the problems that happen in the book are due to them being separated by external factors. Their daughter isn't an option either, because it's not a grimdark story either and she's one of the things that allows them to find each other again and her death would lead to things go from bad to worse irreparably, and this isn't meant to have a sad ending.

The other one has a character who is a certain type of immortal, becomes another type of immortal through a curse, does a lot of bad things, and he ends the story as a mortal, with the girl he's in love with who's also mortal. Again, killing him off hasn't even crossed my mind, and the reason why is that him becoming mortal at the end of it all is simultaneously the best and the worst thing that can happen to him. It's initially forced onto him, but when given the option to get it all back, he refuses, because he gained something more important. And if I decided to "kill him off to up the stakes", I would lose something pretty important in his character arc.

tl;dr There are other ways of upping the stakes or getting a sense of tragedy/catharsis than putting your characters' names in a jar and picking whoever dies randomly

[thefollow-spot]

Going to start using this line from E. A. Robinson’s Lancelot (1920) in every internet discourse

[viscericorde]

saw the shadow of mythology discourse™ passing under my boat and one of the tangents that got me was people apparently being surprised that lancelot is french. girl his last name is "du lac"

[fangsandfeels]

Disclaimer: I really don’t want to start a discourse. I’m getting too old for this :D  I made my post because I’ve seen takes describing the spawn choice as  “bad” or “harmful” and wrote my thoughts on it based on the in-game content and interactions. I consider both routes extremely well-written in terms of potential path development for the character, and I didn’t intend to shame or attack anyone for their choices. Moreover, I respect people who enjoy evil playthroughs and appreciate them for their dark and dramatic potential. So, when I write something in my brainrot nest, I mean no offense. We’re all free to disagree with each other, and you’re welcome to block me if my content rubs you the wrong way.

No one talks about Astarion’s past because Larian hasn’t established Astarion’s past. The Astarion's background in the artbook is how he started out during the development process, but it has been mentioned more than once that the stories and backgrounds of characters have been changed in the course of development, and many things are no longer relevant. In the EA, Gale got stuck with an orb because he wouldn’t accept that Mystra moved on, and tried to convince her that he was worth her love -- in the final version, he was still Mystra’s lover who wanted to prove his worth. In the EA, Wyll lost his eye to a goblin and blamed Mizora for tricking him. In the final version he started his career by taking on the Tiamat cultists and accepts full responsibility for his choices and actions. In the EA, we had a seductive Dream Visitor created by a tadpole. In the EA, it was hinted that Cazador sexually abused Astarion.

None of these are relevant in the original game. What’s established is that Astarion doesn’t remember his past, not even the color of his eyes before he got Turned. His past is lost to him - and it’s not likely Larian will ever disclose it because people are coming with their own interpretations and whatever works for them, and they would rather keep it that way. So, I see no point in appealing to the past that is lost to Astarion and to the EA. I have my reasons to doubt Astarion’s corrupt judge origins based on the facts from his past after he got Turned, but once again, everyone is going to have their own idea of his past and that’s fine. But Larian made it clear that it’s not his past but his experience with Cazador that defines his choices.

2) Tav doesn’t have to be “the hero” to dissuade Astarion from performing the ritual.

You don’t need to be the Superman or Sir Lancelot to be uncomfortable with seeing your extremely stressed friend about to kill thousands of people, including children - especially when you see them conflicted and trying to rationalize their decision to themselves, convincing them that this is what they want. They are clearly not okay.

In the context of the world, diabolical rituals are never a good thing, and even evil/neutral characters would have their doubts about it. The entire plot is perpetuated with stories that dealing with devils, hags, and other powerful beings taking more than they give - and that no one is ever the same, never the better version of themselves. Astarion is about to jump into the ritual he only knows about from Raphael’s words without thinking ahead or wondering what it will do to him or what it will take from him. Tav has all reasons to worry about Astarion specifically because they value him too much to see him gambling himself away.

3) To be honest, Origin Character playthroughs are a narrative mess because developers kinda wanted to make them about experiencing their companions’ journeys through their eyes, but they also didn’t want to take away the player’s freedom of choice. As a result, we can side with goblins and destroy the Grove as Wyll even though we lose Wyll as a companion if we make that choice when playing as an avatar character. We can be nice to Zorru as Lae’Zel even though, as a companion, Lae’Zel harasses the guy unless interrupted.

Playing as Ascended Astarion we can continue romancing our LIs without forcing them to get Turned - while we clearly remember that Ascended Astarion leaves no such option on his romance route. It’s either get turned and stay under his control or break up with him. It gets oxymoronic to the point where we can go to Avernus with Karlach as an Ascended Astarion (which is something he would never offer), but if we play as Karlach and romance Astarion after Ascension, we’re still told to kneel and he verbally abuses us after burning himself on our blood (as if it’s Karlach’s fault). So, of course, Ascended Astarion’s walkthrough looks better in the origin run. All nuance is removed for the player's convenience because players could barely handle the Dark Urge even though they had been explicitly warned in advance that this is a very unsettling route.

The same goes for the origin Spawn ending -- people had the sad sewer part and then they got a cutscene with Gale cheerfully talking about going together to Waterdeep and getting married.

I’m not even talking about the fact that the game ending is currently undercooked and abrupt. People have complaints about not knowing about the consequences of their choices, not being able to speak with any companions aside from their LIs, and the missing epilogues from Withers show that this is not how it’s supposed to be. So, I wouldn’t call it a reliable reference.

4) You can only leave Astarion “weak, vulnerable, and sad” if you believe he is weak, vulnerable, and sad as he is i.e. agree with his own opinion of himself. I don’t see why the character who respects Astarion and sees him as a person (like he wanted) would think of him that way. He is strong, smart, capable, and resilient. He doesn’t have to be nice or valorous, but he also no longer has to put up appearances and facades as a self-defense mechanism. As soon as he believes it, he starts doing things he never thought himself to be capable of. The spawn that had no respect for him and used to call him “weak” or “the runt of the litter” followed his instructions without much objection. When he talks to Gur, he is direct, firm, and confident in his every word, even though he is still dealing with the aftermath of the entire ordeal. He doesn’t need Tav to speak for him, he speaks for himself.

“Erasing his mistakes” means agreeing that he doesn’t have the strength to live with them, that he truly doesn’t amount to anything on his own. Not to mention that those “mistakes” are people who didn’t do anything wrong and who can still be helped, the people he feels sorry for. Moreover, these are people who remind them of himself (which is also stated even in his origin playthrough) and by killing them he is also burying the most human part of himself believing it to be unfit and redundant, a reason for his misery.

Does a person who got harmed and affected by their abuser deserve to be no longer treated like a human being worthy or respect and support, just because they’re different now, “not normal”? Does agreeing with your friend that they’re pathetic, weak, and not good enough to deal with the life’s challenges means wanting the best for them? Personally, I can’t get behind that.

From that point of view, there is no sense for the Dark Urge to resist their heritage. They are a serial killer with amnesia. They have been killing since childhood and while their victims aren’t alive to tell the tale, they have to live with the risk of victims’ relatives trying to lynch them to avenge their loved ones: after all, the relatives and SOs didn’t get the memo of the Durge’s redemption. Would the city even want them if the truth of them being the killer who has been torturing people, burying them alive, vivisecting them and defiling their corpses becomes public knowledge? What will they do without Bhaal’s grace?

In that regard, Durge too is punished for not taking the easy way out -- they would have been dead without Withers. And they basically do it for their LIs who stubbornly see them as a better person and believe in them. Are they happier if they succumb to their nature and accept Bhaal? It’s hard to tell because they become an extension of Bhaal’s ambition with the only goal to kill the world and then themselves.

5) As was beautifully said before me, persuasion isn’t about forcing your ideas on someone. It’s about finding the arguments the person is already aware of and invested in. We wouldn’t have been even able to convince Astarion not to do the ritual if he hadn’t been thinking about it or wishing it didn’t have to be that way. We don’t impose our image of him on him - no more than he does when he says “This isn’t you” to the Dark Urge after their revelation (both in romance and friendship, BTW).

We choose between helping him acknowledge his own strength, nurture and hone it, and an “easy way out". To me in the latter case his freedom is subjective because despite being able to walk in the sun and gaining all the boons, he still follows Verlioth’s lessons word for word and can’t feel safe unless he controls or kills everyone. I have nothing against players who appreciate this ending for what it is, mind it.

6) To address the breakup point, it’s kinda even weird you can break up so late in the game. As a rule, most romances are locked. But of course he’d say that: it’s a dick move and I too would want the partner feel bad about that even if I was in good mood before.

To sum it up: I don’t judge people who choose the Ascension route. The evil options are available for a reason. You won’t find any attacks on them in my brainrot posts. I like that Stephen Rooney doesn’t pull any punches and how he turns the tables on us. What doesn’t sit well with me are takes like “He has always been evil, he wanted this” or “Why care about these 7000 spawns, they’re not even people anymore” and I would talk about the reasons why I don't like them. Also, I just like dissecting the game moments and writing my thoughts on them.

I've seen the "Non-ascended Astarion ending is bad for him because you have to persuade him to reject the ritual" opinion...

..implying that he never really wanted not to ascend, it's you the player who selfishly forces him to give up on his goal. To prove their point, they state that you can get a good ending out of all other companion's quests without using Persuasion at all, except for Astarion.

And boy did I want to talk about this...

(In fact, everything I wanted to say has already been told in this amazing meta post, but I still gotta ramble)

First of all, Astarion was going through an intense PTSD. The game gave him a debuff to show how badly going back to the place of his torment was affecting him. Larian couldn't make it more obvious that he wasn't thinking clearly.

Second, there is one thing all abusers have in common: they destroy their victim's feelings of self-worth to the point, the victim no longer wants or knows how to ask for help or have relationships outside their abusive circle.

Who would want you like this? Look at yourself, you think you're better than me? You're nothing. Who would want to waste their time on you? You think somebody else would treat you better?

Since entering the Cazador's palace, Astarion is reliving his worst moments. Initially, he takes it in stride, hiding his discomfort underneath performative and emotional expressiveness. He talks about how he spent time in the bedrooms where he never did any sleeping, about the kennels where he was tortured, about the barracks where he was sent to when he "deserved neither carrot nor stick". Bad memories, but he shares them with Tav because he trusts them with his scars already. They might as well know the rest.

But after descending into the dungeon, Astarion starts spiraling into self-loathing at a break-neck speed. He used to think that all Cazador victims he ever brought to him were long gone, drained, and discarded. A horrible, undeserved death, yet the thought of them not having to suffer for too long was a small consolation, one of the threads holding his sanity together.

But then it turns out that they weren't dead. They were turned. Locked away deep underground, alone with their new selves, with the hunger and isolation. They did suffer. All these years, they suffered, buried in this tomb - because of him. Cazador may have turned them, but it was Astarion who brought them to him. And they remembered it. They recognized him. The monster who stole them from their home. The monster who ruined their life. Monster. Just like Cazador.

So, as if his PTSD wasn't enough, this revelation was another blow to his grip on himself, his perception of himself. His confident facade was shattering - and in his head, he was starting to think that Tav's idea of him, of who he is, was shattering as well. He tried to warn them before. He said he couldn't be what they saw in him. Whatever person they believed him to be had never existed - and Tav was finally coming to realize that as they walked through the gallery of his sins, looking his victims in the eyes and hearing out what they had to say. Of course, Tav hated him now. They had to. How could they not?

So, at the end, he is scared. Terrified. He bit off more than he could chew by walking into the manor and thinking he had only six fellow spawns to deal with. He saw their lives as a small price to pay because Cazador made sure to erase any solidarity between them. He made them torture each other and compete with each other. He twisted the very meaning of family bonds to his perverted liking, and he knew that by doing so, he would make sure every single one of them would get a whiplash from anyone trying to mention family in a positive connotation. Astarion takes no issue with getting rid of his "brothers" and "sisters" because he is fully aware that had the roles been reversed, they would have sacrificed him without a second thought. And he was certain that Tav would change their mind once they learned more about his brethren.

But the spawns in the dungeon...All the faces he remembered. All the lovers he lured. They did nothing wrong. They never hurt him. They never tortured him. Their only mistake was to trust him.

The revelation horrifies him. His first response is to be shocked, overwhelmed with emotion - and then he has to remind himself that sacrifices must be made. He feigns indifference. He tries to cover his internal conflict with gallows humor. But his flippant mask keeps slipping as he lapses from indifference to anger, to guilt, to begging Tav not to hate him as his greatest crimes glare back at him and claw at him, shouting out threats and seething with hatred.

He can't bear the thought of dealing with all the people whose lives he helped to destroy. He can't do anything for them. Just killing Cazador won't undo what he did to them. He will never be anything but a monster in their eyes. And this is what he deserves to be. He will always be reminded of what he is.

He has no choice but to do the Ritual.

He has no idea what will happen to him after he is done - he isn't a planner. He has never been. But at this point, he doesn't see his soul as something worthy of preserving - and by association, he extends that to other spawns. He knows it all too well because he remembers how it felt. He dissociates, projecting everything he hated about himself onto Cazador's victims, trying to rationalize why he should live and why they must die while he actively avoids the truth.

Completing the ritual is no longer about being free. Or protecting himself and his lover. It's about running away. Even when Astarion has Cazador at his mercy, he still thinks of running away. Getting lost forever. So nobody could ever hurt him.

A part of him even realizes that it means running away from Tav too. But Tav can leave, he naively thinks, not knowing the full consequences of the ritual. Tav will leave to find someone else, someone better, and he will start everything anew, a king of his castle.

So, of course, Tav has to reach out to him through that thick haze of fear, anger, and self-hatred. Persuasion isn't about strongarming someone into doing what you want. It's not subjugation or emotional blackmail. It's reasoning with someone. And that is exactly what Tav does - reasons with Astarion after watching him mentally struggle, after seeing his genuine shock and fear, after understanding that he isn't fully on board with the idea.

It's true, vampire spawns tend to gravitate toward power, especially if nothing is pulling them back. A vampire spawn is a feared and scorned creature - it no longer matters whether they were an unwilling victim, forcefully taken and turned. They are seen not as an individual but as the extension of their master - and the only natural transition for them is to get on the top of the food chain. The only way to make a name and become treated as something more.

Astarion saw power as the mean to safety and freedom, first and foremost. Ironically, he never planned beyond securing these two priorities. He never saw himself after accomplishing his goals, and it's kinda amazing how people can make conclusions about his hedonism because he misses petty vanities, wants to drink blood from a goblet, and sleep on silken sheets. The man who was held and tortured in the kennels, fed rats, and had to stitch and fix his only set of clothes over and over to keep it presentable, the man who has never felt happy for most of his conscious non-life is called hedonistic for wanting nice things. For still wanting to take care of himself for once.

He wasn't harboring any grand plans, conquests, or schemes. Even his idea of taking control of the Absolute was abstract and shapeless because he didn't care about getting control over the most influential people as much as he was afraid of breaking whatever protected him from Cazador's domination. He never really knew what to do with power aside from keeping Cazador and the likes of him at bay.

The way Astarion behaves in a relationship also speaks tons of how controlling he really is...or how he isn't controlling at all. When his romance with Tav transforms into something real, and he enters a new territory, Astarion is empowered to make decisions and think about what he wants instead of pleasuring others. It's clear that he and Tav don't have sex after they come clear about their feelings. Tav respects his comfort and boundaries, gives him all the time he needs, and lets him take the lead. Whether they will have sex again or not is entirely up to Astarion. Whatever he decides, it won't change Tav's feelings for him. He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do.

Astarion enjoys this new autonomy. He is playful, affectionate, outspoken...and afraid of messing everything up. If Tav mentions breaking up, Astarion thinks he is the problem. If there is another potential love interest showing they have eyes for Tav, Astarion encourages Tav to be with them because he believes they can give Tav everything he can't. When Tav says "I choose you," Astarion is taken aback, needing a moment to hide his genuine confusion at Tav actually wanting to be with him rather than Gale, Karlach, or Halsin.

For all his talks of control and dominating others, once Astarion finds himself with a lover who values his autonomy more than getting power at the cost of his dignity, who makes it safe for him to be honest, and who listens to him, he almost stops mentioning control. He merely lives in the moment, happy not to know, not to pretend, not to manipulate. Just to be.

What Astarion truly craves - not wants on a superficial level, not conditioned to want - is not to be a vampire lord. He wants the freedom to be anything. Anything he wants. Little does he know that true vampires rarely get to be anything they want, even if they gain the ability to walk in the sun -- we see it in his Ascended path as, instead of acting up on his supposed freedom to be anything, Astarion repeats Cazador's rules step by step. Just like Cazador did. Just like Verlioth did. He isn't anything he wants. He is the replica of his former master.

Astarion never had the luxury to explore who he wanted to be outside what Cazador made him. He only makes his first steps once he is free. We see glimpses of that deep-seated aspiration to be seen as a person. Treated like a person. Loved like a person. To be reflected in someone's eyes. He wants to know if there is someone beneath his usual mask, something his, not tainted by Cazador. Someone real. And at the same time, he dreads to know the answer. Because that part of him knows regret. Knows shame. Knows guilt. Confronting it posed the risk of realizing he didn't deserve love, kindness, or a future. What if real him truly doesn't amount to anything? What else for him to do?

So, he tells himself that he has no choice, and he expects Tav to affirm it -- not because he wants them to, but because he believes that Tav has seen enough to make the same conclusion. However, Tav objects, trying to be louder than all the inner demons hissing into his ears. Tav speaks to the Astarion, who asked them what they saw when they looked at him. The Astarion, who thanked them for standing by his side when he said "No" to Araj. The Astarion one who stood frozen in their hug before returning it tentatively. The Astarion who diligently, dedicatedly, caringly kept pulling himself together instead of letting himself unravel completely.

Tav reminds him that this Astarion, right here, right now, is worth fighting for. That he didn't survive all these years of torture, pain, humiliation, and dehumanization to give himself up now. He already has the power to avenge himself, avenge all Cazador's victims. He can end everything right here, right now - and this is the only power to free him. He has the power (and responsibility) of having a choice.

Tav empathizes with other spawns as victims not because they're more "innocent" than Astarion, but because associating with them doesn't brand Astarion as weak or broken. These spawns aren't horrible wretches, and neither is he. They don't deserve this, and neither did he.

The only one who deserves to die today is Cazador - the vampire, the monster, the pathetic of shit.

Astarion Ancunin deserves to live.