#a bit of arthuriana for y'all

[strangelittlestories]

When dad and me died*, his death resulted in a whole *production*; tears were shed, swords were thrown into rivers, and grandma hid him away in a custom-built tomb** so he could come back ‘when like, we really need him, y’know’?

(*Okay, fine, that’s maybe not the most honest phrasing. It’d probably have been more accurate to say “When I killed Dad and he killed me”. And it would have been most accurate to say “when I impaled Dad with a spear and the *absolute madman* clawed his way up the haft inch-by-painstaking-inch to stab me in the heart with his magic sword”.)

(**Like, seriously, did she just have a mystical suspended-animation tomb ready to go? That’s creepy. It’s not just me right, that’s a little weird?)

But me? I was just left to rot on Pelennor Fields with all the other riff-raff.

(Wait, SHIT - Pelennor Fields is the Tolkein one, isn’t it? The fields of *Camlan* are where I died. Sorry about that - in my defence, I died many centuries and several Lord of the Rings binges ago.)

I guess I should be grateful that they left me alone. It wasn’t so long ago (and not so long after) that traitors to the crown used to get their heads displayed on pikes or hung in gibbets. But folks were pretty busy with king dad’s big send-off and mourning the dream of chivalry (plus burying all the dead folks they actually liked), so no-one really bothered with tidying up the remains of the traitor prince. 

Plus, I think most of the knights and nobles had thought I was a bit of a weirdo and didn’t want any more to do with me in death than they did in life. Probably afraid that I’d reanimate and use my last foetid breaths to tell them about a cool mushroom I’d found. Then they wouldn’t know how to respond, and it’d just be *awkward*, y’know?

So anyway, there I was, lying there with my blood soaking the dirt and my vital organs getting decidedly less vital by the second. And all around me was a whole field of other dead people that I’d gotten killed and honestly I was feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing.

How was I dead and still feeling shitty you ask? Well, first of all: I am a multi-tasker. And second of all: I guess I wasn’t maybe *all-the-way* dead*.

(*Or rather: I was very much dead, but I was *also* very much in my body and doing a big old hecking panic about that, thank you very much.)

Something you should probably know about me: I was adopted. Yeah yeah, I know you’ve heard the propaganda, that my mum and dad were brother and sister and that’s where a lot of my *fundamental weirdness* comes from. And *yes*, they were siblings, but *no* it wasn’t like that. Dear old mum and dear dead dad *found me*. 

Specifically, they found me in a weird-ass cave spattered in the blood of a monster they’d just slain (it was A Whole Thing, I’ll tell you about it some other time).

They figured that the beast had stolen me after killing my family or something like that.

This was incorrect.

A certain bearded crap-o-mancer speculated that I was the *beastie’s* boy, but that’s wrong too.

The truth is weirder. You see … I was the cave’s kid.

Yup. Child of the earth, right here. Or to give a less flattering but more apt name … I was a dirtbag.

[wordsinhaled]

i'm at a bit of a standstill with the ring-kissing fic so y'all are gonna hear me ramble about hob gadling and dream and arthurian knighthood for a minute because man. man!!!

i mean. the ring-kissing fic is not a straight-up arthuriana AU but nevertheless

hob gadling is... THE knight errant, errant as in erring from the proper course AND errant as in adventure-seeking!!!

he's exactly the sort of knight of the round table malory was writing about. malory shows us that the knights are imperfect, flawed, perpetually a moment away from committing questionable or outright cruel acts. like, the irony of camelot and arthur and the round table being held up as paragons of morality and chivalry is my FAVORITE THING because these characters are RIFE with moral grey. the fabric of the round table is continually threatened by the knights' own failings. they are kept in check only by the strictures of virtue and courteisie, these ideals of courtly love that they are held to and yet often do not achieve

and then you get into how howard pyle sort of transformed this entire concept of the morally grey round table to cherrypick "moral" values and ideals of uprightness and chivalry to shape young men in the 1900s, and how the story mutates into this idealization of the round table and knighthood, but i digress

i remember reading a paper ages ago (wish i could find it now, but have no recollection at all what it was called or who it was by) about how the round table and the mythologization of camelot, the codification of chivalric social norms, was a response to not knowing quite what to do with the medieval soldiering/knightly class in society when they were not at war, how to keep their power in check and maintain an orderly society, because there was this fear that these men would not have anywhere to put their energy and would resort to violence/social unrest so religion and courtly love were used to create ideals for the warrior class to follow

and like... that is the most hob gadling energy ever, honestly??? like he's so representative of that thing that was feared in society. mercenary hob, brute force hob, full of fire energy and zest for life that cannot be contained, becoming perhaps over the years more refined, or sublimating those aspects of himself, but never losing the imperfection in him that always sways him toward some sort of moral failing

i mean. hob is the knight who would attempt the grail quest and not achieve the grail in part or, maybe more aptly, because he doesn't believe he will achieve it and understands himself to be fundamentally flawed. hob is the knight who wanders the forest in a hair shirt and never fully manages atonement but is always, perpetually striving toward it

so like, a whole aspect of this fic is the fact that hob is sort of having this experience of revelation in dream's realm, being in the dream lord's presence, that he doesn't feel entirely deserving of and has to grapple with having experienced and packing that eldritch transformative experience back into the waking world

and then there's the whole fact that dream himself (like arthur) is also fundamentally flawed. he suffers the tragic flaw of excessive pride. he is an idea and he is an ideal in his own right, but he often falls short of his own personal standards for his kingdom and is perpetually self-castigating. dream isn't The Grail, he provides revelation but he is also on his own hero's journey fumbling toward moral betterment and and and

yeah, i don't know, i am just Feral about this thanks @queerofthedagger

[fligshaag]

im going to ramble for a sec, get ready y'all

i feel like im in the minority that enjoyed 3below more than Trollhunters. Not that i don't love Trollhunters, i do! It was the first show and I love the cast to bits, but unlike many in the fandom I didn't really relate to the characters that much. Like yeah, Jim's nervousness is relatable at times, but he wasn't super relatable to me. Even Claire, the hispanic character that's a total badass and who I enjoy a lot, didn't relate to me that much. I remember when i first finished Trollhunters i was nervous to start 3below since i didn't know what to expect or if it would do the cast I came to love justice. I already liked Aja and Krel from their first appearance in trollhunters, so I would have some familiar faces going into 3below, but the jump from this fantasy setting to the sci-fi setting scared me lil bit. But after a week i finally caved in and watched 3below, and holy shit I fucking loved it, looking back I feel dumb for putting it off for so long.

Aja and Krel are currently the most relatable characters in this series for me, like y'all, i cried tears for these kids, and that was like the second time i cried because of a tv show. The focus on the experiences immigrants have to go through, and how Aja and Krel have to adjust to this new environment, feeling like they don't belong and all that shit made me burst into fucking tears. Im a immigrant that moved to the us when i was a child, so to see some of the stuff that i had to endure happen to Aja and especially Krel broke my fucking heart. Not to say that since Aja and Krel, especially Krel, are latino coded, me being the dumbass latino that i am, i definitely latched unto them and projected myself unto them, godbless

They also have a good sibling dynamic that makes me soft,, 😔❤️ i just love them a lot, and if i were to put down all my feelings and thoughts about 3below then this will just be completely uncomprehensable. I definitely feel like 3below should've had another season, like Trollhunters had 3 seasons (or like 4 since im pretty sure the whole arc with Angor Rot was supposed to be it's own season), like there was so much that they could have explored, especially with the extra-terrestrial stuff, like Seklos and Gaylen. Im hoping they explain that in wizards, but who knows. Also, while both shows didn't have the preferred endings ( jim gets turned into a troll, and has to leave everything behind, while Aja and Krel lose their parents and end up separating in the end), 3below's ending didn't end up leaving a sour taste in my mouth like Trollhunters did ( i don't hate troll!jim but the way he came to be a troll left me bitter and uncomfortable for some reason, also i will forever hate merlin).

Im excited for wizards, but I'm trying not to have any big expectations of the show, since I don't want to hype something up in my head just to be disappointed when it doesn't happen. Not that I expect wizards to underperform and waste my time, I know that I will enjoy wizards, and only a few things that are unlikely to happen would lessen my enjoyment of the show. Im just going into wizards no thoughts, head empty. No theories so I can go completely blind. I've found that viewing something through a theorist lense just makes me more nervous for some reason lmao, not that I don't enjoy a good theory from time to time. Good thing I know nothing about Arthuriana lol

If you for some reason read all of this, tell me, what is your favorite show of this series and why

[violetcancerian]

6 followers away from 500, folks!!!

Any suggestions on what I should do? A moodboard? A drawing? A snippet??

Y'ALL this started out as a fandom blog and turned into a book blog for a bit (???) Then to an Arthuriana blog and now I'm over here rambling about my stories and about writing and proudly crying at how talented each and every one of you are.