#and then we get arthurian adaptations like Gwen & Art

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

"But the reason why we retell the tales over and over is to create hope. We keep these themes and characters alive because we need them, because we need to make sense of what is happening and what needs to happen in our lives, and what better way to do that than with grand, tragic characters who already make sense to us? They explain the world to us and inspire us to keep going even though a happy ending may not be possible (Gilgamesh) and maybe because a happy ending may not be possible yet (Arthur).

“When Albion’s need is greatest,” Kilgharrah says in the last episode of Merlin, “Arthur will rise again.”

And he has risen when we needed him most. Multiple times. We were even the ones doing the resurrecting."

[pellicano-sanguino]

Read this lesbian retelling of romance between Guinevere and Lancelot. It’s ok. Wish I could have liked it more, but due to some personal preferences I found it a bit underwhelming.

I like Arthurian legends and chivalric romances, and I like the story of Guinevere and Lancelot. Yes, I’m very much aware most people think it’s a story done to death and Lancelot is considered a boring Mary Sue. I make no attempt to hide the fact that the 2011 Takarazuka musical about the subject is like 98% of the reason I like the story. 

I can’t read about Lasse and not picture Makaze Suzuho in a silvery leather overalls armor.

The story is being told in first perspective, from Lasse’s point of view (now my nickname for Lancelot is truly fitting, because in this story she is a lass, heh heh). This is just a personal preference, but I don’t like this style. I prefer to see the story objectively, now Lasse passes her own judgment and opinion on everything and I can’t help but feel that it’s limiting. Also, damn does Lasse self monologue in a weird, cryptic manner. I know Arthurian myths aren’t known as stories grounded in reality and I know poetic language is to be expected. But sometimes Lasse’s thought process is hard to follow and she just says plain weird things. I get flashbacks to Rose of Versailles and Andre spewing out some nonsense about his love becoming a fossil encased in amber.

I do wonder if the writer is into Wicca or paganism, because there’s some pretty heavy anti-christian pro-paganism messages in the book. Lasse holds great respect for the old religion and one of the reasons she doesn’t like Arthur is because he is a Christian king. Which, for storytelling purposes, is understandable. The way Christianity wiped out the pagan religions of Europe by swordpoint (convert or have your head cut off) is a tragedy that isn’t often talked about (because there are other, more violent examples of forcibly spreading Christianity that tend to get the spotlight more). Of course Lasse, who was raised by Lady of Lake, a creature of old myths, would resent having this new religion replace all the ancient wisdoms she’d been taught and seeing the new faith shamelessly slap their holidays over the pagan festivals. 

The clash of these religions is an interesting part of world building. But Lasse’s view of the old religion as something sacred and flawless and perfect is naive and childish. It’s like reading the thoughts of someone who was brainwashed by a cult at a young age and so is incapable of finding faults in the doctrine or criticizing anything related to the practices. Pagan religions could (and often would) be used as a tool of power and be rooted in the same harmful ideas as Christianity. For a woman, it makes no difference if the one commanding her to “know her natural place” was a patriarchal male God or a sacred pagan Goddess, her freedom to choose for herself is still being taken away by a religion who wishes to control her. 

Lasse is secretly being raised as a boy, Rose of Versailles style. This means that once she is maturing, she must go through “an initiation ritual” meant for boys. This ritual? A fucking date rape. They make her drink some sort of drug or love potion and then provide a woman for her to sleep with so she can “become a man.” Once Lasse sobers up, she feels awful about what happened. And yet, even in this moment, realizing that she was drugged and made to have sex she didn’t want, she will not question the old religion. She will not criticize this disgusting practice, believing that though unpleasant, it must have been necessary for her to become adult. Yeah no, I’m sorry, but whenever religions start including sex in their rituals and pressure people into participating, a siren starts wailing in my head CUUUUUUUULLLLTTT! IT’S A FUCKING SEX CULT! GET THE MINORS OUT NOW!

I was happy, that the drugged rape doesn’t get described in detail. Sex is never described in detail in this book. In a way, I can see a scene where Lasse gets drugged to have sex could be a nod to the begetting of Galahad (which obviously won’t be happening in this version of the story). But still, I would have greatly appreciated if there hadn’t been a rape scene at all. The only kind of sex scenes I want in my books are the Sober and Enthusiastic Consent ones.

I once saw someone make a post that Lancelot and Gawain are the Arthurian version of Team Edward/Team Jacob. I must say, there’s a seed of truth in here. When you have a story where Gawain is the best knight and main character, Lasse tends to be painted as a selfish adulterous asshole who ruins everything, and when you have a story where Lasse is the leading role and painted as super virtuous, Gawain tends to gear up his negative traits. It’s like you can’t have both of them be likable at the same time. In this book, Gawain (and a whole bunch of other knights) get the asshole makeover treatment. Well, Gawain and Lasse do end up becoming friends but Gawain doesn’t stop being a jerkface and doesn’t really deserve Lasse’s friendship (If someone called my mother a whore, I would simply not forgive and befriend them. Rip to Lasse, but I actually care about my mother more than I do about some entitled dudebro.). I find this kind of writing a little lazy, making other characters pointlessly rude just so the main character looks better in comparison.

Ok, I’ve talked about the parts I didn’t like. Here’s some things I liked.

The book is illustrated. The art isn’t particularly fancy, but I liked it. I wish more books had illustrations, not just the books for kids.

The relationship between Lasse and Guinevere begins in their childhood, before Gwen is married to Arthur. I prefer love stories that give the characters a long period of time to develop their feelings for each other (as opposed to stories of them falling in love overnight Romeo&Juliet style). Also, it reminded me of the zuka musical.

Another thing I liked is that the relationship between Gwen and Lasse isn’t adulterous. They are very much in love with each other, but they won’t have sex. I would have forgiven them if they did, since Gwen didn’t have any say in her marriage and so it turned out a loveless political marriage. It’s a whole different thing to romanticize cheating and to understand that women in forced marriages had no other choice but to seek love of someone who loved her as a person, not as a moneybag. But Lasse and Gwen are virtuous, so they are above such thinking. When she married Arthur, Gwen made a promise to be faithful to him, and despite not loving him, she will not break this promise. Well, not until Arthur divorces her in favor of the False Guinevere.

Which brings me to the thing I probably liked the most - Gwen has an evil twin. And no, this isn’t the writer slapping some modern trope over a classic tale, this is a genuine legend. There are stories where Guinevere has a sister who seeks to replace her. Seeing a lesser known legend get adapted brought a smile to my face. We can tell a story of Gwen and Lasse without using the same old stories of Grail quest and abduction of Guinevere. It was fascinating. 

Once the False Guinevere has convinced Arthur that she is the real queen, Gwen is cast out (well, after Lasse has to fight for her honour to save her from death penalty). Lasse and Gwen travel to Galehaut’s place (a friend of Lasse’s) and there, freed from her promise, Gwen finally has sex with Lasse. And only now, very close to the end of the book, is it revealed that Lasse is actually a woman. Saving this plot twist to so near the end feels a bit unnecessary, because I’m pretty sure 9 out of 10 people who buy this book already know about it and, much like me, bought the book exactly because of it. I can’t really imagine there being very many who managed to get to the end and actually be surprised.

The book kinda has a happy ending, but that’s partly because it ends before shit hits the fan re: Mordred. Mordred is in the book, but he’s only discussed about, never seen. There’s plenty of hints and foreshadowing that Arthur’s reign will come to a violent end some day. But the book leaves that to our imagination.

This is a decent book. If you’re into women and chivalric romance, go for it. But if you prefer a love story with more overtly sensual take on the intimate scenes, you might be happier with some other book, this one is very chaste. Also, you have to be willing to only see the story from Lasse’s perspective, and you have to be ok with Gawain being a prick. But all in all, it’s not a bad read. 

[haberdashing]

You know that post about how Hogwarts being mandatory for pureblood wizards/witches during Deathly Hallows means that the school would have a ton of older homeschoolers attending for the first time and also a bunch of them would be Weasleys?

And how said post more or less says “this is a great excuse to make a bunch of Weasley OCs”?

...well, I made a bunch of Weasley OCs. Details under the cut because long post is long.

Fair warning: it’s been a while since I’ve read Harry Potter, so it’s possible some of these details may not 100% fit with canon.

The Weasley family branch I’ve invented is tentatively related through their father being Arthur Weasley’s younger brother (though I might change the details of their Weasley connection, idk). They live near the English/Scottish border and until Deathly Hallows time were all homeschooled because between getting to King’s Cross and getting all the school supplies Hogwarts says each student has to bring, going would mean spending rather a lot of money that they didn’t generally have to spare.

There are probably a few siblings who are old enough that the Hogwarts mandate doesn’t apply to them, but I haven’t figured out anything about them yet, so I’ll focus on the ones who do end up going to Hogwarts, at least for one year: Lance, Morgan, Gwen, Penelope, and Callie.

Lance’s full name is Lancelot, and he doesn’t really care whether you call him by his full name or just by Lance. He’s strong, determined, and very much a rule-follower except when the rules are blatantly wrong, which of course is the case rather often in Deathly Hallows Hogwarts. He’s a Quidditch whiz, usually gravitating towards the position of Keeper. He’s not terribly fond of formal studying, and having it forced upon him doesn’t help, but he makes it work. He’s very much protective of his younger siblings, and during his time at Hogwarts he extends that protection to any and all Weasley relatives, though Ginny makes it clear quickly enough that it’s not necessary to treat her the same way. He’s the kind of person who might have made a good Prefect, under different circumstances.

Morgan’s name isn’t short for anything, and they didn’t pick it solely because of the Arthurian legend connection, but, well, that connection certainly didn’t hurt either. They’re on the scrawny side, making them looking even younger than they actually are. They’re a smart one, but they’re more likely to apply that intellect on experiments of their own invention than on, you know, homework. They’re fascinated with the rules of magic, and especially with what happens when magic goes awry. They’re independent, introverted, and wildly inventive. There’s no one area of magic that they prefer, because they like to dabble in all of them, mixing and matching as their latest big idea requires. Morgan probably would get along with Fred and George, or at least would be open to collaborating with them, if only as an excuse to justify some of their wilder experiment ideas.

Gwen and Penelope are twins--fraternal twins, specifically. Gwen’s the older of the two by a whopping nine minutes, and likes to lord that (and her extra inch and a half of height) over Penelope. Every once in a while the two of them like to claim that they’re identical twins and watch the befuddled expressions of those trying to reconcile that claim with how they don’t look much alike, especially by Weasley standards.

Gwen’s full name is Gwendolyn. She doesn’t much care if you call her Gwendolyn or just Gwen, but she does insist that if you use a nickname for her it be Gwen rather than Lyn, because as it happens her mother’s name is Lynn and she’d rather not go by her mother’s name, thanks. She’s a shy one, good at blending in and being a wallflower but not so good at actually, well, standing out from the crowd, though part of her wants that, wants to be the center of attention rather than being perpetually in the background. She’s very adaptable, though, and good at judging the scene in front of her and acting accordingly, and she’s got a great memory to boot. She's fond of potion-making, of how nice and predictable it is when you follow the rules.

Penelope, on the other hand, is significantly more outgoing than her twin sister. The only people allowed to call her Penny are her siblings, and even then she usually rolls her eyes. She’s a social butterfly, good at making friends of all shapes and sizes, and she’s got a huge heart. She’s almost as good at Quidditch as her brother, though she’s more of a Chaser or Seeker. She’s also got a green thumb, excelling at taking care of plants both magical and mundane.

Callie is the youngest of the family. Her full name is Calypso, but she hates it with a passion. She’s outspoken with a wicked temper and isn’t afraid of backing up insults with a few choice hexes. She’s a rebellious soul, and while she’s the baby of the family, she hates being babied, hates being reminded of her youth. In a different age, she would have loved taking Defense Against the Dark Arts. As it is, she’s not terribly interested in any of her classes, and it shows in her grades, which are lackluster at best.

Morgan, Penelope, and Callie look exactly as you’d expect a Weasley to look, with bright red hair and skin covered in freckles. Lance’s hair is closer to strawberry blonde than outright red, but he’s still clearly a Weasley at a glance. Gwen, on the other hand, takes after her blonde, freckle-less mother, with hair more blonde than red and the freckles on her pale skin being few and far between.

When the Hogwarts mandate comes, Lance is sixteen, Morgan is fourteen, Gwen and Penelope are thirteen, and Callie is eleven. They all end up as Gryffindors, but the Sorting Hat takes longer to decide on that for some of them than others. (Lance and Callie get proclaimed Gryffindors with the hat barely touching their head; Gwen is briefly considered for Slytherin, but turns it down immediately; Morgan gets considered more seriously for Ravenclaw, and Penelope for Hufflepuff, but in the end, Gryffindor still wins out.)

The whole family would be seen as “blood traitors”--living in a sparsely-populated area where there are only so many people around to connect with, this branch of the Weasley family has gotten close to neighbors both magical and Muggle, and are thus well aware that Muggles and Muggleborns are people no worse than pureblooded wizards like themselves, and that not having magic doesn’t mean a person can’t be valuable or skilled in other ways. How each member of the family acts to further their views and assist the resistance, however, varies from individual to individual.

Lance spends the first month or two following the rules, even when it hurts him to do so, even when he knows that they’re wrong, because he has a long-term plan in mind, and said plan requires being a rule-follower at all times. Once his reputation as a good and obedient student was firmly established, he would occasionally use that reputation to try and keep those fighting the resistance more directly out of trouble. (”You said Brian was out in the halls past curfew last night, up to no good? Well, that can’t be right, because he was with me in the Gryffindor common room all night--we were cramming for that big Charms test we have coming up, I can probably dig up the notes we went through together if you want...”) It doesn’t always work, but it works often enough to be worthwhile.

Morgan’s experiments become mostly directed towards practical matters that they could then share to help others fight the good fight. Some are straightforward enough, spells that harm others in new and exciting ways that might be enough to throw off an opponent, but Morgan’s pet project is working on a spell to change hair colors. Given that red hair, Weasleys, Gryffindors, and blood traitors have become largely synonymous in the eyes of the current Hogwarts administration, being able to change one’s hair color at a moment’s notice has more practical applications than one might initially assume. The hard part, is turns out, isn’t making a spell to change hair colors, but making a spell to change hair colors without some horrible side effects kicking in along the way. After a few months and several trips to the nurse, however, they figure it out and spread the information to everyone they think they can trust.

Gwen uses her largely non-Weasley appearance, her talents for adapting to strange situations and blending into the background, and the spare Slytherin robe that’s been tucked away inside the Gryffindor common room all year with nobody able or willing to explain how it got there, to occasionally go undercover and see what information she can pick up when people aren’t quite as guarded as they normally would be towards a Gryffindor Weasley. While she uses several fake names for these missions, one she uses a few times is her mother’s maiden name of Hendry; the Hendry family is largely Hufflepuff, when they attend Hogwarts at all, but there are enough exceptions to that rule that a Hendry Slytherin isn’t entirely implausible.

Penelope does a few minor things to directly resist Hogwarts’ administrations, like tearing down posters that are barely-disguised Death Eater propaganda pieces, but perhaps more important is her role in comforting and reassuring other students who are worried about what lies ahead. She tells every distraught student that things aren’t as bad as they seem, that everything’s going to be okay, even when Penelope herself is very much unsure of the validity of those statements.

Callie speaks her mind, getting into loud arguments about the rights of Muggles and Muggleborns whenever she’s given the opportunity to do so, and some of those arguments turn into outright fights, exchanges of words turning into exchanges of spells. She also doesn’t even bother to pretend to follow rules that she disagrees with, even when it’s clear that she’ll be caught if she breaks them. Callie spends a lot of time in detention as a result, but she doesn’t mind; in fact, it’s something she prides herself on.

During the Battle of Hogwarts, Lance, Callie, or both lose their lives. If it’s Lance, it’s because he gets in the way of a spell launched at a younger Weasley, whether that be one of his siblings or a more distant relative, willing to protect them even at the cost of his own life. If it’s Callie, she dies as she lived, fighting with all her might for what she believes is right, doing her best to prove that she’s more than just a weak little kid, and willing to face whatever consequences await her for doing so.