Kay @kayleidoscopic - Tumblr Blog

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mortiscausa

Manawydan, Rhiannon, Gwynhwyfar, Pryderi and Cigifa for @gingersnaptaff

grail-lifesupport

Griflet, why would you write that on ur cousin’s gravestone???

Griflet!

gawrkin

Sometimes, I feel as though we, as storytellers, should embrace both Arthur and Guinevere's promiscuities at once, not downplay or run away from it.

Arthur can have his concubines and Guinevere can have her lovers (besides Lancelot). idk, learn to be detached from the morality of and/or need to moralize about the characters' sex habits and focus more on its potential as a tool for narrative and thematic use.

I say this cause I want to imagine a story where all the lovers get together and reveal insights about the royal couple - what Indeg, Angelica, Lisanor, Lancelot, Gosangos, Edern, etc., see in those two, behind closed doors, and who they are outside of being king and queen.

johnjennetteart

I’ve been asked a few times about a labelled Master List of sigils. There are a ton of them, I know, and it’s frustrating to look back and forth between the individual posts where they are labeled. So have this!

wandrenowlereacts

🧐 Fascinating... according to the Latin Arthurian 12th century text "Draco Normannicus" by Étienne de Rouen, the following is said:

Mordred's sons are twins.

Morgan is identified as Arthur's sister (for the first time).

Arthur becomes immortal after he's healed from his wounds by his sister, Morgan.

References

Of Rouen, S. (1169). Normannicus Draco. Latin Arthurian Literature. https://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/research/latin-arthur/texts/the-norman-dragon-banner/

gawrkin

(Source: Natural History - Book 30, by Pliny the Elder)

Man, it is actually wild to me how deep this Magical Britain rabbit hole goes.

In previous posts, I was humorously playing around with idea of Britain being such a fantasy land of witches and wizards in both Celtic Welsh myth and Medieval Arthurian Romance settings. But finding this excerpt from Pliny the Elder shows just how far back in time is this notion held.

Pliny even claims that, because of how magic and Britain are so deeply intertwined, it is an international widely held belief that it was the British who taught magic to the Persians (who are traditionally the historical originators of the magical arts).

just-made-to-comment

I've mostly read random romances, so I've never read an account of the battle of Camlann apart from the Annales Cambriae which is notably short, but I like to imagine that in the fight, Arthur grips Excalibur by the blade, raises it up over his head and delivers a Mordhau directly into Mordred's helmet. The golden hilted sword (whose golden hilt would do a great job lowering the center of mass making it much faster to weild) crashes into Mordred's head, denting the helmet so bad it crushes Mordred's skull. But because the hilt is of gold, which is quite soft, the strike irrevocably mangles the hilt, so Bedwyr choses to chuck it into the lake because it ain't worth keeping an unusable sword.

valtsv

arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.

valtsv

like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that these are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.

grail-lifesupport

Congratulations to Sir Gawain of Orkney and Sir Gromer for getting featured on the Wikipedia article about the History of Tennis!

grail-lifesupport

here's the gawain tennis story!

knightwithahundredkings

every time an adaption makes sir kay straight up evil an angel loses their wings

wandrenowlereacts

I just had yet another realization. Traditionally, King Arthur's death is said to be 542 AD. Interestingly, in history, around that same time, the Plague of Justinian occurred a year prior (in 541 AD). This possibly means that King Arthur and his army, as they march towards Rome, must also deal with a plague that is occurring in the local area.

So, when we add the Plague of Justinian as yet another event that King Arthur must deal with (besides Mordred's betrayal), then that makes things even more terrifying and devastating in the narrative.

katabay

earlier this year I started writing a comic about the siege perilous-grail quest situation after finally finishing the didot perceval, and it started circling around kay and perceval. kay as gatekeeper, taboo anxiety vs chivalry, and perceval not doing things "correctly," arthur's enduring affection for kay. that general area. also the horror of the grail quest itself.

this is comic is part of that narrative arc, so with THAT in mind: this is an abridged scene of a longer arc revolving around kay associating camelot with a cage, perceval's associations with jewelry and knighthood and the color red, and arthur's relationship with kay.

[some other scene context: perceval has injured his hand and can't participate in the tournaments, so he's craving some kind of fight. kay is disinterested in replying to this challenge, but he's not above reminding perceval of their first meeting. it's just mean enough in a weird-intimate kind of way that perceval's like, ok so we're doing the antagonistic version of court romance rituals. he picks up hunting because kay can't leave the castle.]

on the subtext of jewelry:

Clothes Make the Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, M.D. Amey

on the topic of kay, gatekeeping, and taboo anxiety:

Cei and the Arthurian Legend, Linda Gowans

the whole Red Knight/Perceval Shows Up In A Dead Man's Suit Of Armor transgression-situation (which kay references through red jewelry) mentioned is told in both de Troye's and Wolfram's Perceval narratives :)

anyway! to close out all this out: the transgressions. incredible! what is camelot but a bunch of transgressions stacked on top of each other tbh.

katabay

man, I didn't know mordred had snake motifs, this is great. for me. terrible for him. RIP mordred, your life is an unending misery. but the snakes are great for me personally. I can do a lot with a snake motif. anyway, an early design for mordred-- for now I've combined an old gawain design with some other thoughts, but it might change when I revisit gawain haha