Bad Boys can start a fire better than a Boyscout

All my favorite characters are at least a little bit bad. |~| She / Her |~| Fandoms: Stranger Things, Cursed, Hannibal, Shameless, Teen Wolf, The 100, Lost Boys (1987) |~| Age: Too old to be as fangirly as I am over my part-time escape from my full-time adult responsibilities

[nh2d-deactivated20220723]

ive played the “oh lancelot is so sweet and deserves love” game too long. no now its time for the truth. lancelot is evil and gay and loves to kill and i love him so so much BECAUSE of that. yes hes socially awkward and relatable and strangely kind and empathetic and genuine and introverted and self-loathing and *takes deep breath* BUT ANYWAY that man sure loves attack attack attack with sword. sword everywhere. graphic threats of violence. attack attack attack. you WILL like lancelot because historically people who do not like lancelot DIE BRUTALLY. this is a THREAT. i think its SO SEXY of him to simply graphically violence people who hate him. agravaine hates him? stab stab sorry agravaine but you deserved it for hating lancelot. mordred hates him? stab stab again but not quite as good bc mordred is too boring to muster up proper hatred. 30 random people on the stairs? stab! stab! this man just stabs so much! how can you not love a man who stabs so much! he falls asleep everywhere and has so many friends despite being so deeply weird and that is so sweet and lovely of him but its NOT THE POINT. NICE LANCELOT IS OVER. ITS DONE. HES STANDING BEHIND YOU AND HES ABOUT TO STAB YOU UNLESS YOU SAY NICE THINGS. EVERYONE WHO SAID BAD THINGS ABOUT LANCELOT IS DEAD and this is why you should like him. it is not i who is threatening you but rather literary precendent. liking lancelot is simply the most logical choice for self-preservation and this is why we should all love him and also oh god he really grew up in a lake waaaa he simply grew up under water and that is so funny of him and he sleeps in haunted castles and fights demons and makes terrible decisions and loves his friends so deeply but also he KILL ATTACKS. BARK BARK GROWL SNARL HISS

[saighwolf]

☝☝☝☝☝

If you're into Arthuriana for snuggly bunny angelic pacifism? I hate to be the one to break it to you, buuuttttt...I'll happily let @reynier oh so eloquently shatter your illusions instead 😏

[saighwolf]

"If you're frightened of dying, and you're holdin' on, you'll see devils tearin' your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freein' you from the Earth."

This is a whole fucking vibe right now 🙄😒

(FYI, I am absolutely fine, this isn't meant "like that"...just trying to write from the perspective of a character & suddenly all I can see is my Uncle caught in a never-ending loop of Vietnam flashbacks for the final 6 hours before slipping into a coma...I don't know if I want to type until my fingers bleed to purge it, or throw up & hide from writing this scene indefinitely)

[chewedcorn]

“Aquarium Installs Sushi Roll Cylinders For Eels To Slide Into.”

[saighwolf]

😂🍣😂

So, as much as I love sushi, I can't eat unagi because the texture feels gross in my mouth.

But now I can't eat unagi because this has made it's simultaneously gross and cute! 🤣

[babyanimalgifs]

Little batty taps 🦇 

(Source)

[saighwolf]

💓😂💓😂💓

*dies from cute*

[burn-in-the-dawn]

Suffer Little Children...Come Unto Me

"Sword of Light"

Part 2

"Suffer Little Children": Chapter 3/?

"It had been three days since Gawain had awakened. But It had been six days since Gawain had died."

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[saighwolf]

😂😂😂

Finally new Chapter is up 😉

*scampers off to try to make something coherent out of Chapter 4's outline 😅*

[nh2d-deactivated20220723]

oh boy haha what a lovely arthurian verse romance you have there about your nice oc whos name is meraugis or hunbaut or meriadoc <3 im sure hes so brave and sexy haha xD sure would be a shame if gawain showed up halfway through the romance and :3 stole the plot! xoxo

[saighwolf]

😂😆

Even 'Cursed' was guilty of it.

Despite the show theoretically being Nimue's story & even though it's supposed to be Arthur he's up-staging, I will 100% admit that halfway through the following episode I was so caught up in the frenemies-turned-bromance between Gawain-&-Arthur, plus Gawain hate-fucking murder-Lancelot with his eyes, then Gawain going into dad-mode on Percy...I pretty much spent the 2nd half of the season going "Nimue who?" 😏

[saighwolf]

So, I'm seeing it going around the past several days that in Wheeler & Miller's 'Cursed'' book, Arthur's white...and I let it go for a few days, because Wheeler himself didn't describe skin tone & all, so in the absence of racial description people frequently default to imagining characters looking like themselves, which is fine & a natural way to relate to the characters we read about or feel a connection with...normally I don't give much of a damn...

But people are also using that erroneous misinformation to go around saying "Netflix should have left Arthur white like he was in the book", which is not only a far less fine shallow excuse to be racist as hell, but is also incorrect...

Because I don't know what book they think they read, but even though Wheeler may not have described Arthur's skin tone...

Miller's artwork for the novelization most certainly drew both Arthur and Nimue as POC...

In fact, the casting by Netflix downplayed the fact that Miller very specifically characterized nearly all the Fey presented with non-caucasian features in the colorization of any drawings that weren't B&W/Greyscale...

[arietisprimavera]

I think about this all the time

[saighwolf]

😂🤩😍😂

I genuinely needed to know that Mads Mikkelsen has not only read but enjoyed 'hannigram' slash fic 😆

[saighwolf]

Started to give "Knightfall" a go for the hell of it (admittedly also because still-shots of a pretty damn feral-looking shirtless Gawain bare-knuckles brawling for money was a whole damn vibe).

Went in really not having read the overall plot summary beyond "Templars" yadda yadda "some of the arthurian characters" yadda yadda "Grail Quest"...was not wholly prepared...

But, huh, it does answer the "what would Gawain be like if his leg were permanently crippled because of Lancelot - I mean 'Landry (du lac) du Lauzon' *eyeroll* - and was made to feel the injury rendered him unfit to be the warrior he had once been?" question I've been pondering for a 'Cursed' fic idea 🤔 Apparently, the answer is turn into an alcoholic who lashes out at everyone who he once called family & then downward spirals from there? So, heh, good to know I wasn't terribly far off base?

But holy hell, even as someone who tends to heavily prefer bad-boy characters to 'hero' archetypes & even as a Gawain fan who thinks Knightfall's hypocritical Lancelot - oh, right, Landry - did my boy wrong, I'm about ready to throat-punch Gawain's shady jilted punk ass...

Oof...I need a breather from my boy's fall to the Dark Side......time to switch over to Season 5 of 'Expanse' & soothe my frayed nerves with a healthy dose of Amos-appreciation as I indulge in one of my favorite sociopaths 🤨

[saighwolf]

"CURSED" Characters' Age Breakdown (per the book)

Squirrel: 10 years old

Iris: 11 years old

Nimue: 16

Pym: 16

Gawain: 23 (see discussion below)

Uther Pendragon: 26

Arthur: age unspecified, likely 25-26 (see discussion below)

Morgana: age unspecified, likely 23 (she's stated in the book to be 2 years younger than Arthur)

Lancelot: age unspecified (presumably same age range as Gawain & Arthur)

Merlin: born circa early-mid 1st Century, probably 30-40 AD (fought in Boudica's Revolt in 61-62 AD & implies having been her lover)

DISCUSSION/Explanation of Questionable and/or Speculated Ages

Gawain: Okay, so, the book expressly states him to be 7 years older than Nimue & have left Dewdenn at age 14, specifying his departure as having been 9 years before the story itself takes place. And despite the fact that actor Matt Stokoe (29-30 at time of filming) does not pull off passing for early-mid 20s the way his costars do (IRL he's a few years younger than Daniel Sharman who played The Weeping Monk / Lancelot), that's something I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on & mentally compartmentalize as "world-weariness & war have taken a toll & 'aged' him beyond his years". In part because looking back his roles several years ago, the actor looked damn near 30 when he was 23, my own ex looked at age 24 (when I met him) older than Stokoe does now & I've got a friend who looked mid-30s at age 19. (I genuinely think that production was just kind of oblivious - with 34 year old Daniel Sharman so easily passing for a decade younger - to the fact Matt Stokoe was not 'reading' early-mid 20s the way his costars do). But more pointedly, in the context of 'Cursed', Arthur's fear of loosing Nimue to Gawain is played out only as jealousy directed at a perceived rival for her affection. I think if Gawain being considerably older had been an intentional/conscious change on the part of the show, that an element of Arthur's concern over him as a rival would have included worry for her her over the potential "creepy uncle" age difference factor if he believed a 30+ year old was going to pursue his 16 year old love interest.

Arthur: Now, that being said, even though the book doesn't specify I strongly suspect book-Arthur himself to be canonically no younger than 25. Reason being, in the Arthuriana Tradition, Arthur unknowingly being a Pendragon bastard or secret offspring is one of the single most consistent themes throughout centuries of varying lore, hand in hand with the magic Sword, for his claim to the throne. Now 'Cursed' is obviously forgoing the traditional lore of Arthur being Uther's illegitimate son because no matter how you slice it Uther's too young to have fathered him even if you aged show-Uther up a decade+ from the book's specified 26 years old. But beyond that, they've thrown in the added touch of Uther himself - having been secretly switched at birth for Queen Lunette's still-born son - not in fact being the previous king's true-born heir. Once the Sword passes rightfully to Arthur, even with legends about "he who wields the sword will be the true king" Man Blood society will require more than prophecy to recognize/legitimize a king. If I had to make a prediction about Book/Season 2, it would be on Merlin or someone else uncovering evidence that Arthur's actually the previous king's illegitimate biological son rather than his "father" Sir Tor's - conceived shortly before the old king's death sometime during Queen Lunette's pregnancy - with that evidence being publicly recognized by a redeemed Uther naming Arthur his "brother/heir" prior to his own death - giving Arthur a legitimate claim on the Pendragon throne that supercedes Cumber's claim as a Pendragon cousin. If I'm right in that prediction, since the old King had died by time Uther was born, Arthur can be no more than 9 months younger than 26 year old Uther, making him at least 25 & Morgana - 2 years his junior - at least 23.

(note: I compiled this mostly as a quick reference citation I can direct myself or my fic readers back to for my 'canon' logic on the ages I've assigned characters in my stories. But please don't feel that it's intended to invalidate your own established interpretations of the characters ages if they differ. It's fiction, not reality, we can all re-imagine it in a myriad of fun & creative different ways while still playing nice with eachother in the same sandbox together 😊)

[incorrect-cursed]

Gawain: Let me explain something to you, Pym. When you’re in a situation, you don’t have time to think. So, I thought to myself “Don’t think, Gawain- act,”

Pym: So, you weren’t thinking?

Gawain: No. I cannot emphasize how little I was thinking.

[saighwolf]

🤦‍♀️ Wanna see how many times I can write Pym calling Gawain a stupid stubborn shit in a single sentence?

'Cause I'm kinda curious myself...

[tillman]

This is literallt gawain in tristrant hold on

[tillman]

Arthur: what if we started a joke fight :-) to save tristan

Gawain: oh okay *throws kay onto the spike bed*

[saighwolf]

Fuckin'...wut?!

What are these guys, 12?!

I'm pretty sure I saw this on an episode of "Bob's Burgers"...

It's official, Arthur literally has the strategic planning ability of a 9 year old girl...

[incorrect-tolkien]

Boromir Aesthetic

[alosgadh-cluarain]

Boromir: I'm the best person I know

Also Boromir: *muffled sobbing*

[saighwolf]

@kayabiter tagging feeling there's a hell of a Boromir<=>Gawain parallel here makes this pretty much the single best summary of Chapter 3's entire vibe that I can possibly imagine 😂

[incorrectmerlinquotes]

Arthur: You swear?

Gwaine: Every damn day.

[saighwolf]

Yes, my mental Gawain-muse most definitely has a soldier's colorful vocabulary 😂

[incorrectmerlinquotes]

Gwaine: If the opposite of "pro" is "con"

Gwaine: Then the opposite of "progress" is "congress"

Gwaine: And the opposite of "constitution" is--

Lancelot: Let me stop you right there

[saighwolf]

😂😂😂

*me, when even I can't deal with Gawain thinking that anyone is amused by the truly awful "joke" I just wrote him telling in this fic* 🤦‍♀️

[saighwolf]

So, for those without a medical background, a tube thoracostomy is the insertion of a chest tube to drain off the air/blood/fluid compressing the outside of a collapsed lung in someone experiencing a hemothorax or pneumothorax...

And this fascinating little gem I just now stumbled upon makes the fact that in the 'Cursed' novel Gawain's ultimate cause of death appears to be - judging by his description of his symptoms & of his death itself - specifically a collapsed lung from a chest wound sustained earlier in the book, probably waaay more intentional on the author's part than I realized & my appreciation for Wheeler's warped sense of humor just shot up considerably *smirk*

Not gonna lie, as both a medical worker who worked the past several years on a unit that specialized in cardiac & pulmonary thoracic care and as a fic-writer who accidentally stumbled upon this passage while researching [REDACTED 😜]...I feel both bemused & vindicated 😁

Heeey @kayabiter, remember how I said in one of our early convos that Gawain's mortal injury from the book was treatable if the internal bleeding between the lung & ribcage had been noticed in time? 😂

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly how 😆

Described reasonably well, too, though ultimately he'd also want to [also REDACTED, because I'm a bratty little shit 😜]

This alternate translation, however, which focuses more on the accuracy of the translation & less on carrying the "poetic" form into English, is a little more technically correct 🤗

Seriously though, I find the fact that not only did 13th Century arthuriana properly depict a chest tube insertion procedure in much the same way we still do it today (I mean ideally we numb the area & use a sterile tube catheter & draw back with a syringe instead of suck-starting it like a blow job, but heeey minor details 😁) but additonally that Gawain was the one to do it, gives me far more glee than it has any right to at 3am 😏

[saighwolf]

Holy Crap, the chapter of "Suffer The Little Children" I just vomited forth onto AO3 like purging some blackened broken part of my soul is longer than my final paper.

I'm gonna go curl up with my cats, try not to think about what I'm wearing to a funeral in 12 hours, and pass out.