#ka:tcc

[gracewight]

Casting Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has UNLOCKED Arthur for me. While my retelling isn’t a tragedy, Arthur IS, to me, a very tragic character. He’s not a bad person, but he was raised under immense political pressure and ends up trusting the wrong people—over and over he chooses being a “good king” over being a good husband and a good father, and eventually it costs him both his family and his Kingdom.

But that is not his end. Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our choices, and while painful, this doesn’t mean you can never be happy again.

[gracewight]

Ohhhhhhh I think I’m casting Gwendolyn Christie as my Gweneviere faceclaim I just she’s just I mean yes partially because she’s tall and I’m nodding to the Gweneviere’s giantess heritage but not even she’s just so LOOK AT HER LOOK AT THIS WOMAN

She’s so pretty and warm and sweet looking and then you add in the brains and the desire to do right by her people and the murdered son who WOULDN’T overthrow Camelot for this lady???

[gracewight]

“…I don’t understand.” Mordred said finally.

Morgana rose, graceful as a knife, and turned, placing herself between Mordred and where that thing lay—broken, defenseless, helpless—at Mordred’s mercy, finally finally finally—

But for the woman who stood between them.

“There is nothing you would not do for your brother,” her fingers were burning cold against his cheek. “No hell you would not endure, no horrors you would not commit…”

“No.” He rasped.

She spread her fingers across his mouth, clamped a hand across his face like a muzzle, nails biting like teeth.

“He is my brother.”

[gracewight]

I keep coming back to Idris Elba as my Lancelot. I’ve never seen him in a role where he wasn’t a very dour/serious character but he has such a sweet smile, I can absolutely imagine him playing the role of this golden idealist—struggling with the wrongs he sees and trying so hard to make the world a better place. While, yes, he is physically very beautiful, the reason everyone is always falling in love with Lancelot has more to do with his personality; his principles, his kindness, his warmth. He isn’t perfect, but he is the best of the Knights, and where Galahad will get his moral compass from.

[gracewight]

ok i think it turns out all these years I’ve prided myself on my outlining abilities I was shooting myself in the foot this pantsing business of EXPLORING the narrative rather than trying to hammer out everyone’s themes and arcs and plot and pacing is giving me SO MUCH more to work with

[gracewight]

The Questing Beast

In my retelling the Questing Beast was bioengineered as an all purpose farm animal that could survive the still very harsh Martian climate. It doesn’t look quite the same as in traditional Arthuriana, but close enough, especially from a distance, to have earned the moniker.

Roughy the size of a pig, with a woolly hide (not spotted like a leopard but speckled like a sheep or a goat), with the head (and more importantly, digestive tract) of a raptor, allowing it to eat the bones of other animals along with vegetation.

The end result was a combination of dominantly pig, goat, and chicken DNA—you can see where this was bound to go poorly. Yes, the Beast (then simply called a Mule) could lay eggs, be milked, produce wool (and eventually leather and meat), eat anything, and plow a field… but it didn’t want to. It had the intelligence of a pig, the sense of humor of a goat, and the temper of a chicken.

From all the best domesticated farm animals they had produced an animal that could not be domesticated. You could befriend them, you could convince them to cooperate for limited periods of time, but you could not control them.

And humans don’t do very well with animals they can’t control.

In the current era they occupy a similar environmental niche as wild hogs, thriving, plentiful, and good hunting… but you only get one shot—

And you better not miss.

[gracewight]

oooh ok I need to

okay

I need to swap Vivianne and Nimue. It needs to be Lake Nimue, and the Lady of the Lake Lady Nimue (she has given up trying to get people to stop calling her a Queen to each other but to her face it’s just Lady Nimue, please)

That way I can work in the Nine Fairies. In traditional Arthuriana they are nine fairies/sorceresses/witches, which in my setting translates to medical professionals, so in my story they are the Nine Daughters of Nimue

(Not all actually her daughters, but all related to her, because the closer you are genetically the better the memories transfer from one body to the next)

So Vivianne, Mordred’s best best friend, partner in crime, love of his life, is Nimue’s granddaughter, and when the Lady is killed, along with half her Daughters, including her biological daughters, it’s Vivianne who has to Ascend and Become Lady Nimue.

[gracewight]

The Summer Tournement | Squire’s Gauntlet

While tournaments have historically been about battle readiness, in this place and age they are more about demonstrating survival skills; there’s various forms of combat, but also obstacle courses, speed tests (packing your gear, assembling a shelter, repairing a radio), a rodeo, etc., and though Knights still compete, the majority of the focus is on the Squires—the tournament used as a proving ground to earn their Knighthood.

With birth rates so low and death rates among knights so high, the Guild of Mothers decided that while a life of service and chivalry (Mars’ Knights being sort of a cross between cowboys, law enforcement, park rangers, and relief aid) is absolutely the most noble of pursuits, if you want to go haring about the Martian wilderness you have to prove you can survive the kinds of challenges you are likely to encounter—

Which means you have to prove you can survive as many of them as can be replicated in an arena, back to back, for three days straight.

If you can survive a tournament, you can survive anything—and if you can’t, you survive finding that out. If you score in the top five you get Knighted, if not, you can try again next summer*.

It’s a good system: in the past hundred years the number of Knights has actually gone up, since their mortality rates have gone down.

The Five Titles awarded to graduating Squires

Black Knight: Best tactics, made least errors/received the least amount of penalties.

Gold Knight: Scored most points averaged over all challenges.

Green Knight: Scored Highest in survival/field challenges (shelter, repairs, foraging)

Blue Knight: Scored highest simulated medical emergencies.

Red Knight: Scored highest in combat (while the titles are equal, this one is generally looked a little askance at. You don’t win by being chivalrous. It’s a necessary skill, but congratulations, you’re very good at violence! isn’t really a title anyone wants in a culture that prides itself on kindness and cooperation.)

*Which is about two years away, as a Martian year is 1.88 Earth years. Squires can apprentice to a Knight as young as 10 (Earth years), but can’t compete until before they are 15 (EY), most decide they’d rather go back to school or do something else with their life, most of those who are set on their course are Knighted in their second or third tournament, between the ages of 17-22 (EY).)