A multifandom fanfic writing Discord server that I’m on (run by the fabulous Cora Maria) hosted an event: present a 12 minute slideshow about your rarepair.
I haven’t done presentations in so long and forgot how much I enjoy it. It was so fun! Maybe I’ll expand this and record a YouTube version or something. (Here’s the slideshow, with messy haphazard speaker notes that include lots of extra Vulgate quotes that I never got to share in the presentation. I had to trim back so much for the time limit.)
I translated everything in fanfic/fandom terms for the target audience (though I did clarify the difference between “literary tradition” and “fanfic” first), which led to amusing takes such as:
“The Lady of Malehaut, also known as “Lady Bloie” (from Palamedes, not the Vulgate) or “Eglante” (source uncertain) or “Y/N” (ladies in medlit romances often didn’t have names, and one theory is because one of the primary audiences were court ladies, and this allowed them to self-insert or imagine themselves in place of the ladies of the stories… the medieval version of y/n).”
The theory of Chrétien de Troyes being such a puritanical antishipper that he hired a ghost writer to write the adultery parts of a Lancelot/Guinevere fic commission.
“There are a lot of knights, and this made it easy to insert an OC knight or four. Different authors had their favorites and sometimes even wrote character bashing fics (Gawain was the character everyone either loved or hated, his characterization is all over the place).”
Comments from the discord included stuff like
“Lady Y/N of Y/C (your clan)”
“That’s so cool that by writing Arthuriana you are arguably adding to the literary canon”
“Lmao hating a ship so much that you hire a ghostwriter so you don’t have to write it”
“And they were knight-married!”
“Four is such good company” translates to “Can I pleeeeeease join the polycule?”
“Lady of Malehaut to Guinevere (pointing to Lancelot and Galehaut): I want what they have”
“Omg enemies-to-lovers!” (Re Galehaut/Lancelot)
And everyone was very mad that Post Vulgate + Malory’s Morte Darthur erased Galehaut/Lancelot and the Lady of Malehaut. And then people wanted to read the Vulgate (see L’s guide to getting started with Vulgate here, btw).
Mission accomplished :D