#also can i say; gawain is wild

[queer-ragnelle]

hi! okay so this is going to sound wild please bear with me. i got into arthurian myth a couple months ago through phyllis ann karr's idylls of the queen and thru the afterword of that found cherith baldry and her work and had been looking everywhere with no luck for a buyable copy of exiled in camelot because i LOVE kay. i stumbled across your blog on google and finally was able to read the book and it's so good i've read it a bunch of times now and am just in love with her writing!!! so first of all i wanted to say thank you so much for the work you do, i've been really benefiting from your scans and archives! the second thing is that i . loved exiled from camelot so much i actually wrote kay/gawain fic based off it AND i wanted to show you but i don't use tumblr so i had to make this account to send you an ask and activate my 10 year old ao3 account just to be able to put it somewhere sendable and BASICALLY it's at ao3 / dot org / works / six one one eight four oh seven four (by andaliteband1t) and you dont have to read it i just really wanted you to know the impact your archival work had on my creative life. okay that's it, i hope you're having a good day :') thanks so much again for your scans and blog!!! -ev

Hello!

Wow this is the nicest message ever. First of all I'm so glad you were able to find the Exiled From Camelot file and read it. I seriously love that book so so much and I'm happy to hear that you did too! Cherith Baldry just published an anthology full of stories called The Last Knight of Camelot that was incredible as well. She's just the greatest!

It's awesome you've been getting use out of the archive, even if you didn't have a tumblr account until now. That's my goal, really, so it's reassuring to know you were able to find and utilize it.

I just read your fic it's so good!!!! I also downloaded it to keep forever and ever. :^) I'm so flattered you would send me this and mention me in the notes, you're too kind. It's genuinely wonderful you were inspired to make something and share it after all that time, it's the best feeling in the world. I've been slacking on writing my own books (and feeling bad about it) so this message made my night and really reassures me that I can reach people with my work.

Thank you for reaching out and sending me your amazing story. I wish you all the best on your creative endeavors. Have a beautiful week. <3

[gwalch-mei]

For the character ask game for gawain, guinevere, and agravain: 1., 13., 14., 15., and 23.

hehehe ty for the ask !! its time to YAP MY FAV ACTIVITYYYYYYYY gawain 1. why do you like or dislike this character? i like him bc i personally find him really relatable which im not sure what that says about me jdshfudsojkl probably nothing good but also i just find him fascinating as a character like everything abt him is WILD and its great. but more seriously i love his sense of loyalty and love, even if it does get him killed, and his overall cheery attitude in the fact of The Horrors!! 13. i really heavily associate him with the sun emoji! ☀️ <- this one!! but in terms of other symbols i associate him with horses, the five pointed star, sunflowers, and ferns :3 14. assign a fashion aesthetic to this character i think hed really fuck w crop tops and high waisted pants! not really sure what style this falls under but i think hed rock those <3 15. def him and lancelot but i LOVE him and ragnelle as well!!! hes dating both of them in my retelling (theyve got an open relationship <3) 23. lmao would it be too egotistical to say my own art of him- but in all seriousness probably this one from lancelot du lac! hes just so happy!!!!

guinevere 1. why do you like or dislike this character? i LOVE how she just takes no shit and is RUTHLESS socially like shes so funny for this and i think she should be allowed to go feral more often. 13. what emoji or symbol do you associate with them? def this one for emojis! 💐 but for other symbols i associate her with, roses, tea, sunset and the color red! 14. assign a fashion aesthetic to this character def long flowy dresses! with that sort of beautiful sheer fabric but also canvas pants and flowy off the shoulder tops :3 paired with some high tops or boots! 15. whats your favourite ship for this character? i do love her and arthur i think theyre really sweet together before everything. ya know. goes to shit but i also like her and morgan a lot mostly bc i think its funny <3 enemies with benefits <33 also i think it would be funny if she managed to bed TWO pendragons 23. favourite picture of this character? love this picture of her in camelot!!! overall i wasnt a fan of the musical but the costumes go HARD

agravaine 1. why do you like or dislike this character? i like how tragic he is!! (im an angst enjoyer) but no fr i love how even tho hes kind of a coward and is scared he still tries to be as brave as he can in some scenarios <3 i also love his loyalty and sense of duty <3 hes trying his best <33 13. what emojis or symbols do you associate with this character? no emojis for ags (yet) but symbols i associate him with are dogs, purple, thistle and rockfaces!! 14. assign a fashion aesthetic to this character i think hed dress like he exclusively shops at hot topic but like. mid 2000s hot topic. hes rocking the fingerless gloves and combat boots!!! 15. favourite ship for this character? him and lamorak! on the surface i think its really funny but does have the possiblity to be sweet <3 him and laurel are also really cute as a lavender marriage! also him crushing on lancelot (one sided) and being so mad abt it bc he hates him is SO funny to me 23. favourite picture of this character its so hard to find pics of him but i do like this one!!

[niennawept]

20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @lordoftherazzles and by @thenookienostradamus! Thank you both! These are some cool questions!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Thirteen at the moment (not counting an Adar headcanon collection), but likely to be more soon.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 170,865 (not bad for a year and a quarter)

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien broadly (so far it's been Rings of Power, The Silmarillion, and The Hobbit - no LotR yet, but I do have an idea for one)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Click with caution, all of these but the second one are rated E; apparently, I am mostly known for Adar smut: Scars of Silver and Gold, Because the world is ending, Mistletoe Mischief, Calendar Girl, Until the Stars Burn Out

5. Do you respond to comments? Might take me a bit, but yes, I always do. I figure that someone gave me a little of their time in writing out a comment and I can give them some of mine in return. It's especially fun when people are predicting things; I love hearing what they think will happen.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Mmmm. I think it's probably Scars? Without spoilers, my protagonist lost something very important to her and although there's a lot of good things about that ending - she's still going to have that loss to grieve in the next fic and it'll inform her next arc. I'd say it's still a bittersweet ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't really do purely happy endings? I write a lot of hopeful endings, but most of them have some darkness lurking under them. I guess if I have to pick one, it's into the wild because that's technically a fix-it fic with Nienor getting saved by Mablung. Although, I might continue it some day, and it would inevitably get some Nienna-the-Song-is-tinted-with-grief flavoring.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Uh, yes. I'm not sure what "what kind" means here? I guess I've written a variety- from kind of dreamlike and romantic to fics featuring BDSM-related kinks.

10. Do you write crossovers? I have never written one. I think that I'd probably never directly write one. But I might do something like shove Elrond into the plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a bisexual awakening set sometime in the Second Age. Not sure if that's a crossover or just a retelling though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Into Russian, if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago and I'm not in that fandom anymore.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, I'd say my THAUC piece counts as co-written in the sense that my artist partner and I talked through the main ideas and beats of the story together.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Uhhh for Tolkien, I'm afraid I don't have one (I like a lot of ships, but there's not one all-consuming one). So - I guess I pick Sesshomaru/Kagome from Inuyasha? That's the pairing I read when I don't know what else to read.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't start a lot of WIPs. I have a lot more ideas for fics than I have documents or text written, but I do have a Finrod piece that I'm not sure I'll ever finish. I have a lingering idea that might save it, but I think that needs more time in the oven.

16. What are your writing strengths? Mmm - I think worldbuilding, specifically for culture is one of my strengths. I also think that I have a pretty good ability to make OCs that people care about (something that was important with a mostly OC cast).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I struggle with internality a lot. I find thoughts cumbersome to write, because I process most things by talking them out or writing them down. I also think I could tighten up the cast of characters and subplots. It's something I'll definitely be careful with in novels going forward.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It really depends on the fic. In Tolkien's world, I think so much of culture is tied up in language that it's a little hard not to include some bits and snatches of other languages. It's important to provide translations in text, I think, but otherwise, go for it if it's important to your characters and your plot.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Alas, I don't talk about that fandom anymore. The author turned out to be terrible.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Definitely Scars of Silver and Gold. It's my first completed longfic and I'm very proud of it, honestly. Are there some things I'd do differently? Yes. But I do love it. Honorable mention to peaches we devour, dusty skin and all. The YEARNING.

tagging (no pressure, just love): @runawaymun, @polutrope, @melestasflight, @fishing4stars

[gringolet]

This is kind of a weird question but you appeared to be tumblr’s Agravaine expert.

Anyway, is there a knight that wouldn’t want to be with Gawain but is down to fuck Agravaine?

i'm so honoured to be considered an agravaine expert. i have thoughts on this questions but no answers that i can super solidly back up with actual texts.

in terms of the knights i see most shipped w agravaine (lionel, lamorak, lancelot) i think lionel and lancelot obvs would be down to sleep w gawain but i do not think lamorak would. would he be down to fuck agravaine? i cant give you any evidence for this other than divine visions shown to me and several mutuals over the past four years. i do have one somewhat wild out of left field suggestion which is dinadan: serious beef w gawain and the orkneys but pre lamorak-murder dinadan is wierdly chill w agravaine, mordred also; at one point in the morte he plays a prank on k mark with them and he also rescues them, so are they like, friends? he deffo doesnt hang out w gawain i will say that. there are also the twelve knights at the end who agravaine gets to help him detain lancelot, thereby siding w him over gawain. however, most of them are his relatives so . hold on let me see if they r listed in the morte.

okay yes heres the passage: "Sir Colgrevance, Sir Mador de la Porte, Sir Gingaline, Sir Meliot de Logris, Sir Petipase of Winchelsea, Sir Galleron of Galway, Sir Melion of the Mountain, Sir Astamore, Sir Gromore Somir Joure, Sir Curselaine, Sir Florence, Sir Lovel. So these twelve knights were with Sir Mordred and Sir Agravaine, and all they were of Scotland, outher of Sir Gawaine’s kin, either well-willers to his brethren."

okay so colgrevance, gingaline, florence, lovel, and i think curselaine are all relatives of agravaine. mador de la porte is a fairly accomplished knight, whose only claim to fame is fighting lancelot, who is defending guinevere, after she is framed for the assassination of madors brother. so, serious beef w lancelot and they could bond over that, plus they both have brothers named gaheris? so thats wierd. meliot de logris is the guy who had a magic eternally bleeding wound until lancelot healed him (one of his first acts after coming to court) which actually happens to agravaine too in the vulgate, when he has a magic wound that can only be cured by lancelots blood. sir petipace fought tor in the white hart quest and idk anything else about him.

galleron is interesting; hes from the middle english verse poem :The Awntyrs of Arthur"; in it, his lands are conquered by arthur and given to gawain, who he challenges for the right to reclaim his kingdom. also not relevent but the outfit gawain wears for this conversation is adorned with rich purple cloth, burnished in gold, and decorated with designs of birds. typical gawain slay. anyway they fight (gawain is wearing green with gold griffons engraved on his armour, which is adorned with designs of trefoils and love-knots. btw) and gawain gets him to surrender, but agrees to give him some of his land back if he becomes knight of the round table, and he does. so its interesting that he later sides with agravaine (and arthur?) over gawain and lancelot. i'd say hes a fairly interesting candidate then for your question. uhh whose left

melion is an analog for bisclavret, and is acting presumably more out of loyalty to arthur than to agravaine or mordred. i have no idea who astamore is and found nothing about him from a cursory google. sir gromore is ragnelles brother who tries to kill arthur but then joins him after he guesses the riddle and ragnelle marries gawain, so hes a relative of agravaine n mordred by marriage and possibly still mad at gawain for getting his riddle and preventing him from killing arthur n gaining power.

anyway sorry that got so long but those r my thoughts, i welcome further suggestions on men agravaine could smash

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

HP Rec Fest Day 29 - A Post-Canon Fic

Is there a definition of Post-Canon? I'm not sure. So, I've made up my own, and there are two excellent fics that I love that both pick up after the end of Deathly Hallows. @hprecfest

Beasts by @whinlatter

Still very much a WIP, but one of the ones that makes me squeal with every update notification, it's a Ginny POV canon-compliant post-battle story with an air of mystery and fascinating focus on characterisation.

Rating - T

Relationships - Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione

Summary:

Ginny Weasley comes of age among them: the beasts, the wild things of their world.

(or: how the youngest Weasley won the Hanging Out With Hagrid Award).

Knowing Where to Look by @ala-baguette

Also a canon-compliant post-battle fic, this one from an unusual and interesting third party POV, one with an over-arching mystery running alongside a portrait of recovery from trauma, bursting with interesting OCs as well as canon favourites and a superbly claustrophobic atmosphere. Technically a WIP but so, so nearly completed. I absolutely love it.

Rating - T

Relationships - Harry/Ginny, Gawain Robards/Mary McDonald

Summary:

The War is over. At least that’s what everybody keeps saying. But the Reformation has begun, and the work is just beginning. After so much loss— so much pain— how does one pick up the pieces of the Wizarding World and rebuild the Ministry into one that is stronger than it has ever been? The election is approaching, desperate Death Eater attacks continue, and through it all, who can be trusted? Does he even want to be a part of it all?

[caer-gai]

For the character ask game: 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, and 16 for Guinevere, Kay, and Hector! ☺️

Yay!! Thank you for the ask!

1 what do you like or dislike about this character?

We'll start with Kay he's easy. I love his loyalty, his grumpiness, the way he keeps ending up mentoring children despite claiming he hates them. The tired old soldier who really wishes the younger generation would shut up and listen. The sibling angst. He's my guy for sure lol

As for Hector he's just a little guy. Just a sad wet guy trailing after an older brother who isn't even aware.... truly a man I love. Surprisingly wild amounts of gender head cannons but we don't have to talk about that yet.

Guinevere.... I'll be honest I'm pretty neutral on her. I do wish we could stop having so much discourse around her because I always feel really nervous posting about her. (For the controversial thoughts dm me I'm not saying anything publicly)

2. What is your favorite canon thing about this character?

Kay it's alll about the loyalty the absolute devotion but also he's not exactly what you expect of a character in that role.

For Hector I just really love the dynamics he has

For Guinevere I think my favorite thing is her defense of Kay in the knight in the cart that was for sure the moment that made me go "oh, maybe I've been wrong about her". Pro tip of you want me to like a character have them be unexpectedly kind to Kay or a similar character lol

3. Least favorite thing about this character

Throwing me to the sharks I see/joking

Ok for Kay it's when he's just mean with no nuance or anything. The complexity is what makes him tasty otherwise he's just an asshole

I don't have one for Hector except that he's NOT FUCKING IN ANYTHING

Guinevere....ok hot take time: she doesn't need to be completely justified or evil guys. She can just be a person. Like she's not even real y'all we can chill out a little and explore possibilities and messiness and rest knowing no one was actually harmed.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Kay: Absolutely not. Never. I'm horrible about assuming people are mad at me and I cry very easily it would not be fun for either of us.

Hector: sure he seems chill I'd just have to hide all of Lancelot whump fics lol

Guinevere: as long as she's chill with me drawing her secret lover in a corset and nothing else. Tbh we'd probably get along pretty well

12. Headcanons....

KAY LOST TO BEAUMAINS ON PURPOSE I SAID WHAT I SAID

Less of headcanon and more of a making my own canon but I think King Ban legitimized/claimed Hector and Hector and Lancelot lived as brothers for at least a little bit.

Big fan of Guinevere being friends with Kay, idk if that's really a headcanon tho lol

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Ok so necessary disclaimer shipping anything is fine it doesn't hurt anyone irl <3 have your fun and let others have fun. That being said...

Kay: Kay/Arthur,and Kay/Gareth. I'll accept Gawain/Kay, I won't pretend that I don't understand it but it's just weird with how i tend to interpret their dynamic. All that said I'm not absolutely opposed to certain extremely dark and whumpy scenerios but that's not something I'm ready to talk about here just yet

Hector: does he have any ships? I legitimately don't think i've seen him shipped with anyone before lol

Guinevere: Once again i'm not sure I have any I don't like that I can think of.

Thanks again for the ask!! <3

[nasuversekinkmeme]

Weekly Roundup: Prompts

Tsukihime:

kohaku and shiki feeding/stuffing, can be as fluffy or dark as op would like

Fate/Stay Night

Rin and Luvia are brainwashed into thinking they are identical Twin sisters.

FGO:

The Boys are having a bbq and kintoki is making the extra effort to make mandricardo feel included and comfortable. What kintoki doesn't realise is that he's getting a little too touchy-feely with mandy, who now has to juggle his social anxiety with his growing desire to fuck this gorgeous hunk of a himbo

After some time, Kriemhild has accepted that her adopted son Schmidt has started dating and invites them over for family dinner. What she didn't expect is for him to show up with two people, both of whom seem to be bad influences on her son (Sieg×AstolfoxJeanne trouphle but honestly it can be anyone)

Smut, Oh no! Asclepius is sick! And the only cure is....nurse Nightingale pegging him into the nearest hospital mattress? Who wrote this prescription!

I hear a lot of "Barghest and Gawain" and more than some "Lancelot and Melusine", but I rarely ever hear about Tristan and Baoban Sith interacting. Show us Tristan and Baoban Sith hanging out! (I imagine Tristan would be like a big brother to Baoban Sith but I leave it to the prompt filler to elaborate on their relationship)

Post-canon. Mash finds phh Morgan still hidden within Britain. How does it go?

Au where Tonelico's plan did succeed and Uther became a righteous king who guided humans and fairies into a better future. Specifically, au where Mash has to deal with the fact that this happy ending means that her own world will never come to be, all the people she's ever loved will never be born, her own world is gone, and it's all by her own hand.

Two characters of your choice gets bodyswapped. Guda, who is completely face blind, takes an embarassing amount of time to realize it.

The Mori siblings should be allowed to eat a guy

Qin Shi Huang being both disgusted by and pining after Trimnau, due to her being made of mercury.

Melusine and the other dragon servant fight for who get to put guda in their treasure horde with the outcome be them all moving in with guda.

Ritsuka gets to live a normal human life after saving humanity and totally rocks it, they get some therapy, get to be happy with someone they love, all that good jazz

Saver/Ruler!Fujimaru Ritsuka see Berserker!Fujimaru Ritsuka and envy their berserker self

Fujimaru couple deal with their own kid that they can't longer recognized. Post ending. (or Ritsuka do their best to prove that they could back to their normal life and their damn repress trauma)

Smut, Tonelico the savior, girl who's fucked around quite a lot in her life, is perfectly prepared to have sex with Mash. What she is not prepared for is that Mash genuinely cares for Tonelico's pleasure & comfort and love is dripping out of her every words even to her muddled fairy eyes. Cue Tonelico benig taken aback and overwhelmed by something she hasn't felt directed at her in centuries. Ideally this would be super kinky bdsm sex because I think the contrast of "this girl is tying me up and whipping me while also being super in love with me" would be interesting but if vanilla's your game go the fuck for it man.

Izou, rebuffed yet again by Ryouma and mostly Oryou, goes out drinking. In the morning he finds himself snuggled up with Hijikata and Tatsuki. Very confused.

I know the Anastasia we have in Chaldea is different than the one in LB1. But I still think it'd be nice for her to visit Kadoc pre-awakening and talk to him for a lil

Crossovers

Sakura Matou, a girl who, let's say "had a bad experience with bugs", meets Oberon Vortigern, a man who 1. uses bugs a lot, and 2. seems rather protective of heavily traumatized girls. How does that pan out? (I'm leaving this as open-ended as possible so the prompt filler can go wild)

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

It's funny, I like to go through my gacha games friend lists every so often and trim them down. You can see how long ago someone's not logged in for and sometimes there's this odd appeal to keeping people on your friend's list who have quit the game. Like, they're never going to sign back in, update their units, etc. They'll never get help out of your own units again. There's no social or gameplay benefit to keeping them on there, but still It's like you've captured a part of someone in time. No one who isn't already friends with them is going to see this account again. You've got something exclusive. I don't keep a lot around, but I keep a couple because they tell a story or are good reminders. Most of them are just friends who played for a bit or for a while and then quite for one reason or another.

But today I noticed an interesting one in FGO.

(They had a pretty generic name so I'm not too worried about posting) I originally friended this person because they had all the male knights of the round grailed and leveled to 100 (Arthur, Gawain, Tristan, Bedivere, 2xLancelot, Merlin) and that's kind of rare to see. I like friending people who put a lot of effort into their account and invest a lot into unique favs.

What's interesting here, once i put it together, was that 85 days ago was the NA server release of Lostbelt 6 Part 2 and so was also the first banner for Percival, the latest new knight of the round table (and maybe the last). So this person dropped 800SQ and couldn't get the Rate Up 4 star, couldn't get any SR or SSR units, and then immediately decided to quit on the spot despite everything they'd put into the game. This isn't to say they made the wrong decision or that it's a super rare occurrence in this game, but it's just a story that struck me, especially because I caught it in the wild. I'll always have this story in my back pocket (or as long as FGO NA stays live).

Plus, it'll be kinda cool if they ever end up coming back.

[doc-avalon]

The Green Man

NAME: The Green Man.

SYMBOLS: Man's face surrounded by leaves.

USUAL IMAGE: A man's face looking out of a cluster of leaves or leaves that seem to form a human face.

HOLY DAYS None official, but let’s say May the 1st.

PLACE OF WORSHIP: A forest, an orchard, or a field either ready for planting crops or harvesting.

MAJOR TABOOS: Taking without putting back.

RELATIVES: All plant life, any of several seasonal Goddesses.

SYNODEITIES: Many, it could be said that the Green Man can be likened to dozens of Gods who were born in the Spring, lived and loved during the Summer, and died in the Fall to spend the Winter in the underworld, only to be reborn again in the spring, such as Adonis, Lono, Xipe, Dionysus, Tammuz, John Barleycorn, and many, many others.

DETAILS: There is no deity called the Green Man; the term was coined to name a figure that first appeared on funeral stones outside of churches and later was put in out-of-the-way places by stone masons on early cathedrals.

At first, appearing sad or angry, but later, about the time that worship of Mary became part of Church practices, happy or triumphant. Just what this image was to them, we cannot say, but it is thought to be an image of nature as an awakened initiator, a guardian, and revealer of nature's mysteries, whose body was wild nature itself. He is an icon that will not leave the Western mind, it seems, turning up again and again.

One of the first places he shows up is among the tales of King Arthur. There he shows up in green armor, riding a green horse. Riding right into the court, he offers to let any knight take a swing at his neck, noting that if he should live, the knight must seek him out one year later and let the Green Knight take the same strike at his neck.

Sir Gawain, the most handsome and fearless of knights, accepted the stranger's challenge and chopped the Green Knight's head off with one stroke. As the head is rolling around on the floor, the Green Knight's body walks over, picks up the head, puts it back on, and leaves, reminding Gawain to look for him in one year. One year later, Gawain arrives at the chapel where the Green Knight lives.

There he was tested by the Knight's wife (perhaps The Morrigán), where he succumbed somewhat to her.

Later he offers his neck to the Green Knight, who wings his sword but stops just before it would have hit, giving him only a tiny nick to remind him of his indiscretion.

It can also be said that Robin Hood of Sherwood Forrest is another face of the green one. More than a few people have expounded on the divine origin of Robin & Marian.

Another example of `Jack In The Green, as some called him, can be found among the chimney sweeps of old London.

At one point, they had a presentation they performed each May day in which a man would peer out of a cage made from wicker and covered in leaves.

The sweeps then dressed up in elaborate tinsel and ribbons and danced around the framework banging drums, blowing whistles, and cracking shovels and sticks together. Sometimes this got out of hand, especially when rival groups set up their Jack in the Green.

Can the Green Man be found today in new modern forms? Some will disagree, but I think the following could be said to count. One of the strangest appeared in 1946 on the pages of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, then edited by Ray Palmer, who some call the father of ufology.

The Story was The Green Man by Harold M. Sherman. Sherman was a pulp writer and noted psychic of the time who had participated in a famous at the time Telepathy Experiment with an Explorer at the Pole.

The story concerned the coming of a messiah figure in a flying saucer (months before the sighting in 1947 that would coin the phrase flying saucer). He returned in late '47 in the aptly titled Return of the Green Man. Sherman would later claim that the idea that UFOnauts were `little green men’ came about as a result of his story..... even if his Green Man was pretty tall.

In the '50s, there was the Jolly Green Giant. Sure, he was just a corporate symbol, but you have to give him points for the fact that 50's Moms wrote the company in the early 50s asking that he be taken off the tube because his claymation image was scaring the frozen peas out of the kiddies!

And there's that massive statue of him in Blue Earth, Michigan. Another to consider such legendary critters as the Yeti, Bigfoot, & Sasquatch. How many people have claimed to have seen their hairy faces staring out at them through the green?

And don’t forget the Ents from the Lord of the Rings! Lastly, I would add DC Comics Swamp Thing, I think he could be included for consideration if, for no other reason, the concept of the Parliament of Trees appeared in the magazine when it was being written by Alan Moore.

While never really a worshiped deity per se, I would say that this

figure is still one that is deeply rooted in the Western mind.

[pinksilvace]

I say this in jest, but also... it would be a good time for a SatBK remake.

As far as I can tell, SatBK is as beloved as it's ever been - possibly more now than ever before

This game's exclusivity on the Wii means porting it wouldn't be a very fruitful endeavor, though many people have asked for a rerelease

The Wii exclusivity put the gameplay in a place to be improved from

(^speaking of, the Soul Gauge feature - once said to break the game's pacing - has similar timing to homing attacks in recent Sonic games. It could easily be reworked in this light.)

Does Sonic Team want to utilize an open-world formula again? It would integrate beautifully into the world of SatBK

Does Sonic Team want to continue the past decade's trend of linear stages? The entirety of SatBK had about six feet of lateral movement, so doing this wouldn't be a betrayal of any pre-established formula

The soundtrack is one of the best in the series (my personal favorite) and remastering the songs from it would make fans go WILD

The plot isn't too complex and can be reworked if desired

Does Sonic Team want to explore bold new stories and locales without changing the status quo? SatBK is a good way of going about that

Fans want to see Sonic's rivals more? Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Galahad, and Lamorak are right there

Gosh, is it likely to happen? Not at all. However, I've seen loads of folks discussing (for well over two years) how the franchise might benefit from a remake of some kind - to reconnect with the older games, give older games a new shot, let the team try out different tones, act as a "soft reset", etc.

Most of the time, this is in reference to hope of an SA2 remake, but that game stands fairly well on its own. It's practically too well-liked for its own good, and as much as I would enjoy an SA2 remake (and don't get me wrong, I WOULD), it probably wouldn't live up to the original in many ways, especially since I think most of us would just be looking for a carbon copy of the OG with slightly smoother controls and better graphics. SatBK, on the other hand, could benefit from all sorts of updating, and it would work well with the team's current design sensibilities.

The time has come for a Sonic and the Black Knight remake

[oldestking]

GORIWAIN HAS BEEN SLAIN.

[livvyofthelake]

alright let’s get into it about king arthur 2004. first of all yes it was bad of course it was bad, it’s a “historical” retelling of arthurian legend and it makes arthur roman and the other knights are supposedly eastern european except that none of those men are eastern european and then also guinevere and merlin were whatever scottish people were in the 5th century but again keira knightly is not scottish. basically it’s very dense on the lore for a movie that didn’t really seem to care about accuracy to the lore. there’s like. there’s words on the screen in the beginning and then there’s also more expositional narration and then there’s also more exposition in the form of bad dialogue and genuinely it does feel like a good 40 minutes of this movie is exposition all for a nothing plot because it’s so reliant on the action scenes you kind of get nothing out of it. however EYE got something out of it because early in the movie arthur is praying that his knights make it back from their last mission so they can live to become free men, and lancelot walks in and says “why do you always talk to god and not to me?” and it made me insane for the rest of the two hour runtime. those men were gay as hell your honor. lancelot dies in the climactic battle and arthur and guinevere both kneel over his body and cry and scream it’s great. i think it was brave of them to kill lancelot before he got to steal arthur’s wife. julian murphy should’ve taken notes wtf.

also i liked that the other knights were like, fleshed out characters. maybe not gawain who didn’t talk very much or hugh dancy who i don’t remember who he was supposed to be. but like tristan was cool i liked his falcon rest in peace buddy. and the other guy with the 11 kids oh my god do i know anyone’s name from this movie. who the hell was that guy. hold on. oh ok bors. was he lancelot’s cousin in this movie i wasn’t paying attention. and hugh dancy was galahad. sorry i didn’t remember that in my defense he had like two minutes of screentime. and dagonet was cool although i think it’s wild that this movie was pulling out niche knights and not like. kay. or bedivere. sorry i’m attached to those guys because of alex that’s not my fault. anyway i liked them they were cool to hang with

ALSO i think it was surprisingly feminist for a movie that came out in 2004 about men. or maybe not feminist exactly but like. not misogynistic. there’s a moment where you think it might be with the one guy’s not-wife (she’s the mother of his 11 children but they’re not married) but it’s not misogyny they’re just toxic hets and i support them <3 and then guinevere is just such a slay but what else did you expect from keira knightly… like yeah i think it’s weird that keira was like 18 making this movie with a hoard of adult men and she’s the object of both male protagonist’s lust but at the end of the day she seems like she made it through that weird phase of her career fine so i’ll let it go for the sake of not going insane. anyway i think it was really feminist of her to want to fuck that gay man so bad. real. but no really i just liked that her character was well done and got to do things. she killed a bunch of guys it was hot what who said that i mean like it was great. and she’s the one that convinced arthur to abandon rome and fight for something he actually believed in, where rome was a lie he believed for convenience.

which brings me to my man <3 you know no critique of a king arthur movie from me is complete without me rambling for a little about how well i think they characterized my special little guy… and i think this movie did pretty good! he’s a good man who cares about people and his most defining enduring belief for the entire story is of freedom which i thought was slay even though um. he’s english. cannot imagine he’d be happy to see what his country came to yikes!! but also i think it was good to show that he also had flaws that tied directly into his strengths and his goodness. how he fought so hard for rome in the beginning because his idea of rome was this ideal society that believed in equality and freedom, and he didn’t realize that that was a fantasy because he didn’t want to realize it so he could hold on to something while he fought their wars. like i think willful ignorance is such a great king arthur flaw that not enough media wants to depict. he’s an idealist at heart and i adore him for it but it means he has a tendency to ignore reality… and then also he had a little red cape which you KNOW i am always a fan of. i LOVE it when they put this guy in a red cape!! seriously! it’s sooo stupid <33 um yeah and then also i think he could have been hotter but i’ll allow mediocrity just this once because he was gay about it. also they killed his celibacy swag which i thought was fucked up but again i’ll allow it just this once because he did think he was going to die the next morning. and they also made literally every word out of this man’s mouth the most intense thing anyone has ever said, which i think was a great choice. he’s literally just like that like he’s literally just. like that. drama queen!!

also i liked that bit of narration at the end when dead lancelot says that none of them who died really died because they live on in stories and legend passed down through generations <3 and finally here is the joke i wasted my letterboxd review on

[sabugabr]

"The Green Knight" is visually stunning, but it kinda missed the point — and that's a good thing (4/5)

Continuing from part 3....

THE COLORS

As I said before, in this story, color matters. It's everywhere. Both the movie and the poem seem obcessed with it. And it can be interpreted in different ways. I'll go on about how I saw it.

So, there are four important colors in the movie: Green, Red, Yellow and Blue. You can see them highlighted everywhere.

But first things first. Let's start with Green

The very first association the film does with Green is to lighten Morgan. It's the only time we've seen green since the beginning of the film, which until then has only been shown in grey, blue, brown and yellow. Plastically speaking, it's a good way to show us right away that Morgan is somehow connected to the Green Knight (in fact, she's the one who summons him), and through the green girdle she gives Gawain, green comes to symbolize her as well.

In the poem, green is only associated with the Green Knight himself, and is generally related to the wild, the natural, to fertility, to the unknown and (important) to death. Since the film promptly adds Morgan to this element (and in the poem it is indeed revealed at the end that Morgan was behind that all — even thought she isn't Gawain's mother there), we can associate it to a hint of paganism. She's described to be considered a witch, she is Morgan le Fay, and the Green Knight can easily be associated with the GreenMan, a popular folk figure. This can mean they are all, in a way, fairy-like.

It can also represent everything that goes on in the "unknown", in the fantastic. In the poem, during Gawain's stay in the Lord's house, several parallels occur between the Lord's hunting and his wife's seduction. In this parallel, Gawain can be associated with the fox his host brings home on the third day. In the film, Gawain shares a deeper connection to the fox, but their parallel is not missed. On the contraire, it's made very clear.

The greenish tapestry shows the fox

While the brownish one shows Gawain (whitewashed, but that might be another point of the movie — you can read a take on this in this beautiful article).

Actually, it's the exact same tapestry — but inverted. And the analogy of the mystic world being an inversion of the real world is quite recurrent.

Likewise, it can be noted that while the Green Knight in his "fantastical" form is, well, green, when he appears as the Lord (both in the movie and in the poem) he is described as being "beaver," or reddish-brown, in color. So the lines between what's real and what's fantastic can be designed by green and brown.

This can even open a margin for interpreting all the scenes in green as being somewhat fantastic, as if Gawain had entered another realm upon leaving the brown and gray city. When robbed by the lad, Gawain asks him if there really is a Green Chapel, to which the boy replies "you're in it". The Green Chapel is the forest itself.

But thanks to the girdle, green can also represents Gawain and Morgan's motherly connetion. The King says that Gawain was queefed from her womb. Therefore, green here can mean majorly life. This is strengthened by the Lady later, when she delivers a full monologue solemnly about colors.

"Red is the color of lust, but green is what red leaves behind. In heart, in womb" she says.

This is interesting, because in the poem, Red means quite the opposite. Gawain is shown to favour Red, and is often portrayed in this color.

"Red and gold become Gawain's colors in the poem, in contrast the Green Knight's green and gold. Because it is the color of blood, red represents life, and it also symbolizes love, the passion of Christ, and the inspiration given by the Holy Spirit." (source)

Red symbolizes Christianity, while green can be associated with anti-Christianity. In the poem, for example, the Lady wears a green gown in her seductions, symbolizing lust. Green would commonly be associated with the Devil, as portayed in several paintings and illuminations.

And if you look at it from this point of view only, there's even a scene in the movie where Merlin (the King's adviser) is lighten in Red.

So perhaps is possible to make the correlation Red X Green = Merlin X Morgan = Christianity X Paganism, reinforced by the ideal of King Arthur as the First Christian King. Maybe. But I don't think that's only it.

As said in the monologue before, the Lady describes lust as being red, and warns Gawain about the persue of it. This thinking is in line with a traditional British folk ballad, "Maiden’s Lament" (or "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme", you can hear it being beautifully sung by Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen here) that warned young girls of the dangers of passing passions:

"But I refused the red Rose Bush

And gained the Willow Tree

That all the world may plainly see

How my love slighted me"

In this song, after being abandoned by the gardener, the lyrical self refuses the (red) rose bush (lust), and gains the willow tree (green). This can mean both despair, that she was left with a child (for the whole world to see the result of her passionate love), but can also mean wisdom. She knows better now. So green can also mean temperance.

And since in film this clear association of green with the womb is made (where red was lust, etc etc), I ended up remembering the other situation where the womb is mentioned — in Gawain's conversation with the King. But there, womb opposes blood. And whenever red appears on the scene, it appears in blood.

This becomes clearer during the first quest, "A Kindness", where one scene stands out to me. While Gawain is crossing a battle field, he first encounters the lad pillaging the bodies, and looking for his two dead brothers. Talking to Gawain, he tells how he heard that the King single-handedly killed 960 men (which is based on a true Arthurian story). This reflects the King's speech on the last Christmas Eve, in which he celebrated "a land shaped by your hands"; “You have lain those same hands on our Saxon brethren," he said, "who now in your shadow bow their heads like babes. Peace, peace, you have brought this kingdom.” In the ravaged field surrounded by forest, Gawain sees with his own eyes the peace the King referred to.

I won't even get to the colonialist implications that become clear when we see Arthur, a white man, talking about conquest with his nephew, played by an actor of Indian descent. This is further explored and broken down in the article I mentioned above, please read on, it's beautiful.

So looking at this bias, red is also a symbol of violence. It took me a while to understand, but that might explain the red scene when Gawain jumps into the lake to retrieve Winifred's head.

He dives into the redness, and comes out of it haunted. Her story was a story of violence, and her head was buried in it. Gawain rescues her from this state of violence, and when he returns the head to the body on the bed, the light turns white, perhaps symbolizing peace and revelation.

Thinking like this, in my interpretation, the Merlin scene can mean a reminder of this violence greeted by the King in his speech, as he shakes his head as soon as the red light goes out, and it is only with this denial that the King invites the Green Knight in. This change of ways, to me, is what the King meant when he chose Gawain to sit beside him. Gawain was not red like the other knights in the hall, like the own King who was shown to be in decay — like the whole realm, as we can see in the ruins about the desolate landscape that surrounds the city. Unlike the poem, in which Gawain chooses red to adorn himself, in the film the color that completes the yellow of his cape is the green girdle he wears around his waist. He was fresh just out of the womb. He was "green".

But he does wears the yellow cape, that equals the golden of the poem. In the poem, Golden can be easily associated with virtue, and the impecable moral compass Gawain already possess. Golden is the ideal he wishes to achieve. In a way, the gold in the poem can act as a counterpart to green, as a conflict between chivalry values and human nature.

This becomes clearer when Gawain realizes that the Green Knight also adorns himself in gold. This may translate to the way that, even though he speaks rudimentary, the Lord was the most chivalrous of hosts. At the end of the poem, Gawain carries a green belt with him to always remind himself that human nature need not be contrary to the values mentioned above. Because he, as the Green Knight, had a bit of both.

In the movie, it appears to be, once again, quite the opposite. The way I saw it, yellow represented his humanity. In the very first scene, where we meet him fully naked, we watch as he dresses up the cape. He's wearing it as he does the most human things, like kissing and drinking and fighting. And at the same time, yellow are the scenes that represent his greatest internal conflicts, such as his confrontation with the fox, or his escape from the Chapel, when he confronts himself. In a way, I see it as if the color yellow represents humanity, and the yellow lighting represents internal conflict.

The only times he appears without wearing the color is at the end, when we see the montage of what could have been (and I'll get into that later) — where, by abandoning yellow, he divests himself of his humanity.

Now, Blue was a tricky one. And this one is based purely on my personal interpretation of the movie, for there's no big deal about Blue in the original poem. For what I learned, Blue held a lot of associations to the Virgin Mary from the 12th century in Europe, and could also represent royalty. But the way I saw it, in the movie blue can perhaps mean illusion. In better words, blue represents what's hidden. Is the color mostly dressed by the Lady. Is also the color that lightens the night scene where Gawain contemplates the Green Knight, and the scenes in Winifred's house — and after having returned the head, as I mentioned before, the light turns white. What was hidden becomes revealed.

The same way, when Gawain meets the Lady, he sees the face of Else, in the form of a noble woman he could marry (since he had previously refused Else's honest love because of their different social classes). The Lady appears, then, as an ideal version. But, as he soon discovers, she has none of Else's warmth and truth.

She also offers him a girdle identical to the one his mother had given him, and in a desperate attempt to regain the feeling of love and protection that the original girdle brought him, Gawain accepts what he later discovers to be nothing he sought. On the contrary, deluded by the illusion of this protection, he is left in a worse state than before.

There's also often this greenish blue (bluish green?) color in scene, a kind of turquoise. It's the color of Gawain's quarters in the Lord's house, and also the color in which the Green Knight appears to him in his visions. The way I saw it, the turquoise is representative of all the times where the mystic, the unknown, could be considered dangerous. When the Green Knight first appears he looks more bluish then green, while by the end of the movie, he's glowing in yellowish green. Gawain sees him in turquoise and gets apprehensive and scared, just the same as when we wakes up in the Lord's house's bedroom.

And finally, white. I had to think about white a bit, because as we find out at the end, the creepy old woman in white was actually Morgan, and Winifred's ghost wore white. Gawain's fiancée in the vision he has at the end was also all in white, and one of the released images that ended up not featuring in the film shows the Lady wearing a beautiful white dress. This conflicted with my previous association of white with peace. But then I realized that in this movie there is a difference between color and lighting.

So, to my understanding, the white in this film also represents a form of deceit, in this case, blindness. Morgan literally blindfolds herself with a white cloth, Winifred's outfit blinds Gawain to the reality of the young woman's plight, and the elizabethan bride we see at the end can mean as much purity (which also applies to Winifred before she tells her story) as also the fragility of his idea of love and marriage in this scenery.

If you pay attention, the lighting in this scene has none of the warm white light in Winifred's house. On the contrary, it is cool and bluish. As well as the clothes of the nobles around her, and the blue adornments on her face.

The same can be applied to bluish green, greenish blue, yellowish green... In the end, a color changes completely depending on the lighting, and this movie uses it well.

And this leads us to... (part 5 >)

[c0rpsedemon]

hiiii can u please advise me on where to start with reading arthuriana ? i am fascinated by it and love it very much , but i just read arthurian encyclopedias and such … i would like to read actual texts if that makes sense . thank u :-)

!!!!!! don't worry you make perfect sense and i'd absolutely love to give you a few starter text recommendations, i'm going to link ways to read all of them online bc physical copies are uh. incredibly hard to come by for most texts. also, brace yourself for fifty wildly different variants of each name, usually there's some sort of appendix you can read to know who's who, or you can rely on context clues.

first off i legally have to recommend the byelorussian tristan bc it's. kinda a part of my brand. and my favorite book... ever, even outside of arthurian stuff. it's believed to be one of, if not the last entry in the arthurian canon, and certainly in the tristian canon, and it's so good. it's a retelling of a lost slavic text that was a retelling of tavola ritonda, the italian retelling of the prose tristan. it's really well-written and the only version of the tristan and isolde story where they both get to live, highlights include galehalt basically asking tristan to join his marriage (i say marriage in reference to his relationship with lancelot bc theyre kinda. uh. bfs would be an understatement), palomydes having two swords (it's bc he's That skilled at fighting and also bc he's bisexual) as well as lending one of those swords to tristan, galahad briefly showing up to fight tristan and lancelot, then getting embarrassed that he fought his dad and just? dying or something?? and the worst kei name variant out there (geush.....). overall, i have to recommend this one bc if it had been my starter text i know i would have immediately read every medieval text i could find, and bc it's the text that actually made me like tristan.

also i'd like to note that tavola ritonda, the byelorussian tristan's italian predecessor is pretty good if i remember correctly, i never finished it bc i got busy with school stuff but i know i liked what i did read of it and that a lot of arthurian tumblr would recommend it. if i wasn't on green knight lockdown i'd probably pick it back up right now.

other tristan-related recs include chevrefoil by marie de france, it's incredibly short and makes me kinda sad for unknown reasons, it's also what got me invested in tristan and isolde's relationship, strassburg's tristan, yet another text i started and then dropped bc of school related reasons, i remember i liked what i read of it though, trystan and esyllt, a welsh tristan and isolde text which is. incredibly different from the normal tristan and isolde story, but it's short, lighthearted and fun in the way welsh texts are, and uhhhh the prose tristan which i mentioned earlier, i've read the whole thing and it didn't really stand out to me (albeit its been a while) but it's what most people will point you to if you want to get into tristan and isolde.

stepping away from tristan and isolde, there's culwch and olwen, which is believed to be the first arthurian text, it's kinda short and fun in the way that welsh texts always are, it's about this kid whose stepmother cursed him to only be able to marry the daughter of this giant, who will never let her marry bc there's some curse that says he'll die on her wedding day, so the giant gives this giant list of impossible tasks and arthur, culwch, kei and co. set out to do them and only like. 3. are actually mentioned more than once. it's fun and i like welsh kei.

next are the dutch texts which are. so good. they're so good. they're all right here bc i don't feel like linking each different one. my first rec is lancelot and the hart with the white foot, which, despite being named after lancelot, is really about gawaine. it's short and fun and the remarkable (lancelot x gawaine) fans adore it. next is the roman van walewein which is. absolutely off the rails. basically this magic chessboard shows up in arthur's court and walewein (gawaine) has to go after it, he ends up murdering a bunch of people, there's a talking fox who tries to steal gawaine's armor, gawaine gets thrown in his love-interest-of-the-week's torture dungeon, which has a secret tunnel connecting it to said love interest's rooms which she apparently had the arcitect of drowned (which is treated like a perfectly fine and normal thing by the text btw) where they presumably do bdsm or something, gringolet (gawaine's horse) kills a dragon with his hooves, it's wild. then there's walewein ende keye, kei tries to get rid of gawaine, gawaine goes and proves his honor, kei gets banished, gawine's a bit of an unlikable prick in this one but it's entertaining. and then there's morien, it's about this 13 year old who shows up looking for his deadbeat dad and gawaine and lancelot help him out, gawaine hijacks the plot but it gets back to morien by the end, also they have to rescue arthur. there are more dutch texts but these are just my favorites.

this has gotten longer than i originally intended so uhhh there's lanval by marie de france which is short. guinnevere's homophobic but in a funny way.

then there are the big famous ones and why they're bad starter texts, le morte de arthur and sir gawain and the green knight. le morte's giant and in middle english, if you must read it go for a translation, i've heard good things about this one but i haven't read it, overall it's not that good, especially in comparison with the vulgate and alliterative morte, don't read it unless you're already familiar with med lit and really invested in the characters, it's good for the book of gareth and a few short parts but overall kinda eh. as for sgatgk, it's just not a good first gawaine text bc he's so wildly different than he is in literally everything else, here are a ton of translations, it's best to go into it with the point of view that it was his first quest and looking for the themes and symbolism (gawaine fox motif my beloved) instead of the common approach which is looking for the gay kisses bc you'll get a lot more out of it that way.

i'd also like to anti recommend a solid 3/4s of modern arthuriana, especially anything derived from the *nce and f*ture k*ng by th wh*te or the m*sts of av*lon by m*rion z*mmer br*dley bc jfc those two have done. so much harm. to the genre. "modern" works i'd recommend usually tend more towards victorian poetry, highlights including anything by tennyson that doesn't involve tristan and isolde bc he has bad takes on them, but especially his stuff regarding elayne of astolat/the lady of shallot, bedevere, and gareth and lynnette, as well as everything by william morris but especially sir galahad a christmas mystery and palomydes's quest. you can find pretty much any victorian poem on the camelot project so i'm not going to go looking for them. also i've heard good things about ea robinson's poetry. but despite the few good modern works out there, it's best to get rid of all pop-culture based notions of what arthuriana is before you go into the actual canon.

i feel like i'm going to remember at least three texts i left out like an idiot but this has gotten long enough, if you have anymore questions just ask i absolutely love introducing people to arthuriana.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Talking about characters that are in Sonic Forces Speed Battle but not Sonic Dash so I can pass the time

see title. under a read more because very long post. really just using this post as an excuse to pass time while i watch a 7 hour youtube video in the background.

Storm

since I’m doing this in order of Sonic wiki then Storm is first. Weird to me that he’s not in Dash yet. Core series character instead of a variant or anything, and there’s precedent for Extreme Gear in Riders since Dash already exists. Would hope Storm gets added soon.

Wave

Everything said about Storm applies to Wave. As a sidenote it’s so weird that I guess Olympics aside we’ve had to wait until a Sonic Forces tie-in mobile game to see the Babylon Rogues again really.

Chaos

Dash seems a little more hesitant to introduce playable villains for some reason? Which sucks. Chaos is one of the series’ oldest villains, needs to be playable in Dash smh.

Eggman

As above hesitant to add villains, although there’s at least more justification here since Dash has Eggman battles as parts of any given run. But just make it so those don’t spawn lol. And have Eggman. It’d be awesome. He’s like the second most important character in the series, come on.

Gamma

Dash only added Omega like a little over a month ago or something idk, wouldn’t expect Gamma to get added for a while perhaps. Idk. Hopefully they do though. Shocker but “hopefully this character gets added soon” is gonna be said a lot lol. More characters is fun.

Tikal

Again just a regular version of a core character, zero reason not to add. Pls add soon.

Zavok

Sigh. I did just say more characters is always better bc hey harmless mobile game why not? But I could really take or leave Zavok lol.

Zazz

As above although Dash has a Zazz boss battle still which is funny since it was added as a Lost World tie-in lol. But yeah if Zazz gets added ever then just make it so he can’t fight Zazz, something like that idk.

Zeena

yk something fucked is that these 3 are the only Deadly Six members in Speed Battle at all - so they added half of them then gave up. I know I don’t care about the Deadly Six at all but that just feels incomplete. Anyway add them to Dash or don’t I don’t really care. Add literally every other character first pls.

Super Sonic

Yeah okay now this one annoys me because Dash added Movie Super Sonic before regular Super Sonic and that’s sad. Pls add Super Sonic it’d be cool we love him.

Sir Gawain

Yeah weirdly the other knights of the round table are in Dash but Gawain isn’t. And it’s not just that he’s the last to have been added either because the current Dash event is for Paladin Amy which despite some Black Knight influence obviously isn’t actually a Black Knight character at all and is just a variant of real Amy. So Gawain is just missing. Very sad.

DJ Vector

PLEASE ADD HIM I NEED HIM SO MUCH HE’S DRIPPY AS SHIT

Punk Zazz

Did you know Tails doesn’t have any variants in Dash or Speed Battle (wouldn’t say movie versions count as variants really) but Zazz does. Fucked up.

Unicorn Cream

This is so goofy I love it please add it

Lantern Silver

for variants of characters I like all I can really say is “yeah sure add it this is fun”

Lucky Whisper

Having said what I just said it’s also wild to me that Whisper gets a variant even despite being a comic character. But Tails has none. I don’t actually mind much here tho bc I like Whisper lmaoooo, bias is based. Yeah sure add to Dash.

Spring Cream

gee bill how come your mo- but yeah sure add it

Tropical Storm

add his regular first but sure add this to. Still feels wild that no Tails variant but Storm has one.

Tidal Wave

Exact same comment as above.

Ice Slicer Jet

Funny to me that Storm and Wave get like tropical theming but Jet? Ice hockey. Sure lmao.

Quarterback Zavok

same opinions as with Punk Zazz.

Infinite

He’d be fun come on add him :(

Mephiles

I’m cheating because he’s not out in Speed Battle yet. But he’s upcoming! So put him in Dash too.

Super Shadow

same stuff with Mephiles - upcoming but I want him in Dash also. Also would like Super Silver since that completes modern super forms except Burning Blaze which also actually should be added. Dab.

Darkspine Sonic

Not in Speed Battle just yet either but coming eventually. So add him to Dash also.

That’s the post lol. Was that a worthwhile read? Who knows.

[vikingqueer]

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.