#gender queer!merlin

[xviruserrorx]

I'll wait for you another night / As you like / Dressed in Himalayan white / I'll wait for you some other night / Dressed as you like / Dressed in Himalayan white - Snow Cats by AFI

For Day 4 of @merlinrarepairfest

[genderfuckpirate]

a story is true... a story is untrue...

about me

howdy! i'm felix (they/them). i like pirates, vampires, cowboys and over-analysing media. you can find stuff that i've made, including my Black Sails Transcripts Site, under the #mine tag.

i am unapologetically genderqueer and trans and bi and talk about it on this blog. i believe in making your gender your home and customising your body as you like. if you don't like that, don't follow. obviously, terfs can fuck off forever ✧˚‧✩

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[queer-ragnelle]

Understand is is a very weird question to get out the blue so no offence taken if this gets left in the inbox, but I was wondering how (if at all) to integrate transgender knights into arthurian retellings/adaptations ect while trying to keep it vaguely true to the medievalisms of the whole thing? I know its easy and liberating to just go 'fuck it everything queer' and its a totally valid way to go about it, but (as a trans person) I like having a narrative examine queerphobia and other structual issues with the setting - gives the whole thing a bit of meat (in my personal tastes). That being said, it feels like its a nightmare to try and have a transmasc knight stay stealth in this place! Everyone feels like theyre getting stipped and tended to after breaking a rib in a joust or merlin shows up and is a dick about pronouns and outs you to get you married to a Roman king. Stuff like that - things that feel a little easier to dodge when its a civillian character, not an ruling class.

Is this a 'kill the cop in your brain' kinda deal? As a queer storyteller yourself do you have any tips or strategies or tools you use to crowbar this kinda stuff a little easier together? Or do you know any stories/retellings/academic texts ect that cover these kinda things (even if its in a 'for the love of god, don't do that' way). Love the work you do for this fandom a lot, regardless of your answer! Hope you have a good day.

Hello anon! This is a great question.

Now let me preface this by saying I’m not transgender and I’m not a medievalist. There are plenty of trans medievalists on tumblr, but I’m not one of ‘em. So my answer is coming from a queer but cis author and enthusiast perspective. I'm going to provide lots of links to read things as well so everyone can draw their own conclusions from the material.

I think a large part of this does come down to “kill the cop in your head.” But at the same time, I’ve been exactly where you are wondering, “How can I make this story feel authentic to its era without torturing the trans characters?” Because you’re right, there’s a lot of nudity and close proximity interaction between knights in the medieval stories and Merlin is totally the type to be a dick about pronouns. I've also searched and struggled to find a medieval-set story that manages to incorporate queerness in a period-appropriate way (so far as we can guess) while balancing the narrative as to not tip into something deeply unpleasant for the target audience to read. (See: the series by Lavinia Collins, which has great queer rep, yay! But tons of horrors previously unseen and still unnecessary, boo!) So where does that leave us?

Well first I’m going to give you an example of how not to handle transness in an Arthurian story....

The book Once & Future and its sequel Sword in the Stars by Amy Rose Capetta and Cory McCarthy went with the phenomenon you already described as, “fuck it, everything queer.” It doesn't take place in the past, but does use the medieval stories as more than reference, it's not as divergent as something like Port Eternity by C. J. Cherryh, the reincarnated characters do interact with the past directly at times, so I'm using it as an example.

Anyway most characters are either gay (umbrella term) or trans. Except the way trans characters are treated sucks majorly (in my opinion). I completely lost faith in book 1 after the introduction of Lamorak, a gender fluid knight who uses they/them pronouns. Merlin misgenders them and gets corrected by Kay, to which Merlin does this whole self flagellation routine about. Lamorak is also disabled, missing their left hand. (Why isn't it Bedwyr? Anyway not the point...) Lamorak gets no dialogue here whatsoever, all agency is completely stripped from them regarding their disability and their gender identity. Double whammy.

This is worsened when Percival gets introduced, as Merlin then makes a point of asking for pronoun clarification in the most obnoxious way possible. To which Percival takes no offense at the weird slight against his sibling and tells Merlin his pronouns.

But what about the sequel? Surely these two queer authors improved with time.....

Is this a joke? Is this the best way they could indicate the inclusive realm of Avalon? Why not just describe the women as they are, all shapes and sizes, and let the reader figure it out? The authorial intent would be so obvious by this point. Instead they say it… like that. Gag.

It only gets worse when Mordred is born. Then they're weird about a literal infant.

What in the bio essentialism? If the characters have been living in a future that’s broken out of the gender binary, the baby’s genitals should be irrelevant. Gwen’s literally saying Mordred is going to fulfill the evil prophecy because he was born with a penis. Even if this is intended to be a teaching moment, I hate how it’s handled. These quotes are in order of appearance in the books, so after the subtextual implications of all that came before, this last part really doesn’t sit right with me. Sorry I find these books completely abhorrent. They've won awards, they’re beloved by many. Maybe it's me. But no thanks.

Honestly, so long as you're not blatantly offensive with your handling of such things, I think you'll be fine. It's important to remember that even if one is part of a demographic they're depicting, it's always a good idea to hire sensitivity readers and take that feedback seriously. Not everyone will love your work, there will be advice you don't utilize, with time you'll be able to weed out the bad faith feedback, (the "all depiction is glorification" crowd) and ignore it. But it's so important to open oneself up to constructive criticism so you can learn and your work can develop into the best possible version of itself.

Now let's get to some ways you can go about researching a way to do this that fits in your story. It’s important to remember that throughout human history, many people lived stealth their whole lives and we don’t know about them for that reason, not because no transgender folks ever lived authentically and happily in medieval times. So it’s never impossible to incorporate a trans character into a story who experiences no direct violence, even if the world they live in isn’t presented as a queer utopia. The other thing is that public opinion regarding queerness, cross dressing, etc have varied a lot over the centuries and were vastly different depending on location. Not every “woman” found in armor would have been treated as poorly as Joan of Arc. So there’s lots of wiggle room for interpretation when you go about writing these narratives. The majority of my examples deal with the ruling class so they address the concerns you mentioned with added scrutiny a noble would face if they were to experiment with gender presentation compared to a commoner. I’ll be spoiling the plots of everything on the list to make clear why I’m suggesting them.

My initial advice would be to read medieval literature with queer themes followed by essays on the subject. The best examples I know of are:

Yde et Olive

Transmasc knight (good ending). 12th century French romance. Yde’s mother Clarisse died giving birth to her & later when Yde reaches maturity, her father makes advances, so she disguises herself as a man & flees. Yde becomes a successful knight & is married to the king’s only daughter, Olive. When it comes time to consummate the marriage, Yde must confess the truth of his identity to Olive, who vows to keep it secret. This is overheard by the king who then attempts to uncover Yde’s identity but is stopped by an angel who chastises the king for harassing such a good vassal. Then Yde is transformed into a man, the king dies, & Yde is able to have a child with Olive. They name him Croissant as if it couldn’t get any more French than it already was. Anyway the story alternates pronouns for Yde given the situation which is pretty neat & in the end he gets to live his best life! Yay!

Le Roman de Silence

Transmasc knight (bad ending). A 13th century French romance about a baby girl named Silence. Silence is raised as a boy because King Eban won’t allow women to inherit property. Like many medieval romances, the hero's adventure is often punctuated with personified emotions (Dame Fortune, Lady Love, etc) but Silence is tormented by Nature & Nurture as he comes into adulthood. He becomes a knight & eventually takes on an "impossible" quest, to capture Merlin, which supposedly can only be done by a woman. Content warning for the ending, it does not go well for Silence. Merlin reveals his backstory, & he’s forced to take a feminized version of his name, live as a woman, & marry the king to keep his lands.

Wigalois by Wirnt von Grafenberg

A 13th century German romance that follows Gawain’s son, Wigalois [Gingalain], but this ain’t about him. There’s a character Marine who fights as a knight. She’s consistently referred to with she/her pronouns, but she’s renowned for her knightly virtues & fights alongside the men in the war. She’s treated very well narratively & dies in battle after apprehending a high-value hostage. Everyone mourns her & there’s a big funeral held in her honor. So even if Marine never presented herself as a man the way Yde or Silence do, she provides an example of a female thriving in a male role. Food for thought.

Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach

Another German banger from the 13th century. This one’s about a cis male knight but Parzival has transmasc vibes. Trust me. Here’s my favorite article about it called The Clothes Make The Man - Parzival Dressed & Undressed by Michael D. Amey that really illustrates what I mean.

After that, you can check out these retellings:

The Story of Silence by Alex Myers

I bought this but haven't read it yet. It’s a retelling about the aforementioned Le Roman de Silence. This book uses neutral they/them pronouns to refer to Silence, which I can say from experience sometimes causes confusion with readers, so it's good to study how this author did it & determine if that method feels right for you. (If you ever decide to do something like that with a character.)

Spear by Nicola Griffith + Spear's Author's Note

I enjoyed this one, beautiful prose. It didn’t feel like the most comprehensive Grail Quest retelling, but Peretur can be interpreted as a butch lesbian or transmasc, it’s ambiguous. She only uses masculine pronouns when stealth, otherwise using she/her, but it has a happy ending! It’s firmly set in the era & felt authentic on that front while letting the queer characters relax. Peretur isn’t alone. (A/G/L enjoyers keep winning + sapphic lady of the lake ftw + the other hotties Peretur pulled.) Definitely worth checking out.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

This book just came out in 2024. Including it here is already a spoiler given the topic but I’m going to spoil fully from this point on so ignore this if that’s a problem. This is the best example I can give for your reading/writing tastes based on the ask; Dinadan is a trans man. His transness isn’t revealed in the main character Collum’s pov, but in Dinadan’s backstory pov, opening in his childhood. He & his twin brother were sent to different schools but young Dinadan would leave the girl’s school to practice knightly skills with the fay, which retroactively explains why he has a fairy sword that Collum was admiring. In exchange for this training, the fay ask that Dinadan slay Merlin. Which he agrees to while never believing he actually can, but the wrath of the fay in the afterlife is worth his ability to live as a knight. I love how it was all handled firstly because Dinadan has a fighting style that works for his smaller frame & because every knight has a different fighting style (Dagonet’s is “If it sucks hit da bricks.”) Dinadan doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb yet his physicality is accounted for. Secondly Dinadan explains the lengths he goes to in order to stay stealth from obvious ones like binding his breasts to pretending to shave his face every couple days & wearing a packer. Later on, Dinadan’s secrets are revealed when he goes swimming in the ocean with Palomides (who evidentially already knew) & Collum joins them. Collum had no idea, which I think brings up an interesting point about all of this which also reminds me of Gawain not recognizing that Beaumains was Gareth—the power of expectation. Just as Gawain expected to find a kitchen boy & would have no reason to assume his brother (who hit puberty since they last saw each other) would be stealth in the kitchens so therefore didn’t recognize him, Collum expects to find men as knights of the Round Table, so when Sir Dinadan is introduced, & Collum had heard of him before, Dinadan’s stature & high voice don’t register to Collum as anything but traits that this guy Dinadan happens to have. Learning Dinadan’s secret in the presence of another knight who already knows & is chill about it also encourages Collum to be accepting too. So giving Dinadan at least one ally in his corner throughout the story went a long way. In the end Merlin, who can only be killed by a man (which is why Nimue had to settle for sealing him away) is stabbed by Dinadan. So it’s like a reverse Silence/Éowyn situation that Dinadan’s gender is affirmed in his ability to kill Merlin. This book also includes the part from Le Morte d’Arthur where Dinadan’s forced to wear a dress, which in this context is very transphobic, but that’s the point. It’s made better when Dinadan gets to go insano style on Merlin so he gets payback. Just a heads up about that.

Some fantasy/scifi that’s not Arthurian but may help, as Arthuriana is largely fantasy to begin with, this may help you determine where on the spectrum your taste/writing falls regarding the bending of reality/history to fit your narrative.

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

1928 novel about a character named Orlando living during the reign of Elizabeth I. Orlando is born male, then at some point in his early adulthood, falls into a deep sleep from which he awakens the exact same person, now metamorphosed to be female. Orlando, for her part, adopts this new role immediately & keeps on moving. She lives for 300 years as such & has many adventures, including an instance where she then presents as a man to elude marriage. Transitioned so she could cross dress in the other direction. She would’ve done numbers on tumblr. Ultimately, Orlando does marry… a gnc sea captain! The success of their marriage is attributed to their similarities in gender non-conformity. Even though this book only remains in the late medieval era for the opening, I think it’s a poignant example of a transgender individual living their life in their time & still getting to enjoy themselves without excessive suffering that may provide lots of inspiration.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

1970 Hugo & Nebula award winning novel. A fascinating examination of gender from the point of view of a cis man named Genly Ai having to reconcile his interpretation of the gender binary when confronted with a society who operates outside that. His travels with ambisexual Estravan challenges what Ai understands about the universe. His ignorance forms the backbone of the narrative as he grows close to a person from this other society. Even if it’s not a medieval setting, it may help you develop a narrative voice regarding this subject you’re able to bring to your work. Also it’s just really good.

The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner

2007 Locus award winner, Nebula & Gaylactic Spectrum nominee. High fantasy medieval setting. Katherine is a country girl brought to the big city Riverside by her uncle the Duke where she’s offered the opportunity to train as swordsman (ie cross dress) instead of political marriage. She’s unsure of the reasoning behind her uncle’s motivations for doing this, but goes along with it & kicks ass. A preview is available on Google books (linked).

The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb

This is my favorite series ever. It spans 16 books published between 1995-2017. The fandom on tumblr & ao3 is hugely active. (Avoid tags to dodge major spoilers or check it out for amazing art & many quotes!) The series has many gnc characters in a fantasy medieval setting. First & foremost, The Fool, who’s in all the books & whose gender ambiguity is mentioned book 1, to which he says, “None of your business.” The character ever. Without getting too specific, there are several trans characters including gender fluid characters who will alternate between masc/fem presentation & pronouns. This is my favorite example of gender fluid characters in any fantasy I’ve read, especially since there are several & each feels unique. In The Liveship Traders trilogy, Amber coaches another woman how to hide her period while pretending to be a ship’s boy by using a sock, so if anyone finds the blood on it, she can say she cut her foot. Little things like that really deepened the realism in an otherwise fantastical story for me, because addressing those details answers questions my overly analytical mind would ask & wonder about if unacknowledged.

Lastly I'd like to suggest the article Armour of an Alienating Identity by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. While it doesn't mention Parzival (the text), it does mention Perceval (the character), as well as Gareth Beaumains, Lancelot, Gawain, Yvain, and even Arthur himself. It goes on to reference endless examples to support its thesis including Greek heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus with references to many different medieval stories from Old English Beowulf to the Irish Ulster cycle to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Most (if not all) of the texts mentioned in this essay can be found on my blog for cross reference if you desire, although the article already contains many quotes.

Okay I think that’s all I got. I’ve given you a ton to think about and read. Ultimately I don’t think there’s a clean cut answer for this. Nuance, you know? Having hired an editor and many sensitivity readers myself, it really is just a professional a vibe check sometimes. You write what you want to the best of your ability, then other people weigh in, and you keep tweaking it until it’s as good as you can possibly make it. During development, and even in its final form, there will be people who don’t enjoy your story and that’s fine. It isn’t for everyone, it’s for you and your audience. No single experience in this life is the same so each fictional depiction emulating life will also be unique, there’s no “right” answer on how to write this or anything else, only the way you want to.

Hopefully now you have some tools to help you learn how best to express your vision. I know they gave me a lot of insight and ideas I lacked before when writing trans characters in my books. Thank you for trusting me with this question and good luck with your project! Take care! :^)

[akajustmerry]

Between gender-bending at will and repressing one’s self-expression for fear of persecution, it’s not hard to see why the BBC series resonated with young queer viewers. “The themes of secrecy, silence, friendship, companionship, journey and destiny mirrored my experience as a queer person,” Ayuub, a queer trans man, shared. “Merlin’s magic glows and encapsulates him and he loves it but he can’t show it to anyone but a few people.” Other themes also enchanted Ayuub like, “self censorship, policing everyone around you to stay safe, bending and breaking the rules, fighting for change many people can neither see nor understand”.

Queer Fans Remember ‘Merlin’ 15 Years Later, The Gayest Show That Wasn’t Gay | Merryana Salem

(thanks to everyone who contributed)

[bizarrelittlemew]

I have a burning curiosity that can only be relieved by an OFMD author. Why is there so much AU fanfiction in this fandom?? 😆 My AO3 search results with every alternate universe tag I can think of blocked are coming up with almost every result on the page filtered out! 🤣 I have nothing against them existing and I'm all for everyone writing what makes them happy, I just wonder how this fandom ended up being so full of them. I used to think SPN was oversaturated with AU's, but it can't hold a candle to OFMD! 😅

okay i wanted to give this a proper answer and also asked a few other authors, so here are some of the reasons we came up with - i think it's a combination of all of these:

while the show takes place in a historical setting, it's not historically accurate or even trying to be. it uses anachronistic dialogue and gives piracy a vibe more like a modern workplace. the characters become timeless in the sense that they are already "modern" characters put into a historical setting, and therefore fit just as well into any kind of AU setting. the characters are what make up the show more than the historical setting

the themes that the show deals with - relationships, sexuality, gender, trauma, family, self-image, mental illness - can be explored in so many different ways given different settings. it's very interesting to examine how the characters would deal with them when thrown into different circumstances and time periods

canon is really good, so while there are gaps in the narrative that can be explored, a lot of people are drawn to putting the characters in entirely different situations and/or feel like canon ground was covered pretty quickly

the story itself translates to other universes very easily. people want to enjoy that story and/or their favorite plot points again and again, but just writing down the plot of the show in the canon setting wouldn't make much sense. by throwing the characters into a different universe, you can pull scenes and plot from canon without just repeating it, putting a different spin on it

very few shows have (canonically) older queer people, and people like the idea of how that translates to other universes

we have (relatively) little canon and had a lot of time between seasons. considering the size of the fandom, amount of canon, and time since canon, the proportion of AUs is not surprising

if we assume proper tagging, AUs make up around 27% of all ofmd fanfics by number of works, but probably much more by word count, since a lot of canon fics tend to be shorter. in comparison, that number is around 20% for SPN and 34% for Merlin 🤷

also i've seen a lot of people starting out by only wanting to read canonverse fics until they gave an AU a try and BAM they were hooked 😌

and last but not least:

Ed and Stede fall in love in every universe 💗

[bisclavret]

what SICKO wrote the last scenes between gwaine and merlin is what i want to know. because even lancelot's last episode with merlin - which had to have been intentionally gay-coded since it's obvious the man is grappling with his feelings for merlin morphing from platonic to explicitly romantic - is still subtext because he doesn't have the tools to healthily express his feelings so he goes for the biggest romantic gesture he can think of: sacrificing his life to save a loved one. the writers also make sure to root this gesture back to gwen by adding a scene where she's inadvertently asking him to make that sacrifice first, so although it's very obvious that it's more for merlin than for gwen that lancelot dies for, she is there to add some plausible deniability, thus keeping his sexuality within the realms of subtext.

i don't want to delve too deeply into arthur's last scenes with merlin as there is both so much to unpack about what they mean to each other and there is also somehow nothing left to say that hasn't been said before. my point is just that there's so much at stake that if the viewer doesn't want to deal with the romantic subtext between them they can hang onto the 38 other dynamics merlin and arthur have represented to each other that the writers spent 5 years plastering on top of the gay subtext. basically, while the romance feels textual emotionally-speaking, it isn't "canon".

i don't mean to say that any relationship is better than another (even though i obviously have a preference) but that in gwaine's final scenes with merlin there's just no subtext anymore. his becomes the most explicit expression of romantic love towards merlin, and therefore the most explicit acknowledgment of homosexual love and the existence of queer people on the show:

it starts out with merlin suggesting that gwaine saved a girl from the saxons and then looked after her because he has a more than platonic interest in her, and they show us that merlin is right - gwaine and the girl eira slept together - even as gwaine half-heartedly denies any interest (which, why even deny it? merlin saw them holding hands! unless the lie is part of the point). then in that very same scene and directly after this exchange, merlin needs rescuing from the saxons, calls after gwaine, and gwaine performs the exact same role for him that he performed for eira: he saves him from the saxons and looks after him (for as long as merlin lets him).

the parallel between merlin and eira with such quick cause and effect (it literally all happens within the same minute) is where the shift from subtext to text becomes undeniable. yes, there have been other moments on the show where a character's affections towards two different genders are beat-for-beat the same, but, again, there has always been plausible deniability. in this case the parallel is meant to be taken at face value: the core point of it is to show us how gwaine expresses his attraction.

then, the dialogue they chose to bookend this scene with takes it a few steps further by functioning as a textual love confession to merlin himself: the scene opens with gwaine thanking merlin for everything he did for eira, and merlin saying that there is no need to thank him as it was the least he could do. a minute later, after merlin thanks gwaine for protecting him from the saxons as both merlin and the show just concluded gwaine did for eira for romantic reasons (even as he denied it by outright lying), gwaine parrots what merlin said when gwaine thanked him: no need to thank me, merlin, it's the least i could do.

but this comes off as the opposite of dismissive: in fact, this echoing of merlin's words is meant to jolt both merlin and the audience. by saying this right after saving merlin from the saxons, gwaine has now intentionally pointed merlin's attention towards the explicitly romantic parallel between himself and eira. gwaine is directly implying he just did for merlin what merlin correctly deduced he did for a woman because he desired her sexually and romantically, and he is using merlin's own words to challenge him into seeing past the initial flimsy lie that there is nothing between them. and what's behind the lie, of course, is that gwaine has done all of this and more because he desires merlin sexually and romantically. the camera even lingers on merlin, allowing him and the viewer to absorb what just happened. that for as long as we have known gwaine, his motivations have always boiled down to "i want to be there for merlin". and now both the audience and merlin finally know for sure what was motivating him the entire time.

what's more, by using merlin's own dismissive words, gwaine also implicates merlin's penchant for repression and denial and never allowing himself to be given credit where it's due. this unfortunately never properly gets dismantled on the show, but this moment shows that gwaine knows merlin well enough to know that he goes above and beyond for people, and that merlin's reasons for this ring as false to gwaine's ears as gwaine's reasons for saving damsels do to merlin. it also bittersweetly implies that gwaine has accepted that these are the platonic, repressed terms on which he can have a relationship with merlin. but i think the way in which he explicitly points all of this out to merlin is meant to imply that he isn't entirely happy about having to accept that. or, to circle back to eira, that merlin seems to be cheering for him to enter a heterosexual relationship when gwaine would clearly rather be with him.

what's additionally interesting to me about this is that this is one of the only scenes on this show that touch on same gender attraction that isn't using magic as a metaphor - because merlin doesn't have magic at the moment, yes, but also because gwaine is the more active character in this sequence, and he's an adventure hero, so he simply fights the bad guy to protect the person he loves. there is no metaphor to wrap this in, so he just gets to explicitly state his bisexuality. in the next scene, the very last one he and merlin share, it all becomes about magic again, which is both representative of merlin's sexuality and the show's "plausible deniability" approach to gay-coding, and so neither gwaine or merlin are permitted to acknowledge it. also, and this is for another post altogether, but all things point to "gwaine knew". not least because he gets to come out as queer without the complications of the magic-as-gay-metaphor which in turn emboldens him to ask merlin for the truth as directly as the metaphor-suffocated narrative will allow it.

tldr gwaine textually and canonically expresses and then confesses his feelings to merlin in a shockingly well-written and layered scene which makes gwaine the most explicitly queer character on bbc merlin and it's entirely because he exists outside the magic-as-gay-metaphor plot while loving someone who embodies that entire metaphor and it's crazy to me that we don't talk about this more. once again i ask what SICKO wrote this and where were they for the entire rest of this fucking show

tldrtldr at least gwaine is bi. its like i always say. at least gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. dont cry ok? gwaine is bi. at the end of the day. gwaine is bi. when all else fails. gwaine is bi. we'll always have. gwaine is bi

[bigfootboyband]

In marrying some of my favorite Arthurian poetry and bbc’s Merlin, here is a small sketch of Gwaine clad in queerness of sexuality and gender.

If you'd like to support me, you can do so here <3

[spro-o]

i noticed that in your art you referred to gowther as auncle and that had me kicking my feet so may you please spare your nnt gender/sexuality headcanons and fave ships? hope your exams have gone/are going well and that you have a great weekend :D

*laughs evilly* yes,,,, my time to shine,,, >:3

thank you very much for the ask!! indeed i would love to share my queer hcs and favourite ships for the gang!!

hcs (heads up, some references to horny preferences)

Meliodas:

trans man (he/him) (im not projecting, trust) (lie)

pansexual

he has a very high libido/pervy tendencies, yes, but also an equally strong potential for romantic love - i do think of him as quite the possessive/protective type on a very deep emotional level, he just covers it up by acting like a perv all the time (something something traumatised and doesnt want others to see him caring for people since he fears they will take them away from him)

top-leaning switch and much freakier than his appearances may lead some to believe

Diane:

cis woman (she/her)

bisexual

has definitely kissed elizabeth multiple times on their "girl's nights/sleepovers"

the type to blush and fawn over every woman in existence,,,, and her husband too ig

pegs king on the regular

Ban:

masc-alligned genderqueer (he/they) (not projecting again) (another lie)

bisexual

finds men and women attractive at about an even ratio

he picks his clothing to be so slutty for a reason (queer signalling + hes a sucker for that kind of attention, though he might act like he doesnt care) (he cares most when said attention comes from meliodas, which is affirmed every time mel takes the chance to feel him up)

bottom-leaning switch and the most masochistic masochist you ever will meet

King:

cis man (he/him)

bisexual (god damn all these bitches bi ‼️‼️)

i think we all know how king discovered his like of men (,,, cough,, helbram,,)

yeah helbram definitely pull a couple of those 'leaning in for a kiss/doing some other gay shit' stunts as a joke and was like haha got you and king was just sat there, bright red, blood streaming down his nose

denied these stunts had any effect on him whatsoever

gets pegged by diane on the regular

Gowther:

non-binary (they/them) (intersex??? i mean, theyre a doll, probably got interchangeable parts lmao)

demisexual and demiromantic gay/queer

they dont really have a specific label to describe what genders theyre attracted to, its just sorta 'anything goes if we vibe', and its gay either way, so they keep it broad

as mentioned, theyre referred to by gender-neutral titles, but dont mind the occasional "miss ma'am" for comedic effect

tends to prefer bottoming, but not exclusively

Merlin:

nb trans woman (she/they)

aro-spec lesbian

shes never had much luck or want for romantic relationships but has definitely had her fair share of thotin around with women

very skilled at rizzing up said women, but its really a 50/50 whether shes doing so to get someone laid or to acquire her next social-experiment subject (whom she will also probably dick down later, who knows)

Escanor:

cis man,,,, he/him

straight,,

sorry yall, gotta have the token straight ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tho i do hc as being aware of the fact that merlin wont return his feelings, but having accepted that, so all the poetry he writes for her is more of a sign of appreciation of her as a friend, and not as an attempt to hit on her

Bonus!!

Elizabeth:

cis woman (she/her)

pansexual

the type to have gotten so so many crushes when she was younger,,, finding everyone really attractive and charming, and as a result being the most easily flustered person ever

as each sin rejoined the group, shed have her mandatory moment of "oh god,,,, its another very very hot/attractive person"

switch, but very gentle and caring no matter the position

Elaine:

demigirl (she/they)

sapphic

very easily flustered (extremely weak for elizabeth)

pillow princessing all over the place

Zeldris:

non-binary (he/they/xe)

bisexual, with a preference for women

tends to be pretty resistant to flirtatious remarks and whatnot, but is the absolute weakest when its from gelda (professional simp /pos)

,,,, also a massive bottom, but i digest

Gelda:

trans woman (she/her, also doesnt mind they/them)

demiromantic bisexual

knows exactly the effect she has on zeldris, but loves pretending she has no idea

shell say "oh, sorry just need to grad a book from the shelf behind you" and then get her boobs as close to zel's face as possible without making skin contact, and stay there until xe's gone bright red

hung

ships:

Melban - obviously, this one goes kinda goes without saying for me. i absolutely love the dynamic between these two, and their shared history as well. they are both very much sick in the head and have so many issues they each struggle with, but at the same time they cant take anything seriously. there are countless interactions between them which are just so so homoerotic, if not just really sweet. these two quite literally will go to hell and back for the other without a second thought, and i adore that (say its bros bein dude all you want, you cant convince me they didnt fuck in purgatory and on many other occasions)

Elilaine - theyre like melban but less punchy, more of the "normal about expressing love for the other". i know there arent many deep interactions between Elizabeth and Elaine, but i just, once again, think that they have a really adorable dynamic and would just make for the most lovely couple (with equally deceivingly harmless looks, but very much the potential to whoop ass if need be)

Geldris - these two, despite canonically being just a straight couple, are one of the most queer duos in the damn series,,, they just are, man, idk. big fan of them both being very gothic and stuff, and obviously im a sucker for how much zeldris buckles at the knees for anything gelda does,,, love them

Hendreyfus - old,,, old man yaoi my beloved (i just think theyre really adorable and are like and old married couple - very cutes!!) (also yeah old men)

i also do love the rarepair (? polycule) of all time, that being melban x elilaine,,, we should have seen more interactions between mel and elaine, and between ellie and ban!! they definitely got up to all sorts of stuff, i just know it

anyways!! thank you very much for the ask!! thankfully i only have one more exam left on monday and then im free from those :,) i hope you have a lovely day!! :D

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

Arthurian videogames with romances (I added a little rainbow for queer romances options)

(in order of pics above, from left to right, top to borrom)

Secret Kiss with Knight: Otome -> mobile game, classic otome game with pay to unlock extra content. The romance options are Arthur, Merlin, Mordred and Galahad. Not played, so I cannot add any commentary.

Princess Arthur -> another otome mobile game, unfortunately impossible to find if not in Japanese now. Multiple romance options: Tristan, Lancelot, Merlin, Galahad, Mordred (not Arthur's son), Gawain. You play as a female Arthur character. The route are pretty long and complex, and it was set in arthurian times (with other secondary characters like Medraut, Morgause, Kay etc.). Quite good game too.

Choices: Guinevere ️‍🌈 -> free mobile game from "Choices: Stories you play", where you play Guinevere and you can romance Arthur or Lancelot. Arthur and Lancelot are not gender locked so you can choose their gender too. The game is complete and deal with Guinevere romance too, her arrival to Camelot and some strange premonition of danger she is having.

Pendragon Rising ️‍🌈 -> text game from "Choice of Games" (you can also buy it on steam). You play as Arthur (male or female) and you have to consolidate power and save Camelot as Uther is aging. The romance options seem to be Morgana, Emrys and Gawain (their gender seems to be chosen by the player, I am not sure).

The Chronicles of Lancelot ️‍🌈 -> gay (mlm) p0rn game on itch io and steam. THIS IS NOT FOR MINORS. You play as Lancelot, branded as a traitor after Ban has been accused of killing Uther. You go around sleeping with various characters (Kay, Gawain, Arthur, OCs) and trying to find out what happened to Excalibur. I am currently playing it, so I am not completely sure, but it looks like Arthur might be more of a romance option than the rest of the flirting and sleeping with options.

Arthurian Tale: Camelot ️‍🌈 -> ongoing text game by @cain--abel, I have not played it. You can play as any gender and you arrive at Camelot after Uther's death to find out who is the pretender who took the throne (Arthur). The romance options are Kay, Lancelot, Arthur (or Elaine, depending on the gender), Morgana, Lunete. You can play it here.

The Bastard of Camelot ️‍🌈 -> ongoing text game by @llamagirl28 and my favorite arthurian videogame ever. You play as Mordred (any gender) since his early years, meeting Arthur for the first time (and you can also decide how to react to your estranged father) and growing up with your dragon friend. There are multiple romance options: Gawain (Kay's son), Elaine, Galahad, Nimue, Isac (OC), Sophie, Agravaine (not related to Mordred). You can play it here.

[epic-sorcerer]

How gay people were actually precived in medival times

Ok so even after years of obsessive research, it sitll took me until recently to finally grasp a medival point of view on homosexuality. I’m assuming I’m not alone in my not understanding of it so I figured I might as well break it down for my fellow Merlin fans.

So basically, there was no consept of heterosexuality and homosexuality. There was only “female attraction” or “male attraction.” If a man possessed the same sexual attraction as a woman would, he would have a female attribute.

For this reason, they were considered “hermaphrodites.”

Unfortunately I’m going to have to keep saying this word, because modern ones jsut don’t make sense here. But please know that it is widely considered a slur among intersex people and originates from a Greek myth where hermaphrodite gets his body murjed with a woman who wants to rape him. So. Don’t call people that, please.

Anyways. Hermaphrodites were considered a medical condition and had to pick a gender to be, as they couldn’t simply exist as a third gender. This of course carried a lot of shame amongst the people who were concidered hermaphrodites. The gender was often chosen based on what sex characteristics were most prominent.

So, assuming the only “female traits” a male has is his homosexuality, they would likely stay as a man unless they really did not want to be. And even then, they would have to do it in secret because any deviation from their strict idea of gender was considered a threat to society. Witch is why hermaphrodites had to live as one male *or* female in the first place

I think this puts in to a lot of perspective on how I write Arthur especially. I originally would write Arthur as feeling very emasculated by being queer from a perspective of toxic masculinity.

But looking at it now, is that not gender dysphoria? Of course he doesn’t want to have female sex characteristics. When I’m a guy, I don’t either!

I’ve done lots of research and sighlent lurking on intersex spaces for a while now just because. But I think now I’ll start using that knolage to my advantage to my writing because it’s more realistic. I think murjing my experience as a queer person and intersex people’s experiences would make the sotry make a whole lot more sense.

I would recommend anyone to simply just follow the #intersex tag. But yk….if you’re not intersex you should probably stay silent unless you have a question or something. They get talked over a lot.

I am thankful that I have a direct tie from my hyoerfixation to intersex because while I have done my own research without it, it’s still difficult to do just about anything if it’s not about Merlin. Perhaps some other people reading this struggle in the same way.

I hoped this helped you guys, here’s my main source that really helped me. And you can ask me questions if you’d like.

[biblicallyaccurateangeloncrack]

Genshin and hsr characters as pinned messages (out of context) from discord servers with my friends: a shitpost

(uhhh cw some nsfw jokes and cuss words)

wriothesley: "i do not want an alpha transformation happening rn "

march to danheng: "my coquette lungs are better than your emo lungs"

hu tao: *ghostly voice* "oooooogly boogly why'd you skadoodly me?"

xiao, learning how to spell: "i lvove elmo music"

childe: "he is in my feet"

klee: "yeah my grandma's actually kim kardashian"

bronya to cocolia when she got sick as a kid: "Mother please carry me outside before to see the sky one last time before the consumption takes hold of my body and soul"

hu tao: " "weenis", said eerily"

bennett: "THE SANDWHICH TOOK ME OUT"

blade: "that link is longer than my plans for the future"

serval: "i pledge allegiance to the american bra"

itto: "i am in heat growls the summer has come and i am in heat growls"

zhongli: "*old man voice* when i was your age i fought kids"

stelle/caelus: "when i was my age i eated drywall"

fu xuan: "JING YUAN ILL SNIPPERS YOU UP IF YOU DONT STOP WITH THIS GOOBEROUS SHIT"

diluc, about venti: "i like to prentend he was a fever dream i came with at 4am"

fréminet, trying to speak french: "they said Lyney tu dumbass"

sampo: "I think Luka would beat up Luka while Luka watches. and then Luka would join in and beat the living daylight out of Luka"

silver wolf, about blade: "ppl with lactose intolerance boutta have their 2nd period ongomg"

kayea and rosaria: "we're a match made in the deep dark depths of the abyssal caves in fuck knows where"

jingliu: "am i.........one of those queers........."

yanquing: "shout-out to my home dawg Charles aka history teacher for dropping this wisdom on me"

shinobu: "itto if you say anything penis related you are banned"

ayaka as a kid: ""please take me to the garden so that way i can see the shining sun for the last time before my frail body decomposes with the disease known as ligma""

lyney: "imagine Neuvillette seeing a bunch of orphans blow up infront of him"

yoimiya: "are you really friends if you dont have matching vagina bracelets ??"

wriothesley: "My name is actually marlinus maximilianus Merlin guys"

caelus/stelle: " *bites your toes playfully* "

Pompom: "i eat gender for dinner"

xiao: "is life without endless pain and suffering only for it all to end leaving nothing but emptiness and all your suffering being just for the entertainment of the entity that we call god. an entity who is the real reason as to why we humans end up hurting others, for pain and suffereing is nothing but an endless spiral no matter how hard you try."

kafka, messing with blade: "do you like the gay foot"

yanfei: "YOU CANT LET IT GO LET IT GO YOUR WAY OUT OF A RESTRAINING ORDER"

kokomi: "DEMENTED DOLPHIN"

Furina: "they oui oui'd me"

shenhe: "the cld never bothered me anywa......."

kiara: "agressive meow"

ganyu: "are you a tree cause i wanna eat you"

dainsleif: "while youre kissing you bf or whatever ill be watching in the walls"

venti: "I FART ON PLANES"

scaramouche: "childe I will shave you bald"

itto: "perry plaptypussy"

seele, in response to hook's drawing: "10/10 Einstein could never"

razor, to bennett: "I WILL LICK YOU TO SLEEP"

sucrose, about to collect more bones: "*deranged loud breathing*"

kequing, to half of liyue: "SHUT UP COLOR WHEEL"

cyno: "genderfluid people's favorite song is liquid smooth"

kequing: "the feminine urge to beat up your coworkers with a stick"

dehya: "i piss on biphobes" kaveh: "but what if they have a piss kink..."

albedo: "he looks like a failed science project"

baizhu: "blowjob? nah, blownose"

silver wolf: "story time, honkai star rail made me leave my brother at a gas station and i do not regret SHIT"

blade: "if i end this year without killing myself its a miracle"

columbina: "btw dead bodies take less space if you bury them like theyre standing up"

zhongli: " *cracks back and walks away leaving a trail of dust behind"

@muachiro @geetkk @veimwah @etherific @zohakutenstan

[merlincersei]

Merlin BBC UK TV Show - A Psychological Analysis Series Part 5

Gender Dysmorphia

I find the character of Freya to be very fascinating because I view her as a Transgendered character.

Freya

There are few better symbols for someone going through the process of female-to-male transition than the human to creature transformation trope.

When you are on HRT testosterone therapy, most people become hairier and stronger and gain muscle, which is very similar to the Bastet creature transformation by Freya.

Bastet

Both shape shifting humans and the transmasculine community are, in the popular imagination, scary to heteronormative folks but not to someone who is queer divergent. Hence Merlin being the only character not to fear Freya even in her Bastet form.

The creators deliberately used the cross dressing troupe when Arthur sees Merlin carrying a black dress and assumes it is for Merlin himself, to establish a Transgendered narrative in the Freya episode

A Little Merthur Fact -

It is the object of Merlin’s homosexual desires (Arthur) who kills the object of his heterosexual desire (Freya).

I thought it was very poignant in hindsight because once Freya dies and becomes Lady of the Lake these two never share a romantic relationship again. She is literally submerged into the lake which is a metphaphor for Merlin’s conciousness. Locked away forever.

In addition, The creators literally confirmed Freya changing her gender in the TV show.

Refer this image when in the Diamond Of The Day Part 2 episode where Merlin throws Exaclibur in the Avalon lake and is caught by lady of the lake. The hand clearly belongs to a man.

Freya - Male Hands

Julian murphy confirmed that they used a male scuba diver in the final episode.

A lot of people who deny Merthur attribute this to being an error, just like they do to all cannon facts that does not fit their agenda.

But over time these “errors” pile up and present an irrefutable evidence of queer coding by the creators.

[knightofmordred]

read an article about how bbcm adapted to modern audiences by ofc using oppression as well as gender issues and race/ethnicity and one of the things that was said was how the druid oppression is relatable to the muslim community because regardless of whether you practice or not etc, in islamophobes eyes you are instantly seen as evil and suspicious. for uther its the same with druids because whether or not they have magic, they are still seen as something that shouldn't be allowed to exist.

ive never thought of it like that, and if im honest, im a little bit sceptical at the comparison.

uther's war on magic represents the perils of indiscriminately suppressing diversity and free expression in the name of peace and stability. a rough equivalent can be established between the druids of merlin and the muslim community in contemporary britain. both are sometimes viewed with suspicion as a group that may upset social norms and cohesion. in merlin, some who practice sorcery are shown to be morally questionable and others largely free from blame, but under uther's rule all are placed, without distinction, outside social acceptability.

the author also discussed the racial and religious hatred act (2006) and how islamic dress had been contested with of course many instances where muslim women have either been banned from wearing hijab/niqab or have been penalised because of it.

so i can see why the comparison has been made and i understand it but i think i only agree to an extent. it sort of reminds me of the discourse around druid/magic users being a euphemism for being queer which also has problematic undertones and if im honest i am a little surprised it wasn't mentioned at all in the article!

druid people can and have used their magic for bad. there are several incidents of this happening in bbcm but using islam for bad/violent acts is not a part of the religion at all.

but yeah i understand how druid people couldn't be themselves without discrimination and muslims also go through the same.

something about the comparison just does not sit right with me though and i can't put my finger on it.

[thekingofthenameless]

Happy Pride Month!!!! OC that was previously cis is now transmasc!

That was the concept I was yelling about! Everyone I’ve told has loved it, and Tumblr’s getting it too.

Anyways TRANSMASC MERLIN MY BELOVED

I can say with the upmost confidence that he’s definitely never been transgender in any Arthurian adaptation before except fanfiction.

There isn’t really much of a story for why I decided to do this, though. He’s been cisgender for a little over three years, give or take, and I hadn’t had any intentions of changing it.

But I had literally just started work yesterday morning, and out of nowhere my brain was like: “Trans Merlin.”

And then I got consumed by it.

There isn’t much content about him being transgender; only ten posts tagged posts for it on Tumblr, 82 fics of it on Ao3. (Yes, I checked.) And it’s all for one adaptation only: BBC Merlin.

I’m going to be the change I want to see though >:)

So without further ado, here’s a few new facts about him!

Merlin was his name at birth, and he kept it after transitioning.

(In my opinion, it’s an ode to trans people who don’t change their name before or after transitioning, and it’s also a reference/mythology gag to female portrayals of Merlin, such as The Seven Deadly Sins!)

(Honestly thinking about it, I can’t believe in all these adaptations of Arthurian Legend Merlin isn’t trans in at least one?? Or queer in some way? This is so rude.)

In TKN, cambions can shapeshift easily, and there’s also a spell they can cast that makes the form they change into their base/true form, which is what Merlin did. (He cried when he finally saw who he wanted to be in a mirror.)

When he was deciding on how he wanted to ideally look before the spell, he decided he didn’t want to let his ear piercings close, and he also chose to keep his hair long and keep wearing jewelry.

(Older queers my beloved.)

He still got periods until he went into menopause because magic unfortunately, as he and I both agree can’t get rid of periods, and he actually didn’t want to change his genitalia! He still has every reproductive organ he was born with. His chest, however, gave him gender dysphoria, so he bound it during/after puberty before using the spell.

(I love how Merlin has gone from cis white to cis ambiguously brown skinned [glad I changed that lol] to cis black to transmac black. Just. Merlin my beloved.)

Charlie is one of the few characters who knows that Merlin is transgender: people already think Merlin’s crazy for his schizophrenia and psychosis, and/or an asshole for his misophonia, so he doesn’t want to risk another thing they’d use against him. Charlie is the best familiar and was fully supportive throughout his transition, and he loves him and is fully willing to accommodate his disabilities when no one will.

(Trans Merlin has been giving me so much euphoria all day oh my gosh. I love him so much.)

He still has a sister! Her name is Ganieda, and in some of the Legends she’s two years younger than him. Here, though, they’re identical twins!

(No offense to the og Legends, but for one reason, it’s because of Adhan having a second child only two years after being assaulted and getting pregnant from it. She would’ve gotten pregnant again at a year and three months after? It’s kind of strange, in my opinion.)

Also identical twins, and one of them being trans!

(I just. TRANS MERLIN)

As a given, he knows what periods and feminine rage and experiencing misogyny are like! But in a world that doesn’t for the most part, he comes off as well versed in it to everyone else.

(This is just an idea for now, but I was thinking that maybe later in TKN, Morgana gets her period at Camelot, and after Merlin gets her taken care of/gently educates her about it, he astral projects to Igraine and Gorlois and is like: “Hey Morgana got her period, but I got her taken care of dw 👍” and their response is: “Wow, you’re really knowledgeable about periods!”

Merlin: Trans panic

He’s experienced both womanhood and manhood, and both of them are extremely important to him. He was raised as a daughter. He experienced being a sister. He went through puberty in a girl’s body. He has the right to tell her story, and his.

Anyways. Transmasc Merlin because I’m not going to stop screaming about it

Also I made this :D

[pinkcrocss]

What do you like about Marie and Jordan individually and what do you like about them as a pair?

Thank you for the ask! ❤️

For Marie, I just love her so much. First of all, I am always happy to see a black girl lead in any kind of diverse, non-stereotypical, non-sassy-side character role like this.

But I also appreciated how realistic she was. Like, I understood almost every choice she made. I saw people get mad at her at the start for not always doing the altruistic, "right thing", but for most people, self-preservation comes first. She didn't owe those other characters anything (especially after how they treated her) and I loved that she had a back bone and would actually talk back to people. But at her core, she is still a good person despite everything that has happened to her and still chooses not to be corrupted by Vought's influence once she understands the true material cost.

For Jordan, they're just such a nuanced character. One, I always have a soft-spot for the Lancer character archetype. The highly capable, second best, who can never quite out-do the main character (e.i. bakugo, reki (from sk8), Ron from HP (fuck jkr, but no other examples are coming to me atm)), and Jordan is just that. Like, yeah, they were kind of a bitch at the start, but it's so clear that they are secretly a softie and the world and their experiences have forced them to have a tough shell. Also, their powers as an allegory for gender identity, yes, it's on the nose (although, as someone who grew up reading 90s/2000s manga like Ranma 1/2, not that unheard of), but I think the show handled questions of their identity really well.

And finally for Limoreau...

idk where to start. tbh, as someone who has been hyper fixating on characters and ships since high school, I never really have a clear explanation of why I ship the characters I do. I either like it or I don't. But Limoreau is such a pleasant surprise because the chemistry was there from the start, but it felt like one of those queer dynamics that the writers would be too scared to pursue (think Arthur/merlin or Gojo/Geto). I think the fact that our MAIN PAIRING is a queer, interracial couple with no white people, shouldn't be as revolutionary as it is in 2023, but it is! I hope this is a positive direction for on-screen storytelling.

But also everyone loves a classic "enemies to lovers" (yes, I know they're not EtL in the true sense, but I consider Rivals-to-lovers as a subset of EtL, so I'm using it as an umbrella term). I think the reason people like EtL dynamics (Especially in het pairings) is that there is always an underlying respect beneath the "hatred". Like, to see someone as a threat, you have to see them as at least an equal.

It was clear from the start that Marie and Jordan were more alike than different and it was Vought and the corrupt nature of Godolkin pushing them to compete. They're both lonely in different ways, and I love the idea of them finding acceptance and a home with each other (Also all three actors are extremely attractive and have great chemistry, so that never hurts).

Do I wish their relationship had been paced out a bit more? Yes. But that was my issue with all of Gen V. I think the whole show would have benefitted from 12 eps, instead of 8, because development was needed in most areas.

I also just want to note, for all the people saying their relationship "came out of nowhere", I truly feel that if Marie looked like Erin Moriarty and Jordan looked like Chace Crawford, most people would have clocked the romance from the beginning, jus saying...

[whatbettyread]

Pulling Swords from Stones: What's the matter with YA King Arthur Retellings

I have read a lot more this year than I have in a long time, and basically read anything someone recommended me. I tried to stay in the umbrella of queer, indie, and diverse voices. Unfortunately, that means I never want to be mean! I don't want to kick diverse voices or smaller creators, and I don't want to discourage those creatives. On the other other hand, I appreciate people being bitchy, especially when it's about a book that I was interested in. So I'm splitting the difference-- overly positive on goodreads, with my negative comments here, where nobody will read them.

I know part of the Cait Corrain (sp?) drama was that she was reviewing indie authors and friends positively but being negative on alt accounts, and I hope that's not what I'm doing here. I think both of these books are relatively big, and I don't know the authors personally, but I also think they're small enough the creators might come across the reviews. Hopefully they're smart enough to avoid reading reviews.

This is about the following books:

Once and Future

Gwen and Art are Not In Love

Probably needlessly negative, which is why it's under a cut, but:

Once and Future is the only book I definitively DNFed this year. It should be a slam dunk for me: I love sci fi, I've had "Arthur comes back as a marginalized person" as a concept in my head for decades, I love queer characters and characters of color taking the lead. Once and Future has all of these things!

Once & Future, by A.R. Capetta, Cory McCarthy, is billed as a "bold, sizzling YA retells the popular legend with the Once and Future King as a teenage girl -- and she has a universe to save." The protagonist is a plucky teenager, a woman of color, and queer-- sapphic, even-- living with her brother and on the run from a spacefaring megacorporation.

Even setting aside the Arthur of it all, I had a few issues with this book from the jump. Capetta and McCarthy both seem uncomfortable with writing a woman of color as their protagonist-- one of the authors is part Lebanese, but there still seemed to be a lot of discomfort with how they wrote those characters. You could feel the difference between how they write Ari and how they write Merlin: Merlin is immediately a comfortable point of view.

The introduction of Merlin into the story is actually where I fell off. Merlin is The Merlin, from the Arthur Times. He wakes up in the far future and misgenders someone, and then is corrected. He immediately apologizes and becomes Woke.

And this made me feel crazy! Because it was simultaneously too easy and not easy enough. Merlin is The Merlin from Arthurian Times, who Wakes Up Every Few Hundred Years and Updates His Knowledge. So... he has never met a single nonbinary person for thousands of years? He is not held to any sort of social norm from the Arthurian time period, or does he just update his understanding super quickly once corrected? There's no bafflement from the protagonists-- who have only existed in a world where gender is fluid-- why someone would struggle with the idea of nonbinary people. And then Merlin explains that he is from the past and has outdated ideas!

Third genders and nonbinary genders were on Earth during the Arthurian era, just outside of England-- did Merlin just keep all his vast knowledge confined to the British isles?

It felt like a handwave: a way for Merlin to stay "outdated" and to address the changes in time, while also showing that he's a good dude who will update his ideas immediately when confronted. It felt too easy-- and if you want it to be easy, why not have him interact with nonbinary people at a previous time? He is specifically written to be The Merlin, but the authors seem like they don't want to tackle what having a dude from the 5th century running around would actually be like.

Similarly, Gwen and Art are Not In Love wants to split playing with the time period with having things be Easy. The novel doesn't commit to a time period, so the extent to which homophobia existed is hard to pin down. We are in generic middle ages time period, maybe after the 12th century: the references to Arthur are about cycles, rather than a true retelling. This is the story of Gwen and Art, who are betrothed, but Gwen is in love with the Only Lady Knight, and Art is gay. They fake date to get people off their backs.

Unlike Once and Future, Gwen and Art is mostly just trying to be a good time. It really reads like fanfiction. I enjoyed it! Really. But the second I turned my brain back on, the ramifications. The rammies. The book is interested in some of the history and politics, but is fearful of making any institution seem truly flawed. There is a civil war coming, but we aren't shown why people might want to fight against their ruler: Gwen has a servant she mistreats, but they're actually friends its fine. Once you have a rebellion: people who are unhappy under a ruler-- one has to start asking questions.

I don't tend to like stories about royals. I'm originally from the UK: I don't like the idea that magic blood makes someone better than me. But I can deal with this for a story written well: either one that explores what royalty means, or one that ignores it.

I think a lot about Bridgerton in terms of this. The race-blind casting in the show is fantastic and the actors are brilliant and beautiful-- and then they explain it by saying George III married a black woman and it... ended racism? And I didn't need an explanation! I didn't want one. But once you say that, I start thinking about the period being built on the slave trade, the British Empire built on the stolen wealth of Africa and India, and George III being mad, and how he would never be allowed to marry Charlotte, and if he used his royal power to do that-- would the colonies revolt sooner? I mean, think about what the west did to Haiti--

You see what I mean?

Both books try and straddle between "legitimate retelling" and "don't worry about it." But I'm going to worry about it if you bring it up!

The Goblin Emperor is a book that is very concerned with the morality of Empire. It doesn't shy away from the idea that Empire itself is a toxic thing, even when led by a good ruler, and that even a good ruler will struggle with the machinery of empire. The Twelve Kingdoms tackles the idea of royalty differently: the Royal in charge of a Kingdom is actually tied to the well-being of the land and its people. Many of the snapshots we get are to see how different rulers manage-- or don't manage- their kingdoms. You are King as long as you serve your country-- and emphasis on Serve.

Additionally, they seemed to suffer from the "fujoshi's curse"-- something I say fondly, as a sufferer myself on occasion, but still a detractor.

The fujoshi's curse is this: you are more interested in your male characters than your female ones, even as a woman or as a queer person ostensibly writing about multiple genders of character. Both this and Gwen and Art suffer from this: the authors seem to struggle to enjoy the female protagonists, or to understand their attraction to women. In Gwen and Art, Gwen is implied to be demisexual: this is fine and good! But since she's the only queer woman whose interiority we're invited into, we get the vibe that her attraction is only to this particular Lady Knight. When her attraction is described, it doesn't feel comfortable for the writers. In Once & Future, once Merlin is introduced, he is immediately the writers favorite.

Both books seem to feel like wlw relationships are an obligation, something you need to avoid people telling you that you're just fetishizing mlm relationships. They feel flat. Gwen has been in Love With Lady Bridget, but also kind of wants to be Lady Bridget. The writers keep adding elements to their relationship as though adding hooks will find something to keep them interested. But Lady Bridget, and Gwen, are somewhat superfluous to the story. They are given things to do that seem plot important, but the narrative exists primarily for Gwen's brother and Art.

Gwen is punished by the narrative for her cowardice, without the narrative leaving any room for why a woman might be more cowardly than a man at that time period. Gwen is portrayed as being in the wrong for caring what other people think: her arc is her being brave and breaking the rules and maybe being nicer to servants.

What is the point of a King Arthur retelling? What is the point of taking a story about Kings and Royalty and the Inevitable Good of The Ruling Class and rewriting it with members of the underclass? Gwen and Art say: everyone else gets a fun middle ages romance, in the system of middle ages royalty, so we queers get one too. Once and Future says: you think you like the inevitable power of the ruling class? Well this is a brown, queer woman from the underclass, and she has been gifted this power. They do not go beyond that. They do not ask more questions.

At one point, in Gwen and Art, Lady Bridget, the only female knight, the only character of color in the book, lifts the sword from the stone and wields it in battle. What are the consequences of this? A few jokes. When she is at tourneys, some people talk about it, but she doesn't like it. Gwen's brother, Art's boyfriend, becomes the King. The Good King. And he Makes Gay Marriage Legal.

We know there are flaws in the kingdom, in the system. We know that, in Once and Future, the Evil Corporation infects everything, is galaxy spanning and all powerful. But the problems are fixed, in both, without violence. Violence comes from outside: from the violent members of a cult. Their invasion is repelled, and the system is fixed by the royals from the inside. In Gwen And Art, the Good King rising to the throne brings about a period of liberal niceties and wokeness, but with the King. In Once and Future, paperwork and a marriage Fix the galaxy.

Both books tackle Class with characters from different ends of the system, but both conclude with remarkably similar ideas. The rise of liberalism, and a 20th century moral outlook, brought about by the Right People Being in Charge.

What do the villains want? In Gwen and Art, they want to be in charge, because they're part of an Arthurian cult. In Once and Future, they're a fascist neoliberal government corporation. But it never feels like the enemy is an ideology or a people: the enemy is an obstacle we need to get past, but it doesn't come from anything.

I'm not just a killjoy: like I said, I enjoyed Gwen and Art well enough when I was reading it. But both retellings seemed to stop at "we are recasting with diverse characters." Why? What does it say? What does it mean? What are the themes, and how are they challenged by these changes? Royalty, empire, corporate oligarchy, the existence of Kings: all of these things are parts of oppressive systems, and the stories we tell about them are about those oppressive systems.

Secret royalty stories have existed forever: the pauper who is a prince is a classic tale. Those stories say: royal blood always floats to the surface. Subversions, too, have something to say. But you have to figure out what.