#it's about perceval!!

[sickfreaksirkay]

in theory i learned french to like speak to french people go to france etc but in reality i only ever use it for arthurian stuff which hasn't been translated/subtitled yet

[katabay]

PERCEVAL THE UNHAPPY, THE MISERABLE, THE UNFORTUNATE, THE FISHER KING!

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

ALRIGHT alright. so previously I did an illustration that explained the premise of all this, that it's inspired by the narrative choices that Bresson made in his film Lancelot du Lac etc

to dive in more into it (because this is something like derivative fiction. I'm putting concepts into a blender and seeing what comes out of it): the setting is haunted by the previously existing narratives that started cannibalizing each other until it regurgitates itself into the more well known narrative beats, and something else about the invasive rot of christianity and empire mythmaking into settings. it's an intertextual haunting, if you will! and this scene takes place during the grail quest narrative, but the temptation of Perceval plays out differently.

in both Chretien (and Wolfram's) Perceval narratives, what 'wakes' Perceval up (in more ways than one. desire and self actualization in one go!) is seeing knights, something his mother tried hard to keep him from. so instead of the temptation of lust & etc in the Morte narrative taking the form of a lady, it takes the form of a knight. the temptation to renounce one's faith to serve something else remains.

so Perceval still stabs himself, but instead of continuing on the grail quest in the shadow of Galahad, he becomes the narrative's Fisher King because his earlier state of being as a the grail quest hero is creeping back into his marrow. it was waiting for an opening, and stabbing yourself in the thigh is one hell of a parallel!!!

that wound isn't going to heal buddy, and the state of the setting will now be reflected on your body. sure hope that Arthur hasn't like. corrupted the justice of the land or anything. that sure would suck for your overall health.

all the red in this sequence is because in de Troyes' Perceval, Perceval takes the armor of the Red Knight and becomes known as the Knight in Red.

and now for the citations, which I will try to order in a way that makes sense!

Seeing Knights For The First Time

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

The Temptation of Perceval

Le Morte Darthur, Mallory (modernized by Baines)

The Fisher King, and Perceval The Unfortunate

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Perceval and Gender, etc.

Clothes Make The Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, Michael D. Amey

On Wounds

Wounded Masculinity: Injury and Gender in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Kenneth Hodges

The Red Knight

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Arthur and the Corruption of Justice

The Failure of Justice, the Failure of Arthur, L.K. Bedwell

[achillesuwu]

BE HOLD : old merlin in mordern era and reincarnated Arthur, Gwen and the knight finding him again and witnessing this :

Arthur went from wanting to hug merlin to wanting to facepalm so fast that even the light has a hard time to catch up.

[queer-ragnelle]

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-1957) | Excalibur (1981)

[evedaser]

look i know this is meant entirely literally because they're talking about jousting but COME ON. THIS SOUNDS LIKE A EUPHEMISM.

[talesfromtheenchantedforest]

absolutely fucking iconic Perceval moment (from Chrétien)

[gr3at-s4ge]

is this a safe space to talk about how weirdly fixated white queer people within fanbases are when it comes to casually glossing over (and often ignoring!!) any sort of narrative focusing on poc experiences in favor of constantly hyping up and/or glamorizing the shit out of whatever queer rep they can squeeze out of it?? because this happens so often and i literally never see people talking about it. i in no way mean to say that people cant enjoy queer storylines or queer headcanons at all, but it feels like even when we get something thats entirely focused on a given poc narrative, it's once again washed out by fans in favor of the very idea that a character is perceived to be queer by them, to the point where the people the story was actually about get drowned out in conversation. it's one thing to imagine a character as any given queer label, but it's another thing to do so while ignoring the very real cultural niche represented within the film in favor of a queer narrative that either only exists within wishful thinking, or only exists for the purpose of a romantic subplot. also, the influx of weirdly homophobic people in fandoms has lead to there being a bunch of people who assume all people who disagree with the idea of queer headcanons are inherently homophobic. i myself am literally queer, i just understand there's a time and place to say "oh my god theyre so gay and in love," and the scene in infinity train book four where min-gi vents about how he and ryan are probably gonna be the first korean people (of their respective time period) within the western music industry probably isnt that time.

[jesskasb]

i ffeel like no finals week period has hit me quite as hard as this one. i literally dont remember what i was doing around this time last semester but rigjt now i feel like im about to suffocate in quicksand

[fablesdelajoie]

My toxic trait is that, despite being an avid Arthurian fan, I can't watch almost any film /TV adaptations (starting with BBC Merlin) because they don't align with my vision and feel brutally disconnected from the original material.

The Green Knight is the rare exception.

[merrymorningofmay]

oh so now arthur is the one who's sinned by encountering a fleeting miracle and not asking The Question? fancy that

[petalruined]

[ MATING PRESS ] cerys/ragnar

cerys   gives   a   yelp   when   her   mate   pushes   on   the   back   of   her   thighs,   knees   nearly   tucking   into   her   chest.   it's   a   new   position,   one   that   hits   a   spot   deeper   within   her   core,   especially   when   ragnar   mounts   her   thighs   effortlessly.         ❛   rag   ?   ❜         she   calls   out   in   brief   concern,   eyes   blinking   up   at   him   in   a   need   for   clarification.   the   mortal   can't   help   but   choke   on   a   clamorous   moan   when   the   drive   in   his   hips   never   falters,   drilling   her   into   their   marital   bed.         ❛   this         [   ...   ]         this   is   new.   ❜

[achillesuwu]

Back on my AU where Arthur died before Merlin could tell him he has magic and kinda merlin not being a sad wet cat for 1500 years (DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND HOW FUCKING LONG THAT IS) agenda

Merlin trying his best to hide the fact that he is extremely well know. In a "there a documentary on you" and"multiple governments call you regularly, that's literally your job, about magical problem that only you can resolve which mean that you have to go on TV sometime" kind of way (Merlin : bless the lazy-ass person that nicknamed me The Immortal/Emrys .) While also hiding the fact that "heeeyyy you know, the things we wordlessly accepted to not talk about, the thing called 'The day I died' which hem didn't happen and 'Where the fuck I was when you died' we should hem, maybe talk about them"

It all go well until, one day, Merlin and Arthur are arguing in a supermarket (like seriously arguing, the kind of argument that happen when one get throw 1500 years in the future) and when and Arthur says something like "Watch your tongue/Remember who you're talking to/...!" and there is a collective *gasp*

It could go two way :

One. Arthur has an enormous "????" sign above his head, Merlin freeze and flee (if he falls to flee the scene with a confuse but mainly angry arthur, arthur would gaps his arm and force him to stay in place which would bring us to two.)

Two. Someone intervene because : ?!?! Bro/boy !? Shut the fuck up?! Do YOU know who you are talking to?!?! Apologise right now!

Merlin : no you shut up by the triple godnes please—

*Arthur and the person now arguing with other people joining in the argument*

At some point in end up being a "How dare you insult my friend like that?! He does NOT have magic" "What kind of weed did you smoke?! He is LITTERALY magic"

(the Knights and Gwen are in the supermarket too but none of them were with merthur when it happens except Leon who just saw the beginning of Arthut vs Random people fight and promptly walked back to his wife/Queen to report what he saw. The queen in question decided that she is too old for this shit, so is Merlin and it's time they get their shit together)

[queer-ragnelle]

everyone go read the vulgate cycle and watch excalibur (1981) this instant

knights are sooooooo good in horror settings like. blind following and unconditional loyalty to their liege. mistaking evil for divinity. unwavering faith to a corrupted cause. corruption in general (whether they’re the target or an accessory). so many good options…… *chefs kiss*

[faggotryandtransjesterism]

happy ides of march everybody

[russellsppttemplates]

Doing the "saying my boyfriend's full name in front of his family" tiktok prank with Charles Leclerc

The barbecue at the end of the day to finish off a good weekend spent at home with Charles' family was the perfect moment for you to try it out.

"Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc", you called as you watched your boyfriend flipped something on the grill.

The air around grew heavier as his brothers were the first to leave the garden, mumbling something about going to the kitchen to help Pascale with something.

"Are you in trouble....!", was all that Lorenzo told his brother, patting his back before he went inside.

"What's up amour?", Charles approached you carefully, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The fear he was feeling was unmeasurable as he recalled anything he could have done to upset you.

"I just wanted to say I love you", you smiled, kissing his lips.

"I- I thought you were upset! Y/N, you can't do this to me, my heart can't take it!", he said as he set his hand over his chest.

"I saw the prank, and I wanted to do it with you!", you beamed, watching Arthur, Pascale and Lorenzo eavesdropping by the door.

"So it's all good, right?", Pascale assured.

(Thank you for sending this in ✨️)

[maniculum]

A post of mine from several months ago about the Perlesvaus self-rearranging forest just wandered across my dash again and made me think about it some more, so I wanted to talk about it a bit.

Perlesvaus, for those who don’t know, is a 13th-century French Arthurian romance. It’s intended to be a continuation of Chretien de Troyes’s Perceval, but it’s mostly known for being completely batshit when it’s known at all. (There’s an old book on Arthurian texts that dedicates a chapter to Perlesvaus and repeatedly speculates that the anonymous author had Something Wrong With Him. This is the longest scholarly treatment of Perlesvaus I’ve been able to find & read.)

Anyway, there’s an odd worldbuilding detail in the text. See, it’s a Thing in chivalric romances that the questing knights happen upon castles & lords & damsels & such that are unfamiliar to them and have to be explained. You know, “this is the Castle of Such-and-Such, where the local custom is as follows. It’s ruled by Lady So-and-So, whose character I shall now describe to you.”

This is a genre convention that largely goes unquestioned, but it’s a bit odd if you think about it. All these knights are at least minor nobility. They don’t know the other nobles in their region? They don’t know what castles are where? Don’t they have, like, diplomatic relations with these people or at least attend the same tournaments? Even if they’re all fully committed to the knight-errant lifestyle and don’t really engage in courtly diplomacy, you’d think they would share information with each other and get the lay of the land. But instead, to use TTRPG terminology, it’s like they’re all on a hexcrawl that was randomly generated just for them to have these adventures.

The author of Perlesvaus decides to address this. In what’s kind of a throwaway paragraph late in the text, he explains that God moves things around so knights always have new quests to do (and, presumably, is also making sure they always arrive at the right narratively-significant moment). So the reason they’re always encountering people & places they have no knowledge of is because those people & places really weren’t there yesterday. They didn’t know about the Castle of Such-and-Such because it’s normally a thousand miles away and the forest path they followed to get there used to lead somewhere else.

And I think that would be a really interesting thing to stick into a novel or a TTRPG or something. When a knight rides into the forest with the intent of Going On A Quest, at some point they go around a bend in the path, cross an invisible barrier, and wind up in the Forest of Narrative. This is a vast forest with no set geography, filled with winding paths and populated almost entirely with questing knights, damsels in search of questing knights, friendly hermits, strange creatures, and allegorical set-pieces. Then, at the narratively-appropriate time, they cross back over the invisible barrier back into the regular world, and find themselves wherever the Narrative has decided they need to be. This could be a different country, a different continent, or a different world entirely.

Whether anyone involved is actually aware that this is how it works is… optional, really. Though if it’s not a Known Phenomenon, the people whose jobs it is to handle trade & diplomacy & god forbid, maps, are going to end up tearing their hair out in frustration.