#kitabasis

[queer-ragnelle]

how is Lancelot’s appearance described in medlit? I could’ve sworn you had an older post answering an ask on the subject but I cannot find it for the life of me.

Hi there!

Lancelot is described at great length in the Vulgate.

Firstly, here's descriptions from Lancelot Part I:

He was, says the story, the handsomest lad in the world, with the most beautifully formed torso and limbs. Nor may the details of his face be overlooked; they need to be described for all people who like to hear about great beauty in a youth. He had a perfect complexion, neither too fair nor too dark, but a blend of the two; it might be called light brunet. His face glowed with such harmoniously measured natural ruddiness that it was obvious that God had combined the three tones: fair was not eclipsed or spoiled by dark nor dark by fair, but they were rather tempered by each other, and the ruddy overlay brightened the blend of the other tones with its own brightness, so that the face showed no inequality of colors but only a harmonious mixture of all three. His mouth was small and well proportioned, the lips red and well shaped, and the teeth small, white, and compact. His chin was shapely, with a tiny cleft; the nose was moderately long, slightly hooked in the middle. His eyes were bright and smiling and full of delight as long as he was in a good mood, but when he was angry, they looked just like glowing coals and it seemed that drops of red blood stood out from his cheekbones. He would snort like an angry horse and clench and grind his teeth, and it seemed that the breath coming out of his mouth was all red; then he would shout like a trumpet in battle, and whatever he had his teeth in or was gripping in his hands he would pull to pieces. In short, when he was in a rage, he had no sense or awareness of anything else, and this became apparent on many an occasion. He had a high, becoming forehead, with dark, widely separated eyebrows; his fine hair was so purely blond and gleaming that throughout his early years no hair could ever have been of more beautiful color. But when he reached the age to bear arms—as you will hear—his hair changed from pure blond to auburn, and it was always curly and moderately light and very attractive. There is no point in wondering about his neck. Even as the neck of a beautiful woman, it would have been very becoming and attractive, well proportioned to the shoulders and body, neither too thin nor too thick, neither overly long nor overly short. His shoulders were high and wide as they ought to be, and his chest was such that one so broad and full and well developed could not be found in any other body. No one could have found fault with any part of him, but people who saw him did agree that, if his chest had been a bit less fully developed, he would have been that much more attractive and appealing. Later on, the worthy Queen Guenevere, who had more to say on the subject than others, said that God had not given him a chest in any way too big or deep or expansive, for it suited his great heart, which would have burst had it not been lodged in a large enough enclosure. “And if I were God,” she said, “I would not have made Lancelot any smaller or any bigger.” Such were his shoulders and his chest. His arms were long and straight, with just the right development of flesh and muscle around the bones. His hands were just like a woman’s, except that the fingers were slightly less delicate. As for his back and hips, you could not imagine better made in another knight. His thighs and legs were straight, and his feet properly arched; and no man ever stood more straight than he.

—9. Lancelot as a Boy

In between Lancelot's boyhood and adulthood, he's referred to numerous times as handsome, more handsome than those around him. In a dream, Queen Evaine recognizes her two sons, Lionel and Bors, guarded by their tutors and playing with a third boy that is her nephew, Lancelot. He's described thus:

Within the garden there were various large and beautiful houses; and as she watched, she could see a number of children come out of the houses, but there were three in particular who seemed to be the leaders of all the others. One was much taller and more handsome than the other two, and he stood in the middle, and the two who flanked the tall one were being guarded by two men.

She sent without delay for her sister, who was in church, and recounted her dream to her. “And I tell you, dear sister,” she said, “your son is by far the most beautiful child of all; I have never seen one finer or more handsome.”

—19. Reassured in a Dream That the Three Young Cousins Are Alive and Well, Queen Evaine Dies

After that, once Lancelot has grown up, he's described in a little more detail:

At this point, according to the story, Lancelot had been in the care of the Lady of the Lake for a long time and had reached the age of eighteen. He was such a handsome young man that it would have been pointless to seek a handsomer anywhere in the world, and he was so bright and well-behaved that there were never any grounds for blame or correction in anything he undertook. When he was eighteen years old, he was strikingly tall and robust, and the Lady bringing him up realized that it was now right and timely for him to enter the order of knighthood and that it would be sinful and grievous if she delayed it, for she had often cast lots to see what the future would bring and she knew very well that great honor was in store for him.

—21. The Lady of the Lake and Lancelot, Now Eighteen Years Old, Discuss the Meaning of Knighthood and Then Leave for King Arthur's Court at Camelot

All throughout Lancelot II, he's consistently described as handsome and tall without much more detail (although his brother Hector is introduced in here and described as blond.)

Later in Lancelot Part III, Lancelot is described again (ignore the continuity error that says he was previously knighted at 15 and is now 18, Anonymous made an oopsie):

Lancelot was extremely handsome. His dark face was radiant with gentleness and breeding; nor did he yet have a beard, as he had been made a knight only three years before, when he was no more than fifteen. His mouth was small and well shaped, and his forehead broad, his hair auburn and curly. His neck was sturdy and well proportioned to his head and body; his chest was broad, and his arms and shoulders were fittingly fleshed out and muscled; his hands were long and full-sized and soft to the touch. He had a well-arched back and shapely hips, and his whole body was so well built that he outshone all other knights of his size; nor was he small, for, as the story of his life recounts, when he had flung his cloak aside, he stood a half-foot taller than Sir Gawain, and he looked all the more striking for being clad in tunic alone.

—79. Lancelot, as Guenevere's Champion, Defeats Three Foes; He Breaks with Arthur

So there's a lot of detail in the Vulgate to work with. I don't recall a description of Lancelot more detailed than this anywhere else. If he gets one, it's generic stuff like handsome, tall, etc, but not detailing hair color or teeth shape or how his height compares to others. I hope that gives you a good idea what he looks like! Take care.

[marzipanandminutiae]

What’re your thoughts on Kaz Rowe’s videos?

Disinclined to watch after their Crimson Peak video was so incredibly off-base

Tuberculosis Chic was never a thing and I am also going to bite whoever came up with the term, because people will not let it the fuck go. No, Victorian women were NOT trying to look like they had TB. Certain aspects of the disease could mimic PRE-EXISTING beauty standards and that led it to be romanticized to a degree. "To a degree" because...you know...it still killed people horribly. And these are human beings we're talking about. IRL, dying horribly tends to be considered A Bad Thing, and the romanticization of consumption in fiction didn't really change that among real people.

Edith doesn't become "more beautiful" once she's ill. Her hair is dull and frizzy, her squint gets worse because she's constantly separated from her glasses, near the end she's hunched over and hobbling even before her leg gets broken...the designers VERY clearly made her look better when she's active, happy, and healthy. There's no romantic wasting beauty here. So why is Rowe talking as if there is?

Mention is made of mourning fashion. While there are influences in Edith's hand belt from hand-shaped jewelry, which often (but not always) symbolized mourning, nobody actually wears mourning in the movie apart from the funeral scenes. So it was not a significant influence on the costumes.

Maybe their other videos are better, but that one soured the whole batch for me. I should probably give the others a chance on their own merits. It's just...I'm not inclined to now.

[catebees]

Keili mageorigin?

Congratulations!! you're the first to actually make me look up your character to see if they were real!

You win a drawing of Keili mageorigin

[jean-dieu]

It is them, the 3rd batch of KCs Doodles! They'll be colored with all the others soon :))

This time:

-Luthais ( @gutterspeak)

-Liesel ( @kitabasis)

-Lorraine ( @starlightcleric)

-Valerius ( @camelliagwerm)

-Alexander ( @darkergrey)

- Mix ( @teddybaeran)

- Pepper ( @spookystirfry)

- Ocean ( @aelyosos)

- Kaija ( @goddevouringserpent)

- Kyr ( @thedragonagelesbian)

- Xallergh ( @germanich)

- Oxmos ( @articlesoffate )

- Ashes ( @probablylilly)

[lesbiangiratina]

Hi @kitabasis Replying in a dedicated post for the sake of yapping and sourcing

Its been in testament’s bio since 2000, but the current translation for gg world kinda muddles it for some reason? This is from strive but its been like this since xrd:

“They are especially fond of children and try to provide shelter for those who have lost their homes.”

Compared to the older translation from the ol ggx website, and the japanese text:

“He especially likes children, and has taken in several orphans in the past.”

「特に子供が好きで、率先して孤児たちを引き取り、その世話をしていたこともあった。」

(孤児たち= orphans

引き取り= taking in, accepting)

Its a really cute detail… it doesnt really come up in the story, but i think its kinda reflected in how they talk to bridget and may (usually) and in their care for dizzy. And its sweet that they emulated kliff in ways besides joining the order and dying badly. Smile

[outeremissary]

9 People to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @kitabasis. Thanks! I'm doing this in bed, the sleepiest version

Last Song: uh. I opened my YouTube history to check what the last thing I listened to last night was and it's this. Does that... count as music??? If not 365 by Charli XCX

Favorite Color: dark blue

Currently Watching: Akuma-kun, very slowly, with a friend

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Depends on my mood...? I could go for spicy right now. On a related note there's a place near me that makes really really good hot chicken and waffles

Relationship Status: single

Current Obsession: organizing my dumb character playlist spreadsheet to make sure the YouTube playlists and their Spotify mirrors match and the chronological ones have the correct orders on Spotify

Last Thing You Googled: chess board. I was trying to not get murdered by lightning in Durlag's Tower. The dungeon really is That Good btw I'm ready to admit it. Although GOD the Ghost Tower of Inverness chess puzzle is brought down BADLY by RTwP. Imagine if this had a turn based mode the world could be so beautiful

I am NOT doing 9 but tagging @kuroimarzipan, @lizrich, @prettycatgirlwinter, and @bearvanhelsing, if you would like.

[klysanderelias]

@kitabasis so this is one of the posts I was thinking of, there's more context I can't remember how to find but basically the core premise of the argument is that a lot of western fantasies end up recreating a lot of these sort of ideas - stardew is the big one in my mind though because as much as it can be read as an anticapitalist text (and I think that's definitely part of the intention) there is still a lot of libertarian and reactionary ideas embedded in there -

I want to reiterate that I LIKE stardew, and I think in general anything reactionary is unintentional, but it's hard not to draw those comparisons - especially given that you start as an established landowner inheriting a plot of land that you have to 'reclaim' from the 'wilderness' and of course because it's a 'cozy' sort of game, there's no concerns about crop rotations, ecology, etc, and yeah there's a homeless guy but actually he's just weird and LIKES being homeless and digging out of trash cans so it's not like you have to actually reckon with that

Which is being a little reductive but illustrates the overall point - a lot of these fantasies are based around the American Dream ideal of getting married and having 2.5 kids in your single-family home and often it completely sidelines the work you do, or it turns it into something optional, or something that's so much fun it's not really work at all, and at some point if you were to attempt to translate the things happening in-game to a realistic framework you'd have to be a millionaire with passive income in order to make it work.

And as a white guy living in the US, I definitely understand how people get there! That's what we've been sold all our lives, and that plays into our understanding of the world. The problem is that it's whitewashing a lot of the underlying structure of that fantasy - if you're selling cash crops in stardew, hell if you're selling ANY crops in stardew, who are you selling them to? What are the ecological ramifications of the choices you're making? What are the economical ramifications of flooding the market with cauliflower, or coffee, etc? Stardew leans into automation more than anything else but farming absolutely relies on an underclass of cheap labor - either that's migrant workers, or impoverished locals, or in the older days that's why you'd have like ten kids. And of course it's not even mentioning the mines and other dungeons in stardew, and the weird implications of the shadow people and dwarves.

And I don't think it'd be impossible to address those concerns - you can decorate a condo in a 50-unit building as much as the inside of a house, and instead of landscaping your owned land it could be public cleanup or a community garden, and there's enough things out there that gamify boring drudge work like retail so you could do little minigames for your shift at the factory or whatever, but the core issue is that it's hard to sell that as a fantasy - putting aside 'number go up' as an inherent part, a lot of the fantasy is no longer being beholden to anyone, no longer being able to be told what to do or given limitations on your desires. And that's just not... I mean, it's realistic, in the sense that there are definitely people who get to do that, but not only are those people few and far between, they're also kind of the major drivers of human suffering partially because they get to do whatever they please.

And also like, there's a certain point where trying to construct a utopian game genre to make you feel comfy isn't really a valuable desire? At least in my mind. There's too much designed to absolve us of all those uncomfortable back-of-the-mind things, too much out there trying to cover up things like child slavery and the povertization of nations for US luxury, and I just don't think it's worth trying to create a game that focuses on calming our guilt without actually addressing it or changing the underlying causes.

But also I think it's important to critically examine the media we consume to see what sort of things it promotes and reinforces, partially just because I think good media rewards that, and because often it's easy to miss fascist or racist or homophobic etc undertones as both the audience and the creator and speaking as a white guy from the US, there's a lot of stuff that I can enjoy uncritically simply because it's tailored to my cultural expectations that is actually deeply fucked up to basically anyone else, and it's important for me to be able to recognize and address that privilege.

Also also I have a brain disease and I am unable to stop thinking about things period so even the barest interest in a thing can cause me to spend hours turning it over in my head over the sputtering grease fire of my brain

I love calling shit wehrbauer this is because so much liberal/leftliberal/anarchist shit is wehrbauer shit. oh everyone will live on a harmonious developed yet rural commune/settlement where they will be a self sufficient petite bourgousie farmer, who sells their crops at market to other petite bourgousie farmers? and theyll live in a spacious single family home? maybe the whole ocmmunity will be based entirely on their extended family structure? will they work in communal self defense and justice too? will every commune have a theater and everyone will get to have cheap luxury cars too?

[emeryleewho]

Okay, so @kitabasis asked: "I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but isn’t 5k not nearly enough for the amount of time and effort it takes for you to write a whole book?"

And the answer is it absolutely is NOT enough. I write really fast, so even doing a full three drafts before I get to copy edits & proofreads, I anticipate this book will take me about 3-4 months total (I've already spent about 2 thus far) to get the final story written, and that does not include production outside of actual writing. The $5k that I'm asking for is *just* to pay *other* people including my developmental editor, copy editor, proofreader, interior formatter, etc. as well as to cover printing & shipping costs, legal & kickstarter fees, and taxes.

I want to emphasize this because people often overestimate how much money indie creators are making. I have seen some kickstarters include "paying the creators" into the budget, but not only is that quite rare, but those projects rarely fund. The amount of money people expect to pay for creative work & the amount of money necessary for the people making that work to be paid a fair wage often aren't compatible.

All that said, I have no real intention of making a profit from this Kickstarter (though I'd be very happy to considering I haven't received a trad pub paycheck in about 2 years!), but my main goal is to get the book out so I can [hopefully] receive a steady royalty check every month after release (assuming there are more people interested in buying it in the future). Like I said, I haven't been paid by trad pub in years, have never seen a royalty check, and even if I *were* getting royalties, they only pay those out once every 6 months, so having an indie book out is really my only way to guarantee any sort of consistent income.

So yeah, very long explanation, but I did want to be transparent about why, even now that the project is funded, I am definitely still pushing this kickstarter and gunning for that stretch goal! Now that the project is guaranteed funded, I can actually start making some sort of pay for my time and labor as opposed to just covering my production costs.

Also thank you for the question! <3

My latest book is live on Kickstarter with a full cover reveal!

Here are 10 Reasons you should pledge to my kickstarter (or at least reblog this post!)

If less than 0.5% of the people who've bought my previous books pledge to the paperback tier, this book would be over-funded, so it's a very doable project but I need help finding those readers again!

I launched this Kickstarter because despite being award-winning and making impressive sales, I wasn't offered a living wage for my next YA book (which went to auction) so it felt counterintuitive to sell this adult book to a publisher that doesn't appreciate me.

The book is VERY queer! It's literally a drag queen romcom. Like, come on.

If you read Meet Cute Diary or Café Con Lychee, you'll get to revisit some characters you love in this one! If you haven't read either, you can still enjoy this one because it technically stands alone!

If we get enough backers, I can upgrade everyone's copies to include more art and higher quality editions!!!

Despite doing this entirely independently, the DDTO eBooks are MUCH cheaper than what's offered for my first two books by a major publisher, and if we get this Kickstarter fully funded, I should be able to offer my paperbacks cheaper too! More access, woo!!!

Helping indie creators achieve their goals is just cool. It's innovative.

The book has Studio Ghibli references and other nerd culture! I get to name drop Lil Nas X! It's just a fun time okay!

There is a nonbinary, trans masc character that I am 99% sure Tumblr is going to lose its absolute mind over, but WE'LL NEVER KNOW IF THIS DOESN'T FUND!

Seriously, let's just stick it to the multi-billion dollar corporation that begged me for my "Meet Cute Diary" sequel only to not even offer me a living wage, like how funny would that be y'all?

Anyway, we only have until Friday October 11th to get this funded so spread it far, spread it wide, spread it through the countryside, just help me get the word out pretty please? <3

[ecofear]

Wow I didn’t know you made mods! Certainly not that you were so prolific! That’s cool!

OH GOD I DONT THINK IM THAT PROLIFIC... i .. i have a few niche small mods but then a pretty popular patch hub for skyrim that i made with another person its both our patches on it ... and you know skyrim ........

its mostly cuz a few of my patches are inside wabbajack modists, getting inside wabbajack modlists for skyrim in particular is a very secure way to get consistent downloads DFGDLKGFDG

my most popular patch is patching the mod butterflies land true with the official creation farming ..... i find that to be extremely cute