✨sipping tea in depression✨

Cover for my (french) translation of La Folie Lancelot (13th century): during Lancelot's madness, where he attacks a shield suspended to a tree near a tent and attacks its occupants.

Might rework it a bit.

hector's corpse is divinely protected so it can't be damaged by the greeks after death; all that effectively happens in the iliad is that his body gets dirty. but under normal circumstances (and i'm not gonna impose realism on mythology, but the iliad is famously detailed when it comes to bodily trauma), the physical reality of dragging a corpse along stony ground for miles would be severe disfigurement and dismemberment. first the skin would wear off, then soft tissues, then extremities would start to detach. i think the iliad's original audience would be aware of that as an intended outcome.

arthurian legend but make it 1920s.

A while back, during my reading of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, I found something very curious in the Book of Gareth. It turns out that the four knights he fights, before the Red Knight of the Red Lands, are from India. This made me wonder if there were other Indian characters in Arthuriana. As such, this led me to find around ten sources ranging from the 11th century to the 15th century that mention India and also people that come from that region.

The first mention of India comes from the Welsh Arthuriana “Culhwch ac Olwen” written between the 11th and 12th century (Culhwch Ac Olwen, 2016). The text mentions it as one of Arthur’s domains:

Spoke Arthur to him: "What news do you have from the gate?" “Two thirds of my life have come [and gone], and two thirds of your own. I was there in n Caer Se and Asse, in Sach and Salach, in Lotor and Fotor, I was there in Greater India and Lesser India…

The following is an experiment and a mix of both hard info from the texts and my own imagination. For the latter, I've tentatively set up a couple of assumptions:

King Claudas will be my yardstick, being described as 9 ft. tall and not directly referred to as giant, merely as a very tall man. A male (in red) of average height at 5 '9 ft. will also be shown for scale.

Mixed-blooded giants and half-giants do not go above 12 ft.

First, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere will be placed at 8' 8 ft. and 12 ft. respectively. I personally want Arthur to be tall - taller than Lancelot - in respect to the folk myths that portray him as a giant but also not wanting him to exceed Claudas. I also headcanon Uther Pendragon as being around the 8 ft. range as well. Guinevere's height is set at the max for what I feel is the tallest a half-giant(ess) could be, just for an amusing height difference between her and Arthur. Assume Guinevak is also at this height.

[...]

Now here are two giants King Arthur fights in the Vulgate, with Gwen and an average man for scale. Already, we can see how crazy the dynamics are for Arthur's battles (as well as the other giant slayers). Arthur is already impossibly tall for a man but he is still basically a little kid next to Rion and Caelenc, albeit a little kid armed with a functional lightsaber but still...

Next, we get into the love triangles. Lancelot-Guinevere-Galehaut (plus Arthur) and Tristan-Iseult-Palamedes. Galehaut, Palamedes and Iseult are known half-giants, so I've assigned them some numbers close to Guinevere's. Galehaut is described as "six inches taller than any knight", so I gave him the advantage over Palamedes. Lancelot and Tristan, as I visualize it, I've decided to be around a foot taller than Gawain, who I made pretty short by comparison (see below). So they're seven footers here. This is comparable to Yao Ming of NBA fame (7' 6 ft.) This still leaves both Tristan and Lancelot as the shortest members of each of their respective love triangles. XD

Here is an ensemble of male characters to compare Gawain with. One of the interesting descriptions about Gawain (in Vulgate) is that he is "neither too tall or too short" and is physically balanced compared to his brothers. I haven't hammered down the other Orkney brothers yet, so they're not here. As a result, I hilariously made Gawain the shortest of this roster at a measly... 6 '9 ft. So yeah, even though he's the shortest, Gawain is still decently tall compared to an average male, just the most realistic of the bunch.

And here are the ladies. The ex-gfs and their rebounds, plus Nimue Also, sort of a giants vs. fairies thing, with that poor human caught in the middle. Morgan, I feel, just deserves to be the tallest of all the female fairies, just four inches below her brother.

Next, I have a sequence of giants prepped, starting with Galehaut the half-giant and King Rion:

Now we add Gogmagog, the giant from Historia Regum Britanniae, who was defeated by Brutus and Corineus

Then we factor in Sir Kay and his size-changing powers at max. Supposedly, he can grow "as tall as the tallest tree in the forest". Let's make an arbitrary choice and assume Kay can grow as large as an oak tree (specifically, a Sessile Oak) Which means THIS is Kay's theoretical max height:

And finally, let's bring in Bran the Blessed, the legendary giant king of Welsh Myth, who waded across the Irish Sea and was seen as massive object by the Irish. Which I have calculated here. (Note: the given number of 262 ft. is a lower estimation of Bran's total height)

To wrap up this already long post, here's two more rosters i wanted to show: the first being the regulars of the Arthurian cast in contrast. The second is Arthur, Guinevere and their children, based on how it feels in my conception.

*(Duran is the shortest because he's the youngest in my HC. He would probably be taller had he not died at Camlann. Similarly, my HC Loholt was killed before he was 25)

My essay on queerness in Arthurian literature, which I wrote earlier this year, includes these illustrations that I had posted:

Not a deep cut because I don't have time and because this is an admissions essay. There are many queer aspects of Arthurian that I know of that I wish I had analysed more, but given the circumstances in Vietnam (where there are few, if any, archival sources on the subject of Arthurian), this is all I can do in a month.

secondly, your readings are fantastic and your points on trans identity and queer erasure in literature particularly stood out to me:

"the heartbreak of queer self-destruction: when staying alive means living as someone you are not, the world calls that safety"

I love your interpretation of the green girdle being a source of safety and shame — trans people cling to conformity for our own safety, but that breeds shame and alienation from within the community, between those who are more able to live as their true selves and those who choose (consciously or not) to hide.

"every time we hide in literature... that's another way of saying: we exist"

gorgeous!!! love this!!! queer people can never be fully erased by virtue of the fact that we are here, we have been here and we will always be here. we're in your books, your art and your walls.

as a sidenote, this project is similar in many ways to my recent Arthuriana-based project, in that I explicitly viewed the legends through a queer lens. however, I did not have the time or resources to come up with anything truly clever to say about queerness in Arthuriana, other than it is there if you look for it and can easily be brought to the surface via an artist/writer's interpretation of the source material. in any case, I totally understand what you mean about there being many more queer aspects — there's just not enough time/space within certain projects to explore them all. the ones I chose to focus on for my project were similar, for example I used the story of Sir Perceval/Peredur to explore themes of gender identity, roles and social conformity, all of which are very personally important to me.

I will be uploading my full research paper and screenplay to my blog at some point, but my supervisor has now told me he wants to submit it for a competition so that might not be for a while!!! also, your paper made me wish I could actually draw because my project would have been SO MUCH COOLER if I could do illustrations like yours. seriously, the illustrations added so much depth to your literary analysis. absolute gold.

alas, stick men it is for me.

Thanks for your feedback, and allow me to ramble a little.

The program I applied for was a double major in Art and Media and Literature, so I had to demonstrate my ability in both (the reason for the Illustrations). I got in! But due to tuition fees, I was not able to attend that University.

I posted all the paintings in April, but because I didn't dare to post my essay, I didn't have the chance to explain too much about the meaning of each painting, except for the flower language.

I had the idea and painted the Red Sword, so the layers of meaning I expressed are very clear in the painting, and because it was the first one I drew out of the four, it was my favourite. As for the essay, since I was already a fan of the idea of ​​Lancelot and Gawain being a couple™️, it wasn't too difficult for me to write that part. The three-person painting was my excuse to draw Gawain saying that line (and my excuse to draw Guinevere, hehe)

The Green Girdle I drew in two days (and somehow it became my most famous piece to date). And as a trans person, my personal feelings were probably overflowing enough for me to write about this topic without any obstacles.

I went batshit insane when I was searching for sources and writing about A Kingdom For A Knight. When I started writing, I had no idea what I was going to write =)))) But gradually, the more I wrote, the clearer my ideas became. So in terms of the essay, that part is what I like the most. (The Parallel about Salome made me extremely excited.) But the funny thing is that that painting was also the last one I drew, and at that time, my drawing tablet was broken, so I had to colour it 100% with a mouse (so in my eyes, that painting was a single terrible thing in my work, even though I love the thesis part).

I am really proud of this project, I really do. Although, from the perspective of its creator, of course, in my eyes, it is full of shortcomings, and I don't want others to think that this is all of my knowledge about Arthurian. But it is also the first time I have been able to do a project on a topic that I have researched for many years (In Viet Nam, you don't get to write and draw about Arthurian much; this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.) So when I received your feedback, I was really touched <3 <3

It's in his dislike for Don't Stop Me Now, a song that—in Brian's mind—represented drug use and intense partying that was leading Freddie away from the band, toward people who didn't care about his wellbeing. It's in Brian saying he regrets not looking after Freddie better.

It's in his writing Save Me to give Freddie an outlet for his heartbreak, but also subtly tell him, "Hey, you're a loving partner. You deserve one in return."

It's in Brian helping Freddie write It's a Hard Life, with expressing his heartbreak once again. It's in Brian watching the video for that song and interpreting the setting as a depiction of Freddie's emotionally unfulfilling personal life during the Münich era.

It's in Brian stressing that Freddie was always in serious, monogamous relationships, searching for the right person. It's in Brian defending Freddie's relationship with Jim and calling it loving.

It's in Brian having a soft spot for Don't Try So Hard, a song representing Freddie finally securing his dream relationship.