Thank you for picking a fandom that I like! I hope you have a lovely time in this exchange, and also that someones writes something just as wonderful for you.
General Stuff About Me
I tend to enjoy more stories that are reasonably consistent with the original canon - so sequels and prequels and inbetween scenes and canon divergence AUs, and I love it when a minor character gets their story expanded or someone does a nifty bit of world building on some little detail and makes it all make sense. I'm not sure if poetry and interactive fiction are supposed to be opt-in for this exchange - if you've got an idea that works best in these formats - go for it! Treats are lovely. Original characters are also fine, and I've seen some AUs and crossovers that have really blown me away, so please take this paragraph as an 'optional details are optional' section and write the story that will make you happy. The prompts I've given are also optional, please have fun with what you choose to write. Also, stories that pass the Bechdel Test Are Love.
Squicks and Do Not Wants
I'm seriously not into non-consensual or underage sex. I also don't like graphic torture scenes or incest, and I'm not much interested in reading a story about consensual BDSM, or where pregnancy or infertility is the main focus. I'm more interested in how characters' relationships work out with each other than erotica and I would rather not get an M or E rated story. I think it would be hard to link my current prompts to current world events, but please don't try, I want some escapism! (Ta :-) )
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (any)You know what - one of the things that really strikes me about this poem is the weather. The poet spends a lot of time describing the spring and summer that Sir Gawain lived through Feeling Sad about the quest he has to do, and then when he does set out in November, the battles and monsters he has to face are hand waved with oh yeah, "So many marvels in the mountains there the man found that it were too tedious to tell of the tenth part" and then it gets back to describing how cold and wet it is to go travelling in a suit of armour, and the hazel and the hawthorn all twined together, and the piteously piping birds, and how the white 'cut paper' castle thus stands out as something beautiful and delicate.
And then we get to later in the poem when Sir Bertilak goes hunting - and this is not hand waved at all - we get a lot of detail about what it's like and how it feels, in contrast with Sir Gawain who is, his own way, being hunted by Sir Bertilak's Lady. So would you be interested in leaning into descriptive prose of one of the events of the story? What is Gawain feeling? How do the fabrics feel? What are Bertilak and his wife physically experiencing while Gawain is having adventures. And for that matter, are you interested in this whole affair's origin as an elaborate practical joke - Morgan le Fay is Gawain's aunt for fecking sake. Do Gawain and Arthur concoct a revenge prank? How does it go? Do the two courts get together and have a really big party to finish things off? What do Bertilak and his wife have to say to each other after he gets back from the Green Chapel?
Hunting of the Snark (any)This is a fun fun poem. I confess my introduction was through watching the Mike Batt concert of same when I was a kid - I'm very happy for you to include any details from this concert if you would like to.
Prompts:
- "The danger was past, they had landed at last" - maybe a prequel story about the journey to the Snark's land.
- Would you like to include more stories of the adventurer's on the snark's island?
- What happened to The Butcher and The Beaver after the end of the story? How does their friendship/love story pan out when the voice of the Jub Jub is a more distant memory?
- If you want to be more serious and post-colonial (or silly and post-colonial, what do I know?), I don't think it's a coincidence that this story about a great quest into the unknown was written in the middle of Britain's great age of colonialism. Everyone has their idea of what the snark is going to be like, with their great lists of things it does or attributes it has, but in the end it's a great unknowable. There are all these images of consumption in the text, but in the end it is The Baker who is consumed. Any idea of what happened to him after he vanished away? What are the events from the snark's perspective?
- Or something bonkers that just happens to strike you about the poem.
Concert version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKitp2gmRas&t=2663s
The Franklin's Tale (any)This is one of the stories that really struck me when I was taking a uni course to read through the Canterbury Tales - so wistful, and so focused on the loving couple, and how they can keep their promises not just to each other, but to the Magician.
Some thoughts that might go into a story:
- Arveragus makes a promise that he won't take "the mastership against her will, nor cause her jealousy, but obey her, and follow her will in all things", keeping sovereignty only in name. This ties into ideas of Courtly Love where the woman gets promoted to the status of a lord with the man as retainer, but are they able to shift the balance of power so that they both feel like equals? How did they go about this process in their marriage?
- the squire Aurelius is also following the script of Courtly Love, with his poems about unmet love, and making himself sick with it. How does he pull himself out of it? Does he find some other beautiful woman to make a cake of himself over? Or can he get himself into a better relationship pattern?
- both Dorigen and Arveragus have a core value of truthfulness and loyalty - but the Magician's spell doesn't actually make the rocks go away, it just disguises them. What happens when find out that this was a lie? How do they react to that?
- at the end, both Aurelius and the Magician choose to forgive their respective debts, because it will make them be more 'gentle'. Are you interested in the tension between a liberal and graceful person, versus the need to make a living? How does that affect their other actions?
- this story is so intently set in Brittany with it's black rocks and intense seas - would you like to go to town on descriptive writing on what it's like living there?
Perceval, or the Story of the Grail
There's this most vivid incident at the centre of this tale, the episode with the Fisher King, with the procession of the bleeding lance and the shining grail paraded around the dining hall, and Perceval's silence is his great failing that he is recriminated for after he's left the castle. It's just so weird. Do you want to dig in more into how the Fisher King and his household got these valuable artifacts? Why the need for Perceval to ask unprompted, if his cousin and the loathly lady both know all about it. How much of his actions are influenced by the isolation in which Perceval was raised, either with his mother, or dropped directly into courtly life. Chretien de Troyes specifically refers to him as 'a boy.' What kind of man does he become?
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