i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

Almost to the end! So the thing with the Arthurian legend is that you can write almost anything, but it still ends badly. This story stops before that happens, but it’s still hovering in the background, casting its shadow. Still, I very much enjoyed writing it (hey, sometimes you’re a PhD student working on Arthurian literature and just happen to draw ‘Arthurian legend’ in Yuletide).

I don’t have a lot of OT3s – my affection for codependent couples doesn’t really lend itself to polyamory – but this one has always been formative. I think I read T. H. White in high school and thought, Aha! So that’s what’s going on! and ended up years later doing queer stuff with medieval knights for an actual job. Anyway it’s not a long read – I want to keep it short because I’m sure the holiday season is really getting busy by now – but I hope you enjoy it.

The Art of Courtly Love (Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere, Arthurian Legend)
Rated M

‘It was Christmas night, so the king and queen held a feast. The hall was trimmed with holly and mistletoe above the doors, and a poet from the North had sung of heroes and lovers. Arthur sat in the centre of the high table with Guinevere and Lancelot on his left and his right. The stewards had brought in the second subtlety, the Blessed Virgin standing atop a map of the world with a gilded model of Camelot in her cupped hands.’

Song: Personent Hodie (Mediæval Bæbes version). Attested in a 16th-century Finnish hymbook, it seems to come from a 14th-century song and who knows prior to that. Not the oldest medieval Christmas hymn I have, but one that catches the feeling of the fic better than some others.

Rec: So Pleasing a Thing by Raja815.(Star Trek TOS, Kirk/Spock)
Rated T
 
This follows Kirk and Spock after they've sorted themselves out post-Gol and post-V'ger and got married, but both being devoted to their careers as well as each other, they have some rough patches. What I love is how the author shows the difficulties they're facing, without being melodramatic--just the very real tensions of two overworked people who are devoted to their vocations as well as to each other; there are cultural differences and errors of ignorance, but the depth of their love is never actually in question.

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