#HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃʳᵍᵉᵈ ᵛᵉˢˢᵉˡ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ❞ ┊► ᴍᴇᴛᴀ

[nimueriesa]

TELL ME ABOUT GALAHAD, hows the relationship between sister & brother, what do you think about him, what do you want for them, TELL IT ALL TO ME ~~

ALWAYS ACCEPTING ┊ send me a topic, i’ll write a meta

@mactoism

This is going to be messy af, so please bear with me. lol Because, the truth of the matter is my ideal headcanon for Galahad and Nimue comes from a meshing of different reading materials and my own personal need to improve upon the things that MZB royally fucked up. Honestly, Galahad is more of an afterthought in the Mists of Avalon and a lot of his original accomplishments in other variations of the legends are diminished by the fuckery MZB pulls with the holy regalia and the actual impact of the grail on Camelot and court. 

FIRST AND FOREMOST, one of the things I do actually like about MoA is that Galahad is just as sassy as a child as Nimue is, but it’s in a different way…which I feel is pretty reflective of how they’re both going to grow up. Galahad’s is a self-righteous attitude while Nimue’s is a defiant one. He follows the teachings of Father Griffin to the letter and he idolizes his father, so when Morgaine comes in with her paganry and her ‘I’m better than you’ vibe, he’s immediately on the defensive. And then you have Nimue who is constantly being punished for her ‘impertinence’ and told that everything she does is wrong/sinful, so she’s the one fighting the authority figures and searching for a new truth of her own.

Another thing I do actually enjoy from the book, is that Galahad is always calling Nimue a ‘silly girl’ because she cries when their father tries to hold her ( she didn’t recognize Lance btw, that’s how little he was in their lives ) and she’s always getting into trouble with Father Griffin and their mother. It’s not mean or spiteful, it’s just typical brotherly behavior — especially coming from someone who always minds authority and sees glory in what his sister finds cloistering. What matters is that years down the road, after they’ve been separated for well over a decade, he sees Morgaine and the first thing he can think to say is: ‘You’re the evil woman that stole my sister.’

I’m also very, very fond of the idea that they’re fraternal twins. ( Also the Sun and Moon comparisons, with Galahad being the golden sun and Nim being the silver moon. ) For starters, it just makes Lancelot an even bigger douchebag than what he already is to have impregnated the wife he hates two more times after their first drug induced romp in the hay. Like the first time, yeah you feel bad for him and yes it’s a horrible situation — but anything after that is just….meh. Especially given that he saddles Elaine with these kids and then just fucks off to do Lancelot type things in Lancelot type fashion. 

BUT I’M ALSO fond of the idea of them being fraternal twins because of how their stories parallel one another. Both of them are just two poor kids paying for the sins of their parents and FUCKING DYING AS A RESULT! Nimue is the agreed upon price for Elaine to bag herself a Lancelot and Galahad is the one paying the price for Lancelot cheating with Gwenhwyfar in the first place bc now Lance is sullied and can’t achieve the grail. ( Again, this is meshing other facets of legend together for better storytelling than MoA ) But basically, Fate, Destiny, whatever are all HUGE DICKS to Nimue and Galahad. 

So while Lancelot does as Lancelot pleases and Elaine punishes herself and everyone else from her massive Catholic Guilt, Nimue and Galahad are thrust onto their respective paths at an age where they don’t really have a choice in the matter. Galahad is isolated in a convent by nuns. Nimue is isolated in Avalon by priestesses of the faith. Galahad is taught to live a life devoted to Christ, and that he must make a great sacrifice for his faith. That it’s his destiny to achieve the Sangreal. Nimue is taught to live a life devoted to the Goddess, that she must make sacrifices for her faith. It’s her destiny to bring Avalon back to it’s former glory. BOTH of them are defined by their virginity for some ungodly fucking reason ; it’s the be all and end all component of both of their respective tales.

Did I mention that they both die for nothing? Have I talked about the fact that their deaths aren’t even made to be about them, but about literally everything but them? Have I talked about how both of them basically committed a form of suicide bc once their roles had been played out they had nothing else to live for, no identity save for their ‘great destinies’?

Anywho, I honestly believe that Galahad and Nimue love one another and probably understand each other better than anyone else despite their different religious paths. They’re definitely the closest out of the siblings, given that Gwennie ( and honestly fuck anyone who thinks it’s a great idea to name their child after the woman they wish was their wife ) is about five years younger than Nimue. They also balance one another out remarkably well. She tries to reinforce to him that it’s alright to go out and live his life, he tries to make her see that it’s alright to need someone. ( Even if neither of them follow their own damn advice. ) 

As children they were each other’s nighttime confidantes and in their later years, they’re the shoulder to lean on and the non-judgmental ear to talk to. They both embody the loyalty and sense of duty that Lancelot is applauded for but never followed through on. They see the pain and bitterness in one another that no one else can see, because they’re made of the same earth, molded from the same bit of clay. They get angry for one another where they can’t for themselves, they cheer on their triumphs and come bearing hot tea and long nights in after heartbreak or failure. In modern verses, she’s always trying to set him up on dates and he’s always intimidating tf out of the guys that try to make a conquest out of her.

Honestly speaking, I just want them to be happy? I don’t want them to die alone for a stupid cause that was never originally theirs. I want them to move somewhere far far away and live out a happy contented life with both the highs and lows that come with it so long as it’s their own doing. They deserve holidays together and laughter, those silly little moments that people tend to take for granted. 

Point being: THEY DESERVE TO LIVE. THEY DESERVE A FUTURE OF THEIR OWN.

#mactoism #long post // #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ᵘᶰᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵒᵒᵈ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᵖᵃʷᶰ ❞ ┊► ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴛᴀɢ #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃʳᵍᵉᵈ ᵛᵉˢˢᵉˡ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ❞ ┊► ᴍᴇᴛᴀ #( THIS GOT SO LONG AND I CUT OUT SO MUCH JFC )

[nimueriesa]

LOVE AND HEARTBREAK, tell me about romantic love, platonic love, soulmates, kindred spirits, do they exist, how does she handle heartbreak?

ALWAYS ACCEPTING ┊ send me a topic, i’ll write a meta

@mactoism

Alright, I’ll try and answer this as cohesively as I can, but Nimue and love of any sort is always going to be a complicated subject matter.

NIM && ROMANTIC LOVE

It’s not so much that Nimue doesn’t believe in love - she’s seen some very real examples of it in her time - it’s more along the lines that she doesn’t believe in it for herself. Other people are allowed to have that reckless, fly in the face of fate, all consuming sort of feeling but either she can’t or she won’t allow it in her own bubble of existence. I’ve said it time and time again, but Nimue here doesn’t believe that people are capable of loving her on more than a surface level. She’s like the water upon which Narcissus sees his reflection. People don’t fall in love with her, they fall in love with what they see mirrored upon her.

In a way she’s also afraid of falling in love. She’s seen what havoc it can wreak in the lives of others. ( ie. Lancelot and her mother Elaine, Lancelot & Gwenhwyfar, Tristan & Isolde, Pelleas & Ettarde ) She doesn’t have time for that, she doesn’t want love if all it’s going to do is hurt. That aside, she’s also one of those people that realizes that sometimes love ( no matter how great or how epic ) just isn’t enough or that it’s not quite as equally matched and one person has to sacrifice more than the other. It doesn’t conquer all and it certainly doesn’t heal all wounds. If anything, it creates more of its own. There’s a very real chance that she can’t be what she needs to be both for herself and for other people, if she allows love to consume her life.

AND YET Nimue has a soft spot for romance and the romantics. She loves love poetry - later on her immortal life, she’s a rather avid fan of Sir Thomas Wyatt and E. E. Cummings - and music full of longing and heartache. Though she’s convinced herself she doesn’t need the feeling, it doesn’t mean that somewhere deep down she doesn’t secretly want it. After all, who doesn’t want to be understood, to be looked at underneath the glistening surface and wanted for your darkest depths too? 

Not to mention the entire thing with Pelleas is a testament to the fact that Nimue fully endorses and believes in love for other other people, that her heart is capable of breaking for the woes and tragedies of others. Though she tries not to announce it to the world, she’s a very empathetic creature when it comes to the broken down and ill-used. She’s naturally protective, nurturing and she gets angry at the world for them. She’ll do things in their name - to make their hurt better - that she would never normally do for herself.

As far as soulmates go, Nimue is pretty on the fence. She certainly believes that there are people who are connected to one another forever, through time and space. There are people who will fall in love time and time and time again, and there are people who - while not necessarily in love - are destined to circle one another for the rest of all eternity. But as to the idea that there is only one soulmate for a person, that there’s only this one great love and that’s that? She’s not sure that she can agree, nor is she particularly certain that the concept is as beautiful as we would all like to make it out to be. ( Also boo on the idea that soul connections are only made between lovers! )

NIM && PLATONIC LOVE

For the most part Nimue is incapable of having platonic relationships. People - both men and women - rarely approach her without some ulterior motive in mind. A LOT of the time, people will use friendship as a pretense to get close to her when all they want to do is really force her or corral her into feeling something more or doing something physical. It’s very much the same concept as her feeling that people aren’t capable of loving her on more than a surface level ; why would anyone love her and why would anyone want to be her friend?

And with this frameset in mind - that people only ever want something - it’s incredibly hard for her to let her guard down and cultivate the trust and security that goes into a platonic relationship. She’s just not good at opening herself up to people, she’s borderline terrified of the idea. Because - by the people that should have loved her, the ones that should have mattered - she’s found nothing but rejection. She’s emotionally stunted and she’s never understood what it is to be comforted by someone else. So now she doesn’t know how to let herself take comfort in someone else.

That being said, I’m actually in the camp where I believe that her canon relationship with Pelleas is one based on platonic love. ( Now, I know they supposedly have a child together, but I’m willing to argue that child is adopted. ) BECAUSE, going back to what I was talking about with Nimue being naturally protective and nurturing, it makes sense that she took in an ailing heartsick Pelleas and welcomed him into her hearth. They were kindred spirits. A fondness was developed from their mutual loneliness and they both needed someone ; they both needed that feeling of companionship and protection. In that way they fell into a rhythm where they were a part of one another’s lives and they grew to love one another, but it was a pure and chaste love.

I say this bc at the end of Le Morte, it talks about how Pelleas achieved the Sangreal and he couldn’t have done this if he’d been performing his husbandly duties with Nim in their underwater castle.

NIM && HEARTBREAK

…Nimue doesn’t handle heartbreak well — if at all. She just doesn’t have enough experience in it, and to assume that she broke down all these walls that she has in order to love someone, well…

What she does have fantastic experience however is swallowing her emotions and not allowing anyone to know that she’s suffering. She’ll pretend that she’s fine, and she’ll make a damn good show of it too. A lot of the time she’ll put distance between herself and source of her pain, create a new routine that doesn’t include them and follow it to the letter. Out of sight, out of mind ; until she’s alone with a moment to think for herself, that is. Nim carries her wounds with her and she doesn’t allow them to breathe and heal, so they’re always open and bleeding. 

Given the situation, she’s also one to demand retribution. ( Betrayal is the one surefire way to make Nim go from 0 to 1000. ) In situations where she and Galahad are close, it takes all the will power in the world she has not to go out and murder Lance then and there. If there’s something tangible for her to take out her anger on, it’s going to be destroyed. She spends so much time pretending that she doesn’t feel any emotion, that when she breaks it’s an entire flood that gets let loose. 

But for the most part she goes quiet, she drifts away into her own isolated little world and she blames herself. Because she should have known better ; she did know better, and she just didn’t listen to herself. She’ll go over every little second and every little detail time and time again, calling herself out on signs she should have seen or moments where she could have done something different. After all, it must be her fault. She could/should have done more.

#mactoism #long post // #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ᵘᶰᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵒᵒᵈ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᵖᵃʷᶰ ❞ ┊► ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴛᴀɢ #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃʳᵍᵉᵈ ᵛᵉˢˢᵉˡ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ❞ ┊► ᴍᴇᴛᴀ #( w e l p )

[nimueriesa]

PELLEAS’ CHARACTERIZATION !!

If you smoosh various source materials together, you get a pretty sympathetic ( and yet simultaneously tiresome ) character in Pelleas. He doesn’t come from some great house, he’s not noble or rich. You’re also led to believe that he’s on the slower side, he’s not quick-witted the way some other knights are, he’s not charming or elegant like all the greats of his time. He stutters and stammers, which is one of the things that kind of puts Ettarde off of him. I’m also laying down the idea that he probably doesn’t know how to read or write either ; he’s never had any formal education because he’s never had any option but to be a serf or fight his way into being a knight. 

What he does have is incredible strength and resilience. I mean, this guy fights off ten knights a day for god knows how long, trying to catch Ettarde’s attention. ( Mind you, once he’d proven he could beat them, he allowed them to tie him in MANY, MANY embarrassing ways to his horse to be brought to Ettarde, just so he could see her. ) He ALSO initially met her at a tournament where he came out first place among FIVE HUNDRED participants. You could argue that he leans heavily on his strength bc it’s the greatest weapon he has in his arsenal. Even the other knights don’t take him seriously.

Obviously he’s a determined sort, and there’s the argument to be made that he does have a one-track mind because he really isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, BUT there’s evidence to suggest that he’s one to hold a grudge. Referred to as The Gentle Knight, he can’t bring himself to kill Gawain and Ettarde when he finds them sleeping together but he also doesn’t forgive them either. Every time he crosses paths with Gawain afterwords he wants to fight him and when Ettarde ( by way of Nimue’s magic ) finally falls in love with Pelleas, he’s just like: Nope, too late. I hate you.

Even though finding them together in bed made him tell his servants that he was going to lay in his own bed until he died and they could take his heart, half it up, and give it to Ettarde on a silver tray. Sooo, he’s also dramatic af.

WHY MY VERSION OF NIMUE WOULD ADOPT THIS STRAY !!

It really does pretty much boil down to him being a big sad puppy, and her feeling bad for him.

First of all Nim knows better than anyone else what it’s like to feel helpless and unwanted, before Avalon and Merlin she was basically right there in the same bit of mud. She was made fun of because she was ‘foolish’ but the idea of wanting to better herself was so gd preposterous that she was actually punished for it. ( Not to mention one of the variations of legend where Nimue gets kidnapped right in front of king and court and all they can do is fucking laugh about it...so there’s really no love lost between her Camelot’s finest despite her begrudgingly helping Arthur out post-Merlin. ) And I think she’d enjoy trying to teach him some of the things he doesn’t know, honestly. 

LOYALTY is also another big factor, I think it’s safe to say. Obviously he’s a great guardian and he’s diligent af, which are traits that Nim would cultivate for her own purposes but also already admires and respects in other people. So, basically it sets them both up to have someone on their side. ( BC let’s not fool ourselves and say that loneliness doesn’t have a major part to play in this. )  But post-marriage to Nim, Pelleas becomes a member of the Round Table and supposedly achieves the Sangreal, so make no mistake that there’s some teamwork going on there. 

Like, maybe he was/is a joke to the other knights but he’s the one that’s married to the Lady of the Lake. And that marriage simultaneously provides her with some small level of safety from other knights that would have otherwise tried to chase after her / pester her / whatever for glory and conquest. ( Also in some situations I’m ngl and say that I don’t see Nim tying herself to Pelleas through a ceremony that she doesn’t even really believe in just to keep herself from taking up with a less safe choice in potential partners bc AGAIN she’s also loyal af and that’s a pretty good psychological deterrent. ) 

And then there’s the whole thing about her ‘keeping’ him from most fights. Which easily translates to Pelleas seeming like a kept man ( which he kind of is lmao ) , but I would also set down the idea that things aren’t what they seem on that front either? Nim definitely keeps his hot headed ass from fighting with Gawain and she has a LOT of reasons to keep him from fighting Lancelot and from joining in the final battle, but as for the rest --- I think it’s just that the need to fight to prove himself isn’t as strong as it once was. Why uselessly spend that energy now that he doesn’t have to? And he doesn’t have to show off to Nimue or prove himself to her either because she already believes in him/knows what he’s capable of.

tl;dr --- he’s safe, they’re both lonely, maybe she doesn’t love him but they are good together and they are good for each other, which maybe means more than fireworks.

#long post for ts #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ᵘᶰᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵒᵒᵈ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵐᵉʳᵉˡʸ ᵃ ᵖᵃʷᶰ ᶤᶰ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵒʳˡᵈ ❞ ┊► ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴛᴀɢ #HC┊▌❝ ˢʰᵉ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃʳᵍᵉᵈ ᵛᵉˢˢᵉˡ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ❞ ┊► ᴍᴇᴛᴀ #( i could write more about the actual ship potential of them as they progress throughout the years #as well as pelleas' use as a shield/hiding place for nim in other ships #but then this would be EXTRA EXTRA gd long sooo )

[nimueriesa]

tag dump 005

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