#i pretty much write gawain the same in lideri but he and mordred aren't directly related by blood but they're very much brothers

[meowdred]

hi i wanted to ask bc i’m always curious about other peoples orkneys takes: if mordred is the second youngest, who’s the youngest? (& if you want to share any other opinions you have on the orkneys, order of siblings or otherwise, go ahead :) but no pressure)

HIIII!!!! thank you so much for your question !!!! i'm sorry this is going to be super super long i have a lot of thoughts about the orkneys (guy who named himself after biblical cain and loves complex sibling dynamics)

of course gareth is the youngest, but generally it goes like this for me

gawain - eldest obviously. there's this line from alliterative morte that i'm really fond of that sums how i think of him really well

"like a berserker he fights in a frenzy for fierceness and heart; fights and cuts down all who stand before him and never did fortune so favor the brave"

++++++ eldest brother syndrome. eldest daughter syndrome, even. i think with having morgause as his mother + the death of lot he was put in the place of taking care of his younger siblings and tried his best to be the role model for them... i was always really fond of a teenage gawain taking care of an infant gareth while leading agravaine and gaheris as children to bed. he's super repressed and has a lot of angst... but i think one of his key traits is his devotion to his family (which of course includes arthur as well... who i think he found a paternal figure in, in the lack of emotional connection from morgause and lot's physical absence)

i think mordred came into the family later on but by then he'd be an adolescent and gawain would be fully integrated into the kotr which fuels his outsider syndrome tbh and the struggle w/ his family. i do think gawain really tried his best to reach out to him though because that's still his baby brother.... and it's one of the reasons why i like the idea of mordred killing gawain instead as opposed to lancelot haha i think it makes the betrayal 100x more agonzing and heartwrenching. plus the fact that they're family hits different for me. but anyways.....

agravaine - second eldest and has bad middle child syndrome, but i also read the wicked day by mary stewart when i was younger and it shaped my view of the orkneys a lot so i'm also fond of the idea of him being twins with gaheris... either goes though. i think agravaine is the second saddest in the orkneys apart from mordred, but for different reasons i think... there's a lot of bitterness in his heart. largely due to growing up with gawain's shadow over him i imagine

gaheris - either twins with agravaine or the ultimate middle child. surprisingly i don't have a lot of opinions on him ? i think. in my ditched retelling (different from lideri and closer to medieval arthuriana) he used to be really close with agravaine but they grew distant as they grew older. i liked making him an artist for some reason i think it's cute + i had the idea that he actually didn't die, he was the remaining orkney after the battle at camlann so he had to rule over orkney something he wasn't prepared for in the slightest

gareth is the youngest. i love making him the baby of the orkneys. i think gawain spoils him to death, i borrowed this from mary stewart again but i also like to think that he wasn't spoiled by not just gawain but also by morgause because of his likeness to her, though i don't think he's similar to her at all personality wise esp when he grows up. he has the image of a young awkward teenager to me haha and he struggles in his place amongst the orkneys. he also has a similar issue with gaheris wherein he feels at odds with his siblings esp their conflict bc the orkneys is dramaland. i don't know if you ever read the brothers karamazov but gareth for me is similar to alyosha where he acts as the glue for the orkneys, which is why when he dies gawain loses his shit

there's also clarissant... who i think is along the same ages as gareth and mordred. though i haven't thought much yet for her bc i only started thinking of her recently i like the idea of her being a lady knight though

and well.. there's mordred.... don't ask me i have a lot of opinions on that guy.

#cain.txt #SORRY THIS TURNED OUT TO BE SUCH A LONG NOVEL #i love the orkneys #i seriously need to design the orkneys in lideri but i haven't figured out what i want to do with them yet #oh bear in mind that my takes/opinions on arthurian characters is different from how i write them in my story haha #these are just my headcanons #i pretty much write gawain the same in lideri but he and mordred aren't directly related by blood but they're very much brothers