@gellavonhamster / gellavonhamster.tumblr.com
Sunrise
Being self indulgent with mixed media, never mind that I think both of them wake up before the rooster farts for it's cute. Also finally got the marker colour for Bedwyr's skin colour that ran out like months ago. Unfortunately now I ran out of a colour I use for shading Kei's skin. Oh well life is a cabaret and I had fun at least.
lament for sir kay by me. thinking about him always. i can't imagine having my younger brother become king and. like. just. what the fuck. i love him. no one understands him like i do.
earlier this year I started writing a comic about the siege perilous-grail quest situation after finally finishing the didot perceval, and it started circling around kay and perceval. kay as gatekeeper, taboo anxiety vs chivalry, and perceval not doing things "correctly," arthur's enduring affection for kay. that general area. also the horror of the grail quest itself.
this is comic is part of that narrative arc, so with THAT in mind: this is an abridged scene of a longer arc revolving around kay associating camelot with a cage, perceval's associations with jewelry and knighthood and the color red, and arthur's relationship with kay.
[some other scene context: perceval has injured his hand and can't participate in the tournaments, so he's craving some kind of fight. kay is disinterested in replying to this challenge, but he's not above reminding perceval of their first meeting. it's just mean enough in a weird-intimate kind of way that perceval's like, ok so we're doing the antagonistic version of court romance rituals. he picks up hunting because kay can't leave the castle.]
on the subtext of jewelry:
Clothes Make the Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, M.D. Amey
on the topic of kay, gatekeeping, and taboo anxiety:
Cei and the Arthurian Legend, Linda Gowans
the whole Red Knight/Perceval Shows Up In A Dead Man's Suit Of Armor transgression-situation (which kay references through red jewelry) mentioned is told in both de Troye's and Wolfram's Perceval narratives :)
anyway! to close out all this out: the transgressions. incredible! what is camelot but a bunch of transgressions stacked on top of each other tbh.
i stand by my cancelled wife literally what did kay do wrong here to merit arthur saying he was BORN TO BE UNPLEASANT ?????
This is so funny oh my god
Also Arthur isn’t that your seneschal isn’t that kind of his job
#when your shithead younger brother turns out to be the chosen one and king and boss#and gives you the job of looking after all his shit and admin#and then BODIES you when you try to do#every pissing little part of it#god just imagine if you were Kay trying to get Arthur to take his multivitamin#you don’t want to do it. you hate him so much. he doesn’t want it. you are forcing it#down his throat like an old dog. it’s a gummy vitamin it’s not like it’s hard. he is fighting like a lion.#nobody is helping. bards sing of it for 590 years.#I’d give up tbh I’d get a different job.#I think Kay should have a laser beam to fire at his brother.#YES he’s mean YES he’s an asshole YES he only ever says little bitch comments BUT consider his working conditions
Sir Kay (Cei) and Sir Bedivere (Bedwyr) holding hands
Cei (Sir Kay) had a multitude of miscellaneous powers which he could aparantly do, one being having the heat of his hands correlate with that of his temper. That is, his hands were constantly on fire.
this one is reaaaally old, the first bedikay piece my friend swiggnblob made and i helped coloured it. the start of thee obsession haha
here's just like. a bunch of my designs of my favorite guys<3
actually it does annoy me a bit how awful kay is made out to be in 90% of texts like whenever he’s introduced it’s always with a paragraph about how he’s mean to everyone and hateful and how it ruins any good aspects of him as a knight. i would like one text where kay is an actual character and not just The Rude Guy Who Everyone Hates. i don’t mind if it’s like kay being a dick or making a fool of himself or other characters making fun of him because that’s fair enough and funny but when it’s his whole character :/ how did we get here from the welsh cei
Shameless plug for The Crown by Heinrich von dem Türlin bc he gets to be brutally funny with his crassness but it is sure to assure the reader left and right he's actually a good dude who's a strong brave fighter and everyone knows he's joking and laughs with him.
Brothers behavior.
On a lighter Arthuriana note, I'm endlessly amused at how KayxBedivere must be from Bedivere's point of view? Like he is said to be a man so beautiful people start crying plus insanely competent. Ladies must throw themselves at him, he is beloved and a total babe. And then he meets Kay, who is Too Tall and deliberately a dick to people and gets pole axed like. I want Him. So Bad. And he doesn't know what to do! He's never had to woo someone! He didn't even like dudes before this! And he's romancing basically a mangy mean alley cat.
Basically, remember that ach nae, I love him, GimlixLegolas post? That but Bedivere had an intense sexual identity crisis beforehand.
*grits teeth*.... i'm normal i'm normal i'm sooooo normal about this
Cherith Baldry's Exiled From Camelot and The Trial of Sir Kay, both scanned by @queer-ragnelle
They are in love<3
If you haven’t read them already, here are two more short stories by Cherith Baldry.
Enjoy! :^)
Sir Kay for character meme! Everything I know about him is so fascinating
Knights of the Round Table
A selection of my random faves, ft. Kay and Bedivere gossiping about the new recruits, Dinadan and Palomides debating the point of courtly love, the Orkney brothers (Gareth, Gaheris, Agravaine mid-curse, and Gawain) and Lancelot and Galehaut putting the ro in bromance
Hi! I was wondering if you have any recommendations for some pre-Chrétien Kay appearances? From what I understand the versions differ a lot, and the guy intrigues me even more
Thank you in advance!
Hi anon!
There aren't a ton of pre-Chrétien Kay appearances, mostly Welsh stuff, plus Geoffrey of Monmouth. But I recommend them, they're fun!
The last one is a picture book I scanned myself. It's beautifully illustrated by Margaret Jones. Cai and Bedwyr are even on the cover! Lastly, I'll give you a handful of "academic" or informational resources which will undoubtedly give you some more to chew on.
You'll see several of these author names popping up repeatedly (just look at all the people Harold J. Herman cites!). These fellow Arthurian enthusiasts reference each other and collaborate frequently. All to provide us with this Kay content! Enjoy!
“And in many a land they speak thus, that Kay, Arthur’s seneschal, Was a firebrand, hell-born, yet I wot well far other the tale I'ld tell. From reproach would I gladly free him, tho’ few but should say me nay, Yet a gallant man and a worthy, I swear was this knight, Sir Kay. And my mouth to this truth beareth witness, and more would I tell to thee; Unto Arthur’s Court came strangers in many a company, And their manners and ways were diverse, nor all there might honour claim, But Kay an he saw false dealing, he counted such ways as shame, And his face he turned from the sinner, yet he who dealt courteously, And true man with true men would hold him, Kay served him right heartily. And one who fall well discernèd the manner of men was Kay, Thus he did to his lord good service, for his harsh words drave far away The men who would falsely vaunt them good knights and true to be, Ill was he to them as a hailstorm, sharp as sting of an angry bee. Small wonder that these deny him his honour and knightly fame, True servant and wise they found him, and for this cause upon his name Their hatred doth still heap slander”
—
Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Book VI: Arthur
“Although Keii might be unpleasant and quite mannerless, he still had not lost the pride of nobility. Indeed, he was so brave that he wouldn’t avoid any monster: he dared fight it no matter how large it seemed to him and whatever his chances of success. You should also know that Arthur was zealous in virtue and in his faultless youth has chosen such attendants as were free of deceit. How could Keii have remained one of them for even a short time if he had been as evil as many have said? The truth is that he liked to scoff and spared no one. That was his chief failing”
Diu Crône by Heinrich von dem Türlin, Chapter Two: The Tankard
I love it when there are little “yes, he’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole and we love him” asides about Kay in Arthurian texts
"When Kay the seneschal heard the news he made all the right noises, but really he was his usual resentful self. But so what? When it comes to the crunch a malcontent can sometimes be worth two men, while sweet-tongued flatterers vanish like froth"
The First Continuation of Chrétien De Troyes' Perceval
accidentally, a comic that was supposed to be about Merlin and Arthur turned into a comic about Kay and Merlin and now I’m looking at the rest of my story ideas and you know what. the dynamic compels me enough to overhaul my notes to focus on this
(& before anyone says anything: the spelling shift between Cei to Kay mid scene is intentional)
⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app
my personal griflet take is that he is both actually a faerie and not aware he is a faerie and the reason he seems to eat shit w such consistency is because he has not yet realised the iron in the armour and the weapons is actually severely fucking up his game
It’s funny because this is my Cai/kay theory. To explain why he was so amazing in the old Welsh material but so… not after the French got to him. They put him in armour and it nullified all his fairy powers (he can no longer grow tall as a tree). The difference in my theory is that Kai realized the armour was the problem, and started sticking around Camelot more to avoid it, but missing out on adventures + failing at them when he does go out makes him SUPER cranky. Going back to leather or padded armour has not occurred to him.
