@jeantown I hope you are ok. Also the giants are stupid and blunt with weird names?. El Quijote makes a good parody of silly names the bad chivalry literature uses for them as Luciferno, Hierofante .
@poison_mara Thanks! Iām feeling much better the past few days. 
I was even able to exercise a little bit today for the first time in weeks. No giants are appearing yet, only Meligaunt, and heās a half-giant sorcerer who is actually quite intelligent. Maybe we will see some comically stupid giants in later installmentsā¦
Omg I love Lance <3. I loved your story it is one of my favourites, keep up the good work.
@VampirePrincess Thank you! I hope you like the Lance stuff in part 2.
@Doctor Well, Meligauntās father is a human kingā¦ about his mother we have only rumors and speculationā¦ but we might guess that his father has some unusual tastes.
Better it be his mother than his father, lol!
Hmmm, him being pretty intelligent is interesting. Usually the versions I see of a character are brutish or notā¦brightā¦ (T.H. Whiteās Meliagrance Iām looking at you.)
My favorite Meligrance is the one in the novel Arthur Rex.
@thesunfloweramazon Yeah, I picked an uncommon spelling of his name on purpose to distinguish him a bit. He fills the narrative shoes of both the traditional Meleagant/grance and the giant of Mont-St-Michel, but otherwise heās very much his own character. He can be brutal (heās definitely evil), but probably not brutish.
@Leingod I actually havenāt read that oneā¦ would you be willing to tell me a bit about how Mel is portrayed there? Iām always interested in what different versions do.
@jeantown Will Arthur ever become less cute? I just canāt be mean to him or reject him. I tried many times and when he went to sleep on the floor I just couldnāt. He is so adorable.
@Nikmou Weeeellllā¦ It might depend on what you and/or your Guen think is cute. At the beginning of part 2, Arthur will do some stuff that Iām hoping some people will find cute and others will find frustrating. And his tendency to be insensitive may escalate at the end of part 2 to the point that some Guens will have legitimate reasons to be angry. (But donāt worry, Arthur fans; it will be a matter of interpretation/relationship and dependent on many different factors.) Also at the end of part 2, Guen will have an opportunity to influence Arthur so that heās somewhat less idealistic in the future, and therefore maybe not as cute.
I canāt wait for part two
Itās so frustrating :-(( Iāll be so happy when it does come though 
Keep doing what your doing jeantown
Good luck %%-
@ricepatrick182 Believe me, I canāt wait, eitherā¦ and I know that once I finish part 2, Iām going to be even more desperate for part 3! Wish I could write faster! But thanks for the encouragement; I need it.
Wowā¦ Having only played the ābriefā demo, I am blown away. Iām certainly biased, from my life time romance with Arthurian legend, but this is exceptional. My only concern is, you are trying something truly incredible. Millions of words. Given that in the coming years, you will most certainly fall victim to carpal tunnel syndrome, at least two ulcers, and maybe, depending on your diet and exercise habits, a couple of strokes. With that in mind, have you considered creating a kickstarter to buy you health insurance? =))
@jeantown The Arthur Rex version of Meliagrance at first is sort ofā¦ I think tongue-in-cheek or semi-comical might be the phrase Iām looking for. Heās a bit like the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride: heās pure evil and a complete sadist, he has absolutely zero remorse to it, and heās very mocking yet almost (but not quite) polite about it at the same time. Heās got a weird kind of charisma that makes you really enjoy his scenes. And over his time imprisoning Guinevere he comes to legitimately love her and tries to change and become a good man in the hopes that sheāll love him back. He fails repeatedly and rather comically (Arthur Rex is kind of big on Shakespeare-style irony and low humor), because while his desire to become good is real, he still doesnāt really understand the concept of ābeing goodā in any but the most basic and cynical fashion. He makes actual strides toward it and shows real growth as a characterā¦ and then Lancelot (here portrayed much like his Malory rendition as the original murder-hobo extraordinare) kills him in cold blood.
@Polyhymnia Oh, thank you! :"> Iām so glad you like it. And yeah, itās insanely ambitious and will take years to write. The carpal tunnel is already setting in. But Iām a long-haul, little-bit-every-day, INTJ-master-planner kind of person, so I have a lot of hope that ā however ridiculously long it takes to write ā Iāll get there someday!
@Leingod Well, now I want to read Arthur Rex. That sounds like a really interesting interpretation, with room for thought on the nature of good and evil. I donāt think Iāve ever seen Meligrance portrayed with that much depth (or comic tragedy) anywhere. Thanks for the summary!
@Victoriya Thank you! Let me know if you spotted anything that seemed inconsistent ā I do want Guen to be able to treat Arthur badly while also having sex with him, so I want to make sure he doesnāt say anything incongruous like āIām glad weāre so happy togetherā immediately followed by āYou seem so unhappy.ā (Iām worried there may be more of those inconsistencies in part 2, just because there are so many more variables to account for. I have to hope that people will help me catch them!)
@Leingod Itās been quite a while since Iāve read Arthur Rex, but, er, Iām pretty sure itās stated that he murdered/raped/tortured tons of women previous to Guinevere (and indeed, waited so long as to make sure hers ended up being the worst)- and the comedy was based around the fact how he even thought that he could just turn around and do one small good deed (give a old man a few coins) and claim heās good now and that they have to treat him as such (and indeed, that Guinevere andā¦Kay, I think- did.) as well as had the unrealistic belief Guinevere would fall in love and get married to him now.
Then of course Lance kills him because DUH. And then Guinevere goes āwell that was rude, he was worth more to me than a knight without a conscienceā and Lance was just likeā¦what.
I thought the whole thing was supposed to be a reference to the Easily Forgiven/Defeat Means Friendship trope in Arthurian literature and how itās sort of ridiculous, esp. in medieval times.
Now that I think on it, Meliagrance is subject to a LOT of easily forgiven in Arthurian literature. Queen of Camelot being the most egregious.
@thesunfloweramazon Yeah, like I mentioned, Meliagrance was at first an utter scumbag (much like the Six-Fingered Man) who did evil for no other reason than because he liked doing it. And yes, he was totally delusional in thinking Guinevere would return his feelings and had no understanding of what being āgoodā actually entails, and Lancelot was totally justified in killing him. But it does also state (and to some extent show) that his feelings, however delusional, were real. Also, his complete failure to do even a single good deed without it blowing up in his face or otherwise failing due to his complete lack of a normal humanās understanding of āgoodā was so funny I kind of like him all the more for it. Iām not saying Meliagrance was any less of a bastard by the end; Iām saying he had become a somewhat sympathetic bastard by the end (at least to me).
And yeah, a lot of Arthur Rex is like that; replaying some of the more famous Arthurian events with a more realistic (some might even say cynical or bitter, but I disagree) worldview. For example, the other knights are not in awe of Galahad when he appears; most of them really donāt like him at all, because ātotally pureā also means āboring, prudish and irritatingly naiveā and ālooks like an angelā means āso androgynous Gawain jokes that heās not sure of Galahadās gender.ā Lancelot and Guinevereās relationship is also portrayed as unhealthy and sometimes even downright poisonous, which I always kind of saw the Mallory portrayal and versions derived from it as being.
Tis true, tis true. The book at the very least showed what his mindset was from how he changed from one or the other (even if his personality didnāt change) which is more than i can say forā¦other books, where apparently Meliagrance changed his old ways becauseā¦Arthur beat him in a fight or other such nonsense without getting any comeuppance or realistic reason for changing.
OMG yeah the scenes where it backfired on him was hilarious. I lost my head when the beggar used the money he gave him to buy a crossbow to rob him, lolllll.
Yeah, I donāt get where people say Arthur Rex is cynical or bitter (or even A Yankee in King Arthurās Court, which I felt was not trying to give a cynical take, but had a cynical and bitter POV instead- hence all the reasons characters call him out (like his gf) or surprise him (Arthur). Rude Tales and Glorious would be cynical imo (though maybe that is a bad example, since that was just a reallyyyy bad book in general. Does anyone know any well written cynical takes?)
@thesunfloweramazon @Leingod Well, hereās a coincidence: Iāve been reading Alan Lupackās Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend cover to cover, just so I can get a sense for the tons of Arthurian things I havenāt read, and I just happened to hit his section on Arthur Rex yesterday. Hereās Lupackās closing thought:
āIt is a theme, perhaps the theme, of Arthur Rex that extreme adherence to moral rules can be more damaging than lapses in morality. This is not to suggest that the desire to be better and to make things better is wrong. But in Bergerās novel, the desire to make things perfect, without admitting human failings, usually causes more trouble than outright imperfection does.ā
So, the perfect is the enemy of the good (story of my life). Elsewhere Lupack talks about how Berger seems to be saying that the struggle for good is still admirable and worth undertaking, even if itās probably going to fail. I donāt think thatās cynical at all; it sounds almost romantic to me, and not antithetical to the spirit of Maloryā¦ but I should probably just read the book.