I know the lady of the lake doesn't appears a lot, but I consider her a more masculine woman and definitely a lesbian. And I also think that the women/nymphs who live with her and raised Lancelot are more masculine too, not all of them are lesbians or bi/pan, but they have a certain problem with men.
I say this because Lancelot was raised only by women and yet he is the best knight in the world, second only to his son, so he was trained by women too.
I honestly believe that the training for his muscles and sword skills was because the Lady of the Lake was exceptionally amazing with a sword as much as with ver magic. She's the guardian of Excalibur after all, and if I'm not mistaken, in one of the books it says that when Elaine, Lancelot's biological mother, asks where her son was, she's told that 'your son was taken by a mermaid and better queen than those who live.'
She rules alone without the support of any man for centuries and continues to be the best, which sounds to me like it was seen as masculine for the time.
In my perception, she, and the women and nymphs who live with her and helped raise Lancelot, have more muscles than many knights out there, wear more masculine things for the time and would had more body hair since in a kingdom with only women the shame for one's own body would be significantly less.
I always imagined that it was the Lady of the Lake who gave Lancelot his sword and battlefield impressive skills, and that she is a woman with muscles and certain more masculine mannerisms, and with great skills in battle, but which are not used. She would be a queen and a king at the same time and would be the best at it.
And she definitely looks like a lesbian to me. Don't ask me why, but I've always shipped her with Elaine, Lancelot's biological mother, since it's said that she's alive and living as a nun after the fire and her family's death. Or with one of Arthur's sisters simply because it would be funny.
I don't usually draw her, but I wrote a few paragraphs and descriptions of her appearance, I'm just a little embarrassed to post it.
i was thinking this morning about how many depictions i have seen of arthurian female characters are quite feminine. we headcanon many of these characters as girl kissers and of course not all queer women are masculine but there's so little masc rep out there...
so i am wondering what female characters in the arthurian legend yall headcanon as butch/masc?
do you write about them? make art/crafts about them? do you have any face headcanons for them?
please share!