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asweetprologue · 4 years

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window to the soul

Octoberfest 3: ghost (from geraskier hollow) + stare

“It’s drawn to strong emotions,” Geralt said, and Jaskier knew that he was about to become bait.

The monster of the week was a wraith, but of an unusual type. Over the years of traveling together, Jaskier had seen plenty of wraiths - noonwraiths, nightwraiths, even a plague maiden once. He probably could take one on himself, knowing what he did about the process of destroying them, though it would be difficult without the use of yrden holding them in the physical realm. Luckily it was Geralt’s job to dispatch them. Jaskier usually didn’t even go along to watch anymore, unless the story behind the haunting was particularly ballad worthy.

This time, the wraith was different. Geralt had quickly identified the lost soul, a young woman who had recently died. She’d been deeply in love with a merchant that had regularly come and gone from the town, and had tried to cast a spell to trap his heart. Jaskier knew, after everything with Geralt and the djinn, that there was no curse or potion that could truly emulate love. Her spell had made the merchant obsessed with her, the man driven slowly mad by a fixation that he did not want and could not escape. In the end he had killed the girl and then himself, to escape from the madness that she had struck into his mind. The strength of her grief and the magic of the binding spell had changed the spirit of the woman into something else entirely, something extremely dangerous.

“It’s a sort of hybrid between a vampire and a wraith,” he explained. They were in the field beyond the village, and Geralt was meticulously checking over his potions. His blades were laid off to the side, the slick oil that he used to slay spectres shining across his silver blade. It was nearing sunset, the twilight hour that made it easier for apparitions to make themselves seen in the material world. Jaskier was sitting across from him, nervously stripping leaves from a small twig. Geralt continued. “The emotion she felt and her unrequited love turned her into a heartwraith. Sometimes people call them ‘hungry ghosts.’ They’re never satisfied, and they feed off of people’s emotions to try and fill the void in them.”

“Sounds like a truly awful existence,” Jaskier mused, watching Geralt. The evening light played across his broad shoulders, turning his hair from silver to gold. Jaskier thought he might be able to understand where she was coming from, even if he’d never have tried to bind Geralt to him unwillingly. It was a terrible thing, to be so deeply and unfortunately in love with someone who didn’t want you.

“I need to draw her out,” Geralt said gruffly. “She’s seeking out powerful emotions, like the couple that were attacked and the man who was beating his wife. I’ll need your help.” Jaskier sighed. Of course, it didn’t make much sense for Geralt to try to draw her out. Though Jaskier didn’t subscribe to the notion that witchers felt less than regular humans, Geralt was what Jaskier would dub repressed. The man couldn’t look an honest emotional conversation in the face without getting flustered and running away.

“Whatever you need,” Jaskier said, like he always did. He didn’t love playing bait, but he knew Geralt would never let anything bad happen to him.

Geralt nodded and picked up his silver sword, his steel one still securely in its sheath on his back. “Come on. We need to build a fire to destroy her locket.” The girl had kept a locket with a small lock of the merchant’s hair inside, which Geralt had guessed helped tie her to this plane. Over the next few minutes, the two men built a small pyre. Geralt pressed the locket into Jaskier’s palm, his fingers brushing over Jaskier’s skin. He tried not to blush at the contact.

“When she’s distracted, throw this into the fire. It’ll weaken her,” Geralt said. Jaskier nodded mutely, clutching the warm metal close. The fire crackled merrily beside them, painting the landscape around them in swatches of ocher and dark blue. It was truly approaching night now, only the barest hint of sunlight still left on the far horizon.

“What do you need me to do?” Jaskier asked. “To get her attention, I mean.”

Geralt gave him an odd look. “Nothing. I’m going to draw her in.” Geralt’s face was pinched in a way that Jaskier had come to realize meant he was experiencing some kind of emotion, though it was always hard to tell which one. Anger, frustration, sadness and pain all translated into relatively the same expression - tight jaw, drawn eyebrows, thinned lips. Jaskier wanted to reach out and sooth the tension from his friend’s features, but luckily the locket demanded his hands’ wandering attention. Geralt gestured to the soft earth beside the fire, clearly bidding Jaskier to sit. He did so, flopping gracelessly into a crossed legged position, back straight from tension. It was hard to forget that a wraith could appear any moment to wreck the quiet evening.

Geralt settled next to him, dropping into the kneeling position that he favored for meditation. His eyes were grave as he looked over Jaskier’s face. “Just… sit still,” he said softly. Jaskier wasn’t sure what to do with that tone, so he just tried to do as Geralt asked. He settled in, waiting for something to happen, but Geralt just stared at him.

For a moment it was awkward. Jaskier felt a blush spread across his cheeks as those golden eyes regarded him, sweeping over his face and following the line of his neck. Geralt was a man who always split his attention half a dozen ways at once, one eye always on the door and an ear out for trouble. Jaskier had accepted long ago that Geralt never fully listened to him, and that was alright. It wasn’t in his nature, and Jaskier didn’t need participation to hold a conversation. Now, though, he felt the full force of Geralt’s focus on him, looking back at him as if trying to see beyond a mask. Geralt’s own face was impassive, that slight frown still marring his features.

What could he hope to accomplish through this? If he wanted to elicit strong emotions, there were certainly easier ways to do it than a staring contest. Jaskier didn’t think he’d ever elicited strong emotions in anyone that he wasn’t actively singing to. It was he who was often overtaken by the whims of his own heart, prone to fits of temper and weeks of lovesickness by turn. Geralt never seemed to feel anything other than mild annoyance. Gods, what if Jaskier annoyed him so much that just looking at him made the witcher angry enough to summon a spectre? Jaskier knew he could be infuriating, but surely if Geralt detested him that much he would just leave Jaskier behind. Right?

Anxiety filled his chest, but he’d been instructed specifically not to move. Forcing himself to relax, Jaskier found himself taking the opportunity to just look back for once, something he so rarely had a chance to do. He absorbed all the details of Geralt’s face that he never allowed himself to - the way Geralt’s left eyebrow was ever so slightly interrupted by a tiny scar, the slight wrinkles on his forehead from years of frowning and the even fainter ones around his eyes, the ever so slight part of his lips. The dramatic light of the fire and the moon overhead made his face into a patchwork landscape of color, the valley of purple shadow in the hollow of his cheek highlighted by soft gold. Jaskier committed every feature to memory, thinking of the notebooks he could fill with songs dedicated to Geralt’s eyes and lips and brilliant white hair. He loved him so much it felt like it was going to drown him, leaving no room in his chest for his lungs.

After he’d finally taken in all the abstract elements of Geralt’s face that he could in the low light, Jaskier’s eyes dragged back to meet Geralt’s. The gold of his irises were nearly consumed by dark pupil, his eyes expanding to take in as much light as possible in the darkness. In this lighting he looked both more and less human, and it made Jaskier feel helplessly fond. Their eyes met, and suddenly the situation struck Jaskier as a bit funny. Two men sitting in a field, silently staring at each other, one pining away like nothing else while the other tried to summon a ghost. It was ridiculous. He quirked a playful eyebrow at Geralt, as if to say, Aren’t we just a couple of fools?

Jaskier watched Geralt’s face shift, a second of surprise flitting across his face. And then, without warning, there was something new there, something Jaskier didn’t think he’d ever seen before. A softening in Geralt’s eyes, in his brow, as he looked at Jaskier, open and affectionate. The expression hit Jaskier like a punch, or a kiss, demanding and devastating. Geralt’s mouth opened on a low exhale, and Jaskier leaned forward, wondering if he dared, if Geralt might -

There was a screech, and the wraith was upon them.

Geralt was up in an instant, silver sword flashing as he blocked a clawed hand from coming down on Jaskier’s head. Jaskier yelped as he scurried out of the way, clutching the locket he’d almost forgotten. There was a sudden burst of purple light in the field, making the shadows around them dance and twist eerily. The wraith made a horrible noise, like flint scraping across metal, endless and clearly annoyed. Geralt pushed her against the wall of the magical trap, cutting off bits of wispy energy with his sword.

Jaskier wasn’t sure when the exact right time was, but the wraith was certainly distracted. Jumping forward, he tossed the locket down into the fire, watching as the clasp popped open and the little lock of hair fell into the embers. It caught quickly, and Jaskier heard the wraith shriek again, this time a haunting and mournful sound. When he turned back it was just in time to see Geralt shove his sword in her chest. The strange, cottony fabric of her ragged dress seemed to dissipate in the wind, her dry flesh cracking and falling away like old paint. After a moment there was nothing left but a pile of ash.

“Go in peace,” Geralt said, and turned to Jaskier. Dropping to one knee, he said, “Are you hurt?”

Jaskier pushed himself into a better sitting position. They were close, too close. He hoped the warmth of the fire would mask his blush. “I’m fine, thanks to you. Is she really gone?”

Geralt nodded. “Should be. She has no tether to this world anymore without the locket.”

“Right,” Jaskier said. He paused. “So. Um. What you did there seemed to work, at least.”

Geralt leaned back away, out of Jaskier’s space. He missed the proximity immediately. “I wouldn’t have exposed you if I could think of another way.”

“Well, it’s not easy to find someone as irritating as me on such short notice,” Jaskier said nervously. “Hardly efficient.”

Geralt gave an almost comical shake of his head, surprise slapped across his features. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Jaskier shifted, uncomfortable. Giving a forced laugh, he said, “Well, I can only imagine that you were conjuring up strong emotions of the, ah, annoyance you so often display when I do something like, I don’t know, sing or eat or breathe. I know you’re not so easily swayed by my charms.” He tried to pass it off like a joke, but he knew it fell flat even as he was saying it. There was too much hurt in his throat to make it come out anything less than bitter. He stared into the fire, watching the locket turn a liquid red from the heat.

A warm hand suddenly came up to cradle his jaw, and Jaskier blinked in surprise as Geralt’s fingers urged him to look up. “It’s not that,” Geralt said forcefully. “You must know, Jaskier, you have to - When I look at you, it’s so...” He cut himself off with a frustrated sound. Words had never been his strength. “I feel many things for you, bard.”

Jaskier swallowed. “You do?”

Geralt’s eyes were hot on him, and Jaskier wondered if one could be branded by a glance. It certainly felt like it. “Yes,” Geralt said. “Intensely.”

“Oh,” Jaskier stammered. “Um. I’m not sure if I’m reading all this right, but assuming that you’re saying you don’t hate me, then, ah -”

Geralt gave an annoyed huff, and Jaskier was just about to comment, say something like, see, I am irritating, but then Geralt was kissing him, and he decided to let it go. He leaned into the press of lips, gasping softly. It was brief, nearly over before it began, but Jaskier could feel the warmth of it after Geralt pulled away, breath ghosting over his skin. Jaskier shivered.

“Quite the opposite,” Geralt said softly. His eyes were molten gold, hotter than the locket still melting in the fire at Jaskier’s side, and Jaskier never wanted to look away.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” he said, and leaned up to kiss him again.

this fic was heavily inspired by Somedrunkpirate’s piece A Lover’s Lament, which is one of my favorite stories of all time. If you read it you’ll be able to see exactly what scene I borrowed from, and I need you to know that it lives in my head rent free.

edit: for some reason tumblr ate everything but the heading for this fic and I didn’t realize until this morning, so thanks to the ten people who liked it with no content LMAO. yall the real

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bamf-jaskier · 3 years

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Okay so I’m going to try and do a comparison of some of the major scenes between Geralt and Yennefer in Bottled Appetites vs The Last Wish.

Warning: this is a very long post and I tried to keep it as short as possible but Geralt and Yennefer is the relationship that is mainly focused on in both the short story and the show so there’s..a lot of content here.

Now, before I really jump in it’s important to note that the show is basically the spark notes version of the book, there’s a lot of missing content in the show mostly because the book just has so much more complexity so for a brief timeline:

Jaskier is injured

Talks to Chireadan

Meets Yennefer

Take Bath Together

Yennefer mind-controls Geralt and send him off to go fight some council members

THEN this is where the show and book differ

In the books, Yennefer’s mind-control has more obvious consequences and Geralt gets into legal trouble and there’s a whole scene with some town leaders threatening Geralt and Jaskier. (Although it is important to note Yennefer in the books has a back-up plan to save Geralt)

As well when Geralt goes to stop Yennefer in the books from capturing the Djinn she portals away with Geralt and they hate-crash a Noble’s party before having a conversation and fighting the Djinn again, Geralt makes his third wish and then they have sex

So basically the townspeople sub-plot is removed in the show and the Djinn fight is streamlined into one-scene instead of multiple. Now understanding that, let’s get into the scene comparisons.

Geralt Meeting Yennefer:

The Last Wish:

“You parried my spell,” she finally said. “You're not a sorcerer; that's obvious. But you reacted exceptionally fast. Tell me who you are, stranger who has come in peace. And I advise you to speak quickly.”

“I’m Geralt of Rivia. A witcher.”

Yennefer leaned out of the bed, grasping a faun—engraved on the pole—by a piece of anatomy well adapted to being grasped. Without taking her eyes off Geralt, she picked a coat with a fur collar up off the floor and wrapped herself up in it tightly before getting up. She poured herself another mug of juice without hurrying, drank it in one go, coughed and came closer. Geralt discreetly rubbed his lower back which, a moment ago, had collided painfully with the wall.

“Geralt of Rivia,” repeated the sorceress, looking at him from behind black lashes. “How did you get in here? And for what reason? You didn't hurt Berrant, I hope?”

“No. I didn't. Lady Yennefer, I need your help.”

“A witcher,” she muttered, coming up even closer and wrapping the coat around her more tightly. “Not only is it the first one I’ve seen up close but it's none other than the famous White Wolf. I’ve heard about you.”

“I can imagine.”

“I don't know what you can imagine.”

She yawned, then came even closer. “May I?” She touched his cheek and looked him in the eyes. He clenched his jaw. “Do your pupils automatically adapt to light or can you narrow and dilate them according to your will?”

“Yennefer,” he said calmly, “I rode nonstop all day from Rinde. I waited all night for the gates to open. I gave your doorman, who didn't want to let me in, a blow to the head. I disturbed your sleep and peace, discourteously and importunately. All because my friend needs help which only you can give him. Give it to him, please, and then, if you like, we can talk about mutations and aberrations.”

She took a step back and contorted her lips unpleasantly. “What sort of help do you mean?”

“The regeneration of organs injured through magic. The throat, larynx and vocal cords. An injury caused by a scarlet mist. Or something very much like it.”

The Show:

Yennefer: And quite a bit more. You’re immune.

Geralt: You must be the mage.

Yennefer: Yennefer of Vengerberg.

Geralt: Hm. Chireadan didn’t mention that, uh…

Yennefer: What did he fail to mention?

Geralt: We need your help.

Yennefer: “We”? [Geralt looks to Jaskier who gives a feeble wave.] Just a friend, I hope? [Geralt looks back at her.] Your heartbeat, it’s extraordinarily slow. You’re… a mutant.

Geralt: A witcher. Geralt of Rivia.

Yennefer: The famous White Wolf! [Standing up she steps close to Geralt.] I thought you’d have fangs or horns or something.

Geralt: I had them filed down.

Yennefer: [chuckles] First time I’ve seen a witcher up close. [She circles him, looks him over.] What little spells can you cast with your hands? Call it professional curiosity.

Geralt: Please, Jaskier here needs immediate attention. And then, if you’d like, I’ll indulge your curiosity all night long.

Yennefer: It won’t take all night. But I’m sure we can find a way to fill the time.

Geralt: [holding up the small sack with the pot’s shards] He was attacked by a djinn.

Yennefer: A djinn?

Geralt: Whatever’s wrong with him, it’s spreading. [Yennefer takes the sack and inspects the contents.] Fix it and I’ll pay you. Whatever the price.

Yennefer: You’ll have to do better than juice. [to the undulating figures] "Ragamuffin"!

In the books there is no orgy sequence, instead Yennefer has been mainly just been fucking with the merchant Beau Berrant, who in the show is the Mayor of Rinde. The apple juice sequence occurs in both adaptations and Geralt goes to Yennefer. In the books, Yennefer is alone in Berrant’s bedchambers, in the show she is in the orgy sequence. If you read the passages, they share the same bare bones. Yennefer tries to bespell Geralt, he is immune, she comments on his mutation, Geralt asks for help.

Yennefer and Geralt have the same flirtatious overtones in both adaptations. Honestly I don’t have much to say here because it parallels relatively well as far as characterization goes. I will say I prefer the book’s prose but I also understand that the show has more simplistic writing and wording.

Anya Chalotra has fantastic energy in playing Yennefer and the tension between the actors in this scene are quite apparent.

Bathing Together:

The Last Wish:

She entered the bath-chamber just as Geralt, sitting naked on a tiny stool, was pouring water over himself from a bucket. He cleared his throat and modestly turned his back to her.

“Don't be embarrassed,” she said, throwing an armful of clothing on the hook. “I don't faint at the sight of a naked man. Triss Merigold, a friend, says if you've seen one, you've seen them all.”

He got up, wrapping a towel round his hips.

“Beautiful scar.” She smiled, looking at his chest. “What was it? Did you fall under the blade in a sawmill?”

He didn't answer. The sorceress continued to observe him, tilting her head coquettishly.

“The first witcher I can look at from close up, and completely naked at that. Aha!” She leaned over, listening. “I can hear your heart beat. It's very slow. Can you control how much adrenalin you secrete? Oh, forgive me my professional curiosity. Apparently, you're touchy about the qualities of your own body. You're wont to describe these qualities using words which I greatly dislike, lapsing into pompous sarcasm with it, something I dislike even more.”

He didn't answer.“Well, enough of that. My bath is getting cold.” Yennefer moved as if she wanted to discard her coat, then hesitated. “I’ll take my bath while you talk, to save time. But I don't want to embarrass you and, besides, we hardly know each other. So then, taking decency into account—”

“I’ll turn around,” he proposed hesitantly.“No. I have to see the eyes of the person I’m talking to. I’ve got a better idea.”

He heard an incantation being recited, felt his medallion quiver and saw the black coat softly slip to the floor. Then he heard the water splashing.

“Now I can't see your eyes, Yennefer,” he said. “And that's a pity.”

The invisible sorceress snorted and splashed in the tub. “Go on.”

The Show:

[Later, in the bathroom, Geralt takes a bath while Yennefer keeps him company]

Yennefer: Fishing for a djinn seems an extreme measure to remedy sleeplessness.

Geralt: When extreme measures seem reasonable, yes, I’m desperate.

Yennefer: And yet you didn’t ask me to help with that.

Geralt: Looming death kind of jumped the queue. Now I’m wondering if I can afford you. Have I accidentally agreed to indentured servitude? [Yennefer notices his scars.] Go ahead, ask about them. Everyone does.

Yennefer: Everyone else is boring. [She undresses and steps into the tub.] Turn around.

Geralt: [Tries to look at her in a mirror, but Yennefer moves it with magic so he can’t see] That’s cheating.

Yennefer: Nobody smart plays fair. Tell me, are all witchers similarly blessed? [She sits down so they’re back to back.] Come now, you promised.

Geralt: Hm. I haven’t conducted a survey, but I’d hardly say we’re blessed.

Okay!! Now I can get more into the characterization differences because oh boy are there some here. First, Yennefer mentions Triss in the books which I would have loved to see in the show but the main thing here is how they objectify each other. In both adaptations, Yennefer notices Geralt’s scars when they begin to bathe together but in the books, Yennefer uses it as a way to pry more into the biological functions of Witchers whereas in the show she uses it as a way to talk about their shitty childhoods.

This ties into how the show, instead of focusing on the more biological aspects of Witchers, focuses on the tragic backstory of the characters. Of course, Lauren is of the mindset (like much of fandom) that Witchers are more animalistic while Sapko really pushes the idea that Witchers are creations of science so it makes sense the show wouldn’t want to talk about Witcher science as much.

As well, in the books, Geralt is rather respectful to Yennefer, promising to avert his gaze and she ends up turning invisible so she can objectify him but he can’t objectify her. It places Yennefer in charge and the obviously more powerful force in the room.

In the show, Geralt tries to take a peak at Yennefer and they sit back to back, establishing them as equals. And this is no mistake. In the books, Yennefer is quite a bit older than Geralt, she is powerful mage and Geralt is just a guy. Yennefer is the one in power in their relationship and that is obvious in every aspect of their relationship.

The show made Geralt 32 years older than Yennefer. They push a narrative of Yennefer and Geralt being on more equal footing (or even at times go as far as to make Geralt seem the more mature and older one which we will see later with Yennefer not being aware of the Wish).

This reverses a lot of the show/book dynamic where instead of Yennefer being the dominant one she is on equal footing with Geralt. Of course, this is likely due to Henry Cavill being around 37 and Anya Chalotra being around 23. Hollywood is allergic to the older woman/younger man dynamic that is seen in the books so making Yennefer seem younger is not a problem specific to The Witcher but with Hollywood at large. (Not to say it isn’t still bad to see this perpetuated in the show because it is)

Yennefer mind-controlling Geralt:

The Last Wish:

“He's asleep,” said Yennefer. “And dreaming.”

Geralt examined the patterns traced on the floor. The magic hidden within them was palpable, but he knew it was a dormant magic. It brought to mind the purr of a sleeping lion, without suggesting how the roar might sound.

“What is this, Yennefer?”

“A trap.”

“For what?”

“For you, for the time being.” The sorceress turned the key in the lock, then turned it over in her hand. The key disappeared.

“And thus I’m trapped,” he said coldly. “What now? Are you going to assault my virtue?”

“Don't flatter yourself.” Yennefer sat on the edge of the bed. Dandilion, still smiling like a moron, groaned quietly. It was, without a doubt, a groan of bliss.

“I already knew what you were like,” she continued, “after exchanging a few words with you in Beau's bedroom. And I knew what form of payment I’d demand from you. My accounts in Rinde could be settled by anyone, including Chireadan. But you're the one who's going to do it because you have to pay me. For your insolence, for the cold way you look at me, for the eyes which fish for every detail, for your stony face and sarcastic tone of voice. For thinking that you could stand face-to-face with Yennefer of Vergerberg and believe her to be full of self-admiration and arrogance, a calculating witch, while staring at her soapy tits. Pay up, Geralt of Rivia!”

She grabbed his hair with both hands and kissed him violently on the lips, sinking her teeth into them like a vampire. The medallion on his neck quivered and it felt to Geralt as if the chain was shrinking and strangling him. Something blazed in his head while a terrible humming filled his ears. He stopped seeing the sorceress's violet eyes and fell into darkness.He was kneeling. Yennefer was talking to him in a gentle, soft voice.“You remember?”

“Yes, my lady.” It was his own voice.

“So go and carry out my instructions.”

“At your command, my lady.”

“You may kiss my hand.”

“Thank you, my lady.”He felt himself approach her on his knees.

Ten thousand bees buzzed in his head. Her hand smelt of lilac and gooseberries. Lilac and gooseberries…Lilac and gooseberries…A flash. Darkness.

The Show:

Yennefer: If you wake him before he’s healed, the spell won’t take. That’s no way to treat a friend, Geralt.

Geralt: You want the djinn, but the amphora’s broken. The djinn’s already long gone. [Suddenly the candles around the sign flare up.]

Yennefer: [rubbing perfume onto her wrists] Do go on. Tell me how stuff works. The djinn is tied to this plane and its master. How many wishes did the bard express before he lost his voice?

Geralt: You need Jaskier to make his last wish so you can capture it.

Yennefer: So that’s… two then.

Geralt: The djinn will fight you. If you try and bend it- [He breaks off, clears his throat then inhales.] Ah… That scent… Lilac and…

Yennefer: Gooseberries. [Geralt exhales sharply.] Tough to get in your head. You have a strong will, but you can’t contend with me. Sorry I couldn’t be direct, I knew you’d fight it. [She leans up to kiss him, bites on his bottom lip until it bleeds.] And I do love a good old-fashioned trap.

Geralt: [slurring] A good old-fashioned… nap. [His eyes flutter shut.]

I mentioned how the show is a spark notes? Well, in the books Yennefer finds out through interrogating Geralt in the bath how many wishes are left. As well, in the books Yennefer is much more physically violent, again asserting the idea that she is the dominant one in the relationship and that she is in charge.

Honestly, the show softens Yennefer quite a bit in this scene. While she does bite his lip, it’s slowly and not particularly violent. In the books, she is compared to a vampire, grabbing his hair, pulling him down.

It all ties into the softer, younger version of Yennefer we see in the show vs the books. She is not as aggressive in the show and also not as dominant. Again, this could be due to the actor’s age difference but I also think it ties into Hollywood’s avoidance of placing women in a position that is above a male character. (Especially with Henry Cavill as Geralt, he would be unlikely to play a more subservient role to a woman purposefully considering some of his past statements about Me Too). However, having Yennefer as less aggressive also might make her more relatable to the audience and have her be more likable. At least, that could be what the writers were going for but I’m not psychic and I couldn’t tell you for sure.

Geralt trying to save Yennefer from the Djinn:

The Last Wish:

“Yennefer saw him, jumped up and raised her hand.

“No!” he shouted, “don't do this! I want to help you!”

“Help?” She snorted. “You?”

“Me.”

“In spite of what I did to you?”

“In spite of it.”

“Interesting. But not important. I don't need your help. Get out of here.”

“No.”

“Get out of here!” she yelled, grimacing ominously. “It's getting dangerous! The whole thing's getting out of control; do you understand? I can't master him. I don't get it, but the scoundrel isn't weakening at all! I caught him once he'd fulfilled the troubadour's third wish and I should have him in the sphere by now. But he's not getting any weaker! Dammit, it looks as if he's getting stronger! But I’m still going to get the better of him. I’ll break—”

“You won't break him, Yennefer. He'll kill you.”

“It's not so easy to kill me—”

She broke off. The whole roof of the tavern suddenly flared up. The vision projected by the sphere dissolved in the brightness. A huge fiery rectangle appeared on the ceiling. The sorceress cursed as she lifted her hands, and sparks gushed from her fingers.

“Run, Geralt!”

“What's happening, Yennefer?”

“He's located me…” She groaned, flushing red with effort. “He wants to get at me. He's creating his own portal to get in. He can't break loose but he'll get in by the portal. I can't—I can't stop him!”

“Yennefer—”

“Don't distract me! I’ve got to concentrate…Geralt, you've got to get out of here. I’ll open my portal, a way for you to escape. Be careful; it'll be a random portal. I haven't got time or strength for any other…I don't know where you'll end up…but you'll be safe…Get ready—.”

... (description paragraph skip)

“This way!” shouted Yennefer, indicating the portal which she had conjured up oh the wall by the stairs. In comparison to the one created by the genie, the sorceress's portal looked feeble, extremely inferior. “This way, Geralt! Run for it!”

“Only with you!”

Yennefer, sweeping the air with her hands, was shouting incantations and the many-colored fetters showered sparks and creaked. The djinn whirled like the bumble-bee, pulling the bonds tight, then loosening them. Slowly but surely he was drawing closer to the sorceress. Yennefer did not back away.

The witcher leapt to her, deftly tripped her up, grabbed her by the waist with one hand and dug the other into her hair at the nape. Yennefer cursed nastily and thumped him in the neck with her elbow. He didn't let go of her. The penetrating smell of ozone, created by the curses, didn't kill the smell of lilac and gooseberries. Geralt stilled the sorceress's kicking legs and jumped, raising her straight up to the opalescently flickering nothingness of the lesser portal.

The Show:

[In the bedroom]

Yennefer: [still chanting in Elder]

Geralt: [as he enters, Yennefer lifts a hand in his direction.] Don’t! I’m here to help you.

Yennefer: [lowers her hand] I don’t need your help. You’re free. No longer under my spell.

Geralt: And yet here I am.

Yennefer: You seem to want to meet your end.

Geralt: As do you.

Yennefer: [groans] The djinn isn’t weakening. The bard expressed his last wish, but it’s- [screams] it’s getting stronger! Go!

Geralt: That’s because I’m the one with the wishes.

Yennefer: You? You’re the djinn’s master?

Geralt: Yeah.

Yennefer: Well, what are you waiting for? [She screams as her bones crack.] Make your wishes!

Geralt: Becoming the vessel for the djinn will have you lose control, not gain it! Can’t you see what this is doing to you?

Yennefer: True transformation is painful.

Geralt: Release the djinn! I’ll give you my last wish!

Yennefer: You heroic protector… noble dog, permitting my success so long as you command it yourself. Fuck off! I’ll do this myself!

Geralt: Damn it, Yennefer! Tell me what you want!

Yennefer: I want everything!

[In the bedroom, Yennefer’s eyes have gone red, her voice distorted]

Djinn: [speaking through Yennefer] Make your wish! You can have anything you want! You could choose not to be a witcher. What do you desire? Immortality? Riches? Fame? Power?

Geralt: I wish… [The rest of his words are drowned out by the wind. Yennefer falls forward and the wind calms down. Geralt pulls up his sleeve to reveal the third cut.]

Yennefer: The djinn… Wh- Where did it go? [The house groans and creaks, and the two look to the ceiling as it crashes down.]

Yennefer still craves power and wants for everything in the show. In the books, she is more established and wants to try and control the Djinn. This is why when Geralt comes back for Yennefer, both versions express surprise at why Geralt would come back to help after they cast a spell on him but Netflix!Yennefer tells Geralt to fuck off on the basis she doesn’t want a man controlling her life (tying into the Strong Female Character Trope) while Book!Yennefer wants Geralt out of danger first and foremost.

Of course, much of this in the show is likely a response to try and subvert the “damsel in distress” stereotype and while the books have Yennefer as the dominant one and in control, showing that she in not in distress, the show has her explicitly point this out because she is not established as the dominant one as much as in the books.

The show constantly is more overt with its themes that the books which are far more subtle.

Yennefer is mad at Geralt and then they have sex:

The Last Wish (Warning this is rather long and I even tried to shorten it without removing content!!):

“You moron!” Yennefer yelled, trying to scratch out his eyes. “You bloody idiot! You stopped me! I nearly had him!”

“You had shit-all!” he shouted back, furious. “I saved your life, you stupid witch!”

She hissed like a furious cat; her palms showered sparks.

Geralt, turning his face away, caught her by both wrists and they rolled among the oysters, seaweed and crushed ice.

“Do you have an invitation?” A portly man with the golden chain of a chamberlain on his chest was looking at them with a haughty expression.

“Screw yourself!” screamed Yennefer, still trying to scratch Geralt's eyes out.

“The wish, Geralt! Hurry up! What do you desire? Immortality? Riches? Fame? Power? Might? Privileges? Hurry, we haven't any time!” He was silent

“Humanity,” she said suddenly, smiling nastily. “I’ve guessed, haven't I? That's what you want; that's what you dream of! Of release, of the freedom to be who you want, not who you have to be. The djinn will fulfill that wish, Geralt. Just say it.”

He stayed silent.

She stood over him in the flickering radiance of the wizard's sphere, in the glow of magic, amidst the flashes of rays restraining the djinn, streaming hair and eyes blazing violet, erect, slender, dark, terrible…

And beautiful.

All of a sudden she leaned over and looked him in the eyes. He caught the scent of lilac and gooseberries.

“You're not saying anything,” she hissed. “So what is it you desire, witcher? What is your most hidden dream? Is it that you don't know or you can't decide? Look for it within yourself, look deeply and carefully because, I swear by the Force, you won't get another chance like this!”

But he suddenly knew the truth. He knew it. He knew what she used to be. What she remembered, what she couldn't forget, what she lived with. Who she really was before she had become a sorceress.

Her cold, penetrating, angry and wise eyes were those of a hunchback. He was horrified. No, not of the truth. He was horrified that she would read his thoughts, find out what he had guessed. That she would never forgive him for it. He deadened that thought within himself, killed it, threw it from his memory forever, without trace, feeling, as he did so, enormous relief. Feeling that—

The ceiling cracked open. The djinn, entangled in the net of the now fading rays, tumbled right on top of them, roaring, and in that roar were triumph and murder lust. Yennefer leapt to meet him. Light beamed from her hands. Very feeble light.

The djinn opened his mouth and stretched his paws toward her.

The witcher suddenly understood what it was he wanted.

And he made his wish.

... (time skip)

Yennefer, slightly flushed, knelt by him, resting her hands on her knees.

“Witcher.” She cleared her throat. “Are you dead?”

“No.” Geralt wiped the dust from his face and hissed.

Slowly, Yennefer touched his wrist and delicately ran her fingers along his palm. “I burnt you—”

“It's nothing. A few blisters—”

“I’m sorry. You know, the djinn's escaped. For good.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Not much.”

“Good. Help me up, please.”

“Wait,” she whispered. “That wish of yours…I heard what you wished for. I was astounded, simply astounded. I’d have expected anything but to…What made you do it, Geralt? Why…Why me?”

“Don't you know?”

She leaned over him, touched him. He felt her hair, smelling of lilac and gooseberries, brush his face and he suddenly knew that he'd never forget that scent, that soft touch, knew that he'd never be able to compare it to any other scent or touch. Yennefer kissed him and he understood that he'd never desire any lips other than hers, so soft and moist, sweet with lipstick. He knew that, from that moment, only she would exist, her neck, shoulders and breasts freed from her black dress, her delicate, cool skin, which couldn't be compared to any other he had ever touched. He gazed into her violet eyes, the most beautiful eyes in the world, eyes which he feared would become…

Everything. He knew.

“Your wish,” she whispered, her lips very near his ear. “I don't know whether such a wish can ever be fulfilled. I don't know whether there's such a Force in Nature that could fulfill such a wish. But if there is, then you've condemned yourself. Condemned yourself to me.”

He interrupted her with a kiss, an embrace, a touch, caresses and then with everything, his whole being, his every thought, his only thought, everything, everything, everything. They broke the silence with sighs and the rustle of clothing strewn on the floor.

They broke the silence very gently, lazily, and they were considerate and very thorough. They were caring and tender and, although neither quite knew what caring and tenderness were, they succeeded because they very much wanted to. And they were in no hurry whatsoever. The whole world had ceased to exist for a brief moment, but to them, it seemed like a whole eternity.

And then the world started to exist again; but it existed very differently.

“Geralt?”

“Mmm?”

“What now?”

“I don't know.”

“Nor do I. Because, you see, I…I don't know whether it was worth condemning yourself to me. I don't know how—Wait, what are you doing…? I wanted to tell you—”

“Yennefer…Yen.”

“Yen,” she repeated, giving in to him completely. “Nobody's ever called me that. Say it again.”

“Yen.”

“Geralt.”

The Show:

[Yennefer and Geralt portal into the room inside the manor, where they first met.]

Geralt: Yennefer? [He gets to his knees and shifts the hair of her face.] Yennefer. It’s me… Geralt.

Yennefer: [She opens slowly her eyes, shoves Geralt away and rises.] I know who you are. What did you do? You stopped me, didn’t you? I nearly had it.

Geralt: You had shit all. I saved your life.

Yennefer: And I saved yours! You let the djinn escape. Who knows what havoc it’ll wreak now that it has no vessel at all?

Geralt: No more havoc than you. Djinns are only dark creatures when held captive.

Yennefer: How can you be so sure?

Geralt: When did you last feel happy when you felt trapped? And if you were going to portal us to safety, you could’ve taken us out of this shit town!

Yennefer: A fine critique if you could make a portal yourself. And it wasn’t a shit town, it was a fine town till you came along. I had a plan!

Geralt: [chuckles] And that was going swimmingly!

Yennefer: It was. Like a drowning fish. [They kiss and begin to have sex.]

I tried to keep it short here, but the show combined multiple scenes from the book here. I do love the fact that they kept the shit-all line, it’s a favorite. Of course, many people have likely noticed the HUGE difference between the show and books. In the books, Yennefer knows what the wish is and she’s aware Geralt tied their destinies together.

The show keeps Yennefer in the dark about the wish (likely as a way to manufacture tension on the mountain and have it be dramatic tm) and this just further places her as the not-dominant one in comparison to Geralt. I will also say I love how in the books, Geralt gets a flashback through Yennefer’s past and her trauma. It would have been interesting to see that in the show.

This final scene suffers so much in the show by being so shortened. We don’t see Yennefer and Geralt have a long conversation about the consequences of the wish or what they might do next, they just exchange a few lines about the Djinn which makes the sex scene seem more sudden than in the books.

Of course, I will give props to the actors for the sexual tension they are able to generate in just a few lines as they move closer to each other (granted this tension is ruined as soon as the music starts playing and Jaskier shows up, making the sex scene humorous instead of impactful).

The last lines in the book passage where Yennefer asks Geralt to call her Yen just breaks my damn heart and I would do anything to have seen it in the show. The way the books showcase two very traumatized people finally finding each other is just so lovely and I don’t understand the directing decision to have the tone of the scene switch so quickly in the show from serious and impactful to light. It takes away a lot from the characters.

In the end, the show has Yennefer in a less dominant position in the books and also has her act younger in a sense. This could be due to the actor’s age difference or Hollywood’s allergy to dominant women but despite this, the actors bring a lot of chemistry to the screen (especially in the first meeting/bath scenes).

I would have liked the show to give Yennefer more agency in regards to the wish, especially considering that is her character arc in the show, but I did appreciate how many scenes paralleled each other and I believe at the end of the day, the show was able to preserve enough of Yenralt to make it a believable pairing in the show and I can see them improving the dynamic they have already established throughout the first season in season 2.

#I mean it's sure as fuck better than the bastardization of Yenralt that is the games #shit she isn't even in the first game #and appears in the second one through flashbacks #and also the games imply that the wish changed Yennefer's feelings for Geralt which is NOT TRUE IN THE BOOKS AT ALL #and also just the fact that the games make Geralt the gruff batman type when he is nothing of the sort in the books #and the show plays into so many of these macho-man stereotypes too #and the way the games have Yennefer ENCOURAGE Geralt to take Ciri to Emhyr #just everything about the Empress Ciri ending #and the games not having the ending of Lady of the Lake just ignores and spits in theface of everything the books were trying to show #like the show has its problems but at least there's hope for redemption #the games just has Yennefer and Triss fighting over Geralt for no reason #and the fact that Ciri never calls Yennefer her mother in the games #argh the show better not fuck up Ciri and Yen's relationship #honestly Yennefer in the games never strays beyond her Last Wish characterization and we NEVER see the growth that is seen in the books #which is quite annoying because Yennefer in the Last Wish is still cruel in many ways #she needs to grow and learn #and she does that through raising Ciri #which the games IGNORE #they keep Yennefer as cruel and heartless in many ways #but the whole point of Yennefer is that raising Ciri allowed her to open her heart #of course if Yennefer was kind in the games they couldn't put her against Triss as much #haha if u can't tell I have some...problems with Yen's portrayal in the games...#the witcher #Yennefer #geralt #yenralt #the Witcher netflix #the Witcher books #myposts #meta

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innocentbi-stander · 4 years

Note

Can you do demigod jaskier? But this time he is the son of Hecate?

@localhalfvampire I need to preface this by saying you’re an absolute GENIUS

Demigod jaskier, but son of Hecate has so much untapped potential and I’m LIVING for it

A jaskier who has magic, who hides himself from detection by using his abilities to manipulate the Mist that shields demigods from discovery from the rest of the world (he shivers to think of what sorcerers like that bastard Stregobor would do if they realized that demigods, sources of pure godly power and ability were walking about the Continent, free to manipulate)

Obviously children of Hecate possess an innate talent for magic, each level of magical ability depending on the child, but nobody, not even Hecate herself, had been prepared for the unintentional powerhouse that is jaskier

And how fitting is it that the person who would care about ability levels the least ends up the most powerful child of Hecate to walk the Continent since Circe herself?

Jaskier was brought to camp at a young age, his noble father unwilling to deal with the baby of his one night stand with a goddess

He is raised amongst demigods and taught to defend himself and defend others from the monsters that plague the children of the gods

A sword is placed in his hand as soon as he is strong enough to grasp it, he learns to throw daggers with deadly accuracy, to shoot arrows at a target blindfolded

For all that jaskier is taught to be fierce, and witty, to speak gracefully with a silver tongue, there is nothing he picks up faster than magic

Magic to jaskier is like breathing, for he was born from the goddess of magic herself, it is woven into every piece of his being

Hecate is a tough parent, and she believes in challenging her children and their abilities, and so it is no wonder when jaskier leaves camp to explore the world on his own, though he visits often

And then jaskier meets geralt and the rest is history

He spends twenty years chasing after the witcher (and though twenty years is not really a blink in the eye of an immortal demigod such as jaskier, that still matters) , there’s many hunts and contracts, aftermaths of jaskier stitching up geralt and lying about where he learned to sew skin so neatly

There’s evenings spent by the campfire, playing his lute and trying to ignore the way the firelight dances in geralt’s amber eyes

There’s laughs in taverns after a bit too much to drink, there’s lute strings tucked into his bag and no word of where they came from (though he knows), apples for Roach amongst complaints of destroying her diet, doublets ruined by days in the wilderness, and geralt’s barely there smile when jaskier produces honey cakes ‘given’ to him by the local baker

There’s inns, and shared rooms, then shared beds, and shared baths closer than close, and then there’s the djinn, and yennefer, and growing apart bit by bit

Jaskier possesses some of the greatest magic in the world, and there’s nothing he can do except watch the love of his life pick someone else over and over again and pretend not to be slowly falling apart

And then the mountain

Jaskier is alone for a little bit after that, wandering aimlessly

He travels across the Continent, killing monsters that the rest of the world can’t even see, wiping yellow sulphur dust from his hands and wishing he was somewhere else

Jaskier visits camp and stays there for a while, but no matter how many times he comes back jaskier is a traveler at heart and never stays for long

Not far past the borders of camp, at a nearby village, jaskier learns that nilfgaard has been looking for him

He can’t bring himself to be even remotely surprised then when he’s ambushed on the path a day later

The first few parties of soldiers are easily dispatched with the use of his sword and daggers, but then at some point nilfgaard realizes that the ‘harmless’ bard has teeth and sends a small army

Jaskier really should have laid low and hid himself amongst the Mist ages ago, but he’s never been one for hiding (and frankly he’s a little bit insulted that nilfgaard seems to have thought him so easy to defeat and resolves to knock them down a few pegs)

Unbeknownst to the demigod/bard/whatever the hell else he is right now, there’s been a rather frantic witcher accompanied by a witch and a princess that have been searching for him for ages, following the trail of bloody groups of soldiers

Geralt hears of the army sent after his bard and reacts first with confusion on why an army is needed to take down one human man, and then feels blind panic. Rather hysterically, as he’s shoving his, yennefer, and ciri’s things into roach’s saddlebags, is the thought, he’s going to tear them apart

Which really makes no sense given that jaskier is fucking human, but geralt has always felt something off about him, something bigger, and regardless of that he’s seen jaskier’s more feral side and is comforted slightly by the thought that jaskier is hardly the type to go down without a wicked fight

Yennefer is less reassured by this information (your bard is going to get torn apart, not the other way around!) and ushers them off immediately

When they reach the clearing where whispers of nilfgaardian soldiers has lead them, there is an entire small army present, at at the other side in the most bizarre looking fashion, is jaskier

He stands alone, but he does not look afraid

Jaskier faces the army of nilfgaardian soldiers, his doublet a shade of midnight blue, sword in hand, and a fierce look in his eyes that for some reason sends chills down geralt’s spine

He assesses the army, silent and calculating, finding something that nobody else can see

The captain of the army shouts an order and the men charge forward, a smirk reaches jaskier’s lips

The army’s movement sparks geralt into action, what is he doing just fucking standing there, and he unsheathes his sword to somehow help his bard

But then there is a well manicured hand on his arm and a spell stopping his feet from moving farther, and geralt looks to yennefer to ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing and pauses at the curious look in her eye

“Wait” she mumbles to him, brow furrowed, “Something isn’t right”

And geralt turns back to the battlefield and jaskier’s eyes are glowing

Jaskier sees the army charging forward and it takes everything in him not to laugh. They are fools, every single one of them

Jaskier whispers a quick prayer to the gods for luck (even though he doesn’t need it), and lets his magic explode

When the screams fade and there is nothing in the clearing but ash and blood drying in the dirt, jaskier wills his magic to return to his body

He scrubs at a little spot of blood that had managed to stain his sleeve, a new doublet at that, and considers maybe it is time to hide amongst the Mist, if not to save his poor beautiful clothing

The snap of a twig interrupts his musings and brings jaskier to alert, the hum of his magic singing through his veins, hands at the ready

Jaskier goes deadly still when across the clearing he spies two ghosts from his past, one of them with a rather unflattering look of shock across his face, and the other looking way too pleased with herself

When they both start to make their way to him, jaskier debates on whether he still has enough energy in him to shadow travel, anything to make a speedy getaway and the fuck away from this horrible confrontation

He raises his hands , willing the shadows to lengthen and warp, ignoring the persistence dizziness and figuring there’s no better way to find out than to try, only to be stopped by a sharp, “don’t even think about it bard”

His response is instant and without hesitation, “who the fuck made you the boss of me? If I want to get the hell away from here I’m very well going to, I don’t give fuck all what you’ve got to say about it”

Yennefer’s eyes narrowed and she snatched one of his hands, still shaking with overexertion. “I think your hands tell a different story, you’re exhausted.”

“Yes, well defeating armies will do that to anyone I suppose”, Jaskier reclaimed his hand and tried to ignore the fact that geralt had yet to do anything but stare

Purple eyes examined him carefully, “You never told me you had magic”

Jaskier laughed, a hollow sound even to his own ears, “I don’t really, not your kind. It’s a long story”

“Then you’ll have plenty of time to tell us when we get to Kaer Morhen”, at last, the White wolf had spoken and unsurprisingly jaskier liked absolutely none of what he had to say

He sputtered, and he was sure his cheeks were turning that infuriating shade of red they always assumed when he was particularly pissed off, “I’m not going with you anywhere!”

Geralt turned to the bard, focusing on him with an intensity that jaskier before the mountain would have killed to receive “Nilfgaard isn’t going to stop. They want Ciri. The armies will keep getting bigger and bigger, until whatever fucking powers you have aren’t enough”

Jaskier scoffed, crossing his arms across his chest “I can handle myself”

Something in Geralt’s eyes softened “I know you can. But you don’t, shouldn’t, have to. Come with us. Just for the winter. Then you can go wherever you want. Please”

There was a long moment between them, amber and blue staring into each other’s depths. Jaskier didn’t know what to think. It had been made clear on the mountain that the witcher didn’t give a damn about jaskier, and jaskier wasn’t big on wasting his time in places he wasn’t wanted. His heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

But geralt had never pleaded with him like that, never said please. There was a desperation in his eyes that jaskier had never seen before and without his permission he felt his heart melt a little. What was one winter?

“Fine.” jaskier spoke carefully, trying to ignore the small smile that formed on geralt’s face. “I’ll come for the winter. But after that I’m leaving and I’ll be out of your life for good”

Jaskier hadn’t forgiven Geralt. He was owed an apology, and a thousand other things. Yennefer was still a bitch, and he had no idea how geralt’s brothers and mentor would react to a demigod in their midst. But jaskier was lonely, and tired of being on his own, and as much as he hated it there was a part of him that had desperately missed his witcher, no matter how much he had hurt him.

It was just one winter, right?

He’d figure it out….. somehow

_______________

That went in an entirely different direction than I was originally intending, but the story just got away from me... I hope you enjoyed!

What do you think folks, worthy of a part 2?

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mittensmorgul · 3 years

Note

Hi Mittens! Happy holidays! I love your meta and I had a question: I've seen you make a couple posts about Miracle lately, and while I'm definitely angry at canon replacing Cas with a dog, I was kind of taken aback at some of your comments about Dean and dogs (specifically how much you seem to hate that combination; I've never felt strongly about it one way or the other). Do you have a tag or post about your feelings on Dean and dogs? Or could you explain in a little more detail, please?

Hi hi!

Dean... has never been associated positively with dogs on this show-- up to and including that scene in Scoobynatural where he does the SCOOBYDOOBYDOOOOO! and Cas rolls his eyes and tells him flat out he’s not a talking dog. I mean, even in one of Sam’s heaven memories, he’s effectively replaced Dean with a dog... so while Dean was being implied-harshly-punished by John for “losing” Sam, Sam had been having the time of his life with a dog instead... Sorry, I’ve got a lot of resentment for dog symbolism in the show...

Cas has also been associated with dogs in a lot of... let’s go with derogatory comments, and since this dog in the finale was SPECIFICALLY a replacement for Cas in Dean’s life... I find it particularly insulting, you know?

5.14: We get dog comments about Cas and Dean both in this ep. Famine refers to Cas as Dean’s dog... “You sicced your dog on me, I threw him a steak.” And we see Cas crouched on the ground eating meat. Earlier in this ep, Sam teased Dean about his lack of any “appetite” for anything with the comment, “when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.“

7.21: after being banished, he reappears at a dog track, where the dogs were unhappy. so... Cas was basically just another unhappy dog in this part of the story.

10.22: Rowena compares Cas to a “dog who thinks he’s people” for being an angel who rejected heaven and chose his family with the Winchesters.

10.23-11.03: Cas is literally under a spell referred to as “Attack Dog,” which he fights against but is slowly turning him into a killing machine. He seeks help from Heaven, but they only want to use him, to torture information out of him and then kill him once they get what they want. It’s implied he even kills a dog in 11.01.

11.06: when Cas is in the bunker still suffering from trauma related to the attack dog spell, lying in bed and watching tv, he changes the channel to a news story about a dog riding a skateboard, and the newscaster uses Rowena’s line from 10.22: “Aw, that dog thinks it’s people!”

12.19: Lucifer refers to Cas as the Winchesters’ “purse dog,” and s12 is littered with dog references, especially between Lucifer and Crowley (which started back in s11 when Lucifer was using Cas’s vessel and treating Crowley like a dog... there’s a lot of negative baggage attached to dogs on this show)

13.16: Scooby is obviously the one dog Dean’s okay with, having positive childhood associations with him. But when comparing themselves to the scooby gang, Sam says they don’t have a talking dog, and Dean replies that Cas is sort of like a talking dog... which is interesting because at the end of the episode Cas tells Dean he’s NOT a talking dog. And this, in a scene that was directly foreshadowing Dean becoming Michael’s suit...again, more negative baggage for both of them.

The Dean vs Dogs imagery really kicks in when Dean’s soul is destined for Hell in s3, though.

3.10: In his rant to his dream self, Dream!Dean accuses Dean of being as “mindless and obedient as an attack dog,” just a few lines before he gives the “daddy’s blunt little instrument” line that Cas reminded us of in 15.18. So I do think this is something that the writers couldn’t possibly have been unaware of in invoking that specific line and the specific baggage attached to it.

3.11, one of the MANY deaths Dean suffers is from a seemingly nice dog he tries to pet in a friendly manner. The nice golden retriever mauls him to death, like the hellhounds are due to do to him in just a few short episodes...

3.16: literally torn apart by hellhounds... don’t know how else to make it clear that Dean Is Not A Fan of this.

4.06: suffering from Ghost Sickness, and being magically forced to experience heightened levels of fear, he runs from a lil Yorkie with a bow in its hair, pausing only long enough to warn another person on the street to run before it kills them. We are invited to see how his biggest fear-- of Lilith, of being tortured in Hell, and having been dragged there by hellhounds-- is literally tied to his feelings toward actual dogs, including nonthreatening little lap dogs.

6.01: When Dean falls under the djinn’s spell, he hallucinates an unseen monster, presumably something akin to a hellhound, but when he thinks he’s caught the monster, it’s the neighbor’s Yorkie. Just like in 4.05, Dogs, Hellhounds, and Things Dean Fears In His Soul are all tangled up together.

6.08: aka that one episode I forget exists until it comes back around on the loop (actually I don’t forget it exists anymore, I’ve seen the show too many times at this point, but meh...). But it does plant this fear, that any dog anywhere might not really be a dog. The “sleeper cell” skinwalker packs in cities all over the world? Yeah, not a happy thought for someone who really doesn’t like dogs. Or at the very least has a low-key fear of them.

7.15: I would qualify this one as just “symbolism,” but since this episode is full of anvils, it feels legit to mention that the spell Jeffrey uses to summon his demon back to him involves using Dean’s blood and a dog’s heart. Not really a dean/fear thing, but Dean AS a dog-- and a sacrificed dog at that.

8.01: When Dean gets back from Purgatory, he gets in the Impala and smells dog. Bringing on the famous rule that he’s quite angry about Sam having clearly violated even when he wasn’t on the same plane of existence at the time-- No dogs in the car. He’s still clearly not a fan. Early s8 becomes a long string of “Sam hit a dog” comments, too.

8.15: for all this episode’s grossness, it does remind us over and over again that Dean really does not like dogs. Even flat out having Dean say he likes dogs, and the woman who literally is a dog familiar tells him that no, he doesn’t.

9.05: Dean... is basically a dog. He bonds with the Colonel a bit, even identifies with the dog while he’s under the spell, but all that good will that built up between them effectively shatters again with the ominous last words he gets before the spell wears off and the knowledge that dogs were not created to be man’s best friend, but had some other-- and in this context seemingly sinister-- purpose.

And then we have every other ep that deals with Hellhounds, Dean’s failure to kill one leading to Sam taking on the trials instead of him, tied up in their mutual discussion of what they see as their respective futures-- Sam wants to live, and he wants Dean to live, too, instead of Dean constantly running toward death and self-sacrifice. So like, these themes are all tied up together, and makes all the dog stuff incredibly not fun when it comes to Dean specifically.

So when Dean does lose Cas-- and everyone else on the planet-- the dog being the ONE living being they’ve found, Dean picking her up and putting her in “Cas’s place” in the car, only to have Chuck snap her away like she was a manipulative trick the entire time? Not even really real, just one more thing to give Dean a tiny bit of hope only to maliciously snatch it away again?

And then for the SINGLE thing Dean asked for from Chuck being to bring Cas back?

And then he doesn’t get Cas back, but apparently kidnaps this random dog instead?

It’s just... indescribably weird to me, and so entirely out of character and insulting to Cas on top of it all. Like this was the only happiness Dean was allowed after saving the universe. No found extended family, no life outside of Sam and hunting, no dream of retiring and finding a beach to sink his toes in the sand for a little while. He just gets a dog, which he canonically doesn’t like and has a lot of issues with for entirely understandable reasons. So like.. .how is this cute or happy or nice?

#dean vs dogs #spn 15.20 #i'm sorry the dog thing is just making me irrationally angry on dean's behalf but dammit it's just gross to me #Anonymous

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themissourireview · 2 years

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I’m back with the rest of our staff’s picks for #TheMissouriReview ‘s #NationalReadingMonth, this time, just in order. Hope you enjoy!

16. “Love Poem as Eye Examination” by Victoria Chang. Her quote: “I wrote a poem ruminating on an eye doctor visit, and since I’ve struggled to write love poems on many occasions, I decided to work backwards and make the poem a love poem. This process helped me to write a love poem, although in the end, like many of my poems, there’s an acidic strain that runs through the spine of the poem.”

17. “Love Letter to Flavor Flav” by Marcus Wicker. This poem—equal parts playful and poignant—was born out of the writer’s ambivalent feelings toward the titular pop culture icon: “I’ve always been troubled by my own willingness to accept Flavor Flav as an important popular icon. As a former member of Public Enemy, he operated like nightly lubricant for the group’s straight ahead politics; but one can’t deny, he’s a bit painful to watch. When Flav still had his VH1 reality show, I tuned in every week to watch him parade around a mansion, announcing his wild-ass presence in the world of my living room. Admittedly, I think that’s kind of dumb. But also kind of cool, and maybe honest.”

18. “The Wall” by Emma Törzs. In this 2015 Jeffrey E. Smith Prize-winning fiction, set in contemporary Israel, a young Jewish woman seeks to bridge the divide between life and death as she mourns the loss of her brother. 19. “Swarf.” In this essay, Tyler Keevil writes about an accident and ensuing medical emergency during a fraught time of global recession.

20. A Poem of the Week from 2010 titled “Noli Me Tangere.” The poet, Traci Brimhall, said that the poem came from “a desire for absolution.” She felt guilty for helping with animal studies despite the fact that “helping to catch endangered frogs for future study meant that there would be hope for the species….”

21. “Motherland” by Min Jin Lee was awarded our William Peden Prize in fiction when Judge Alice McDermott selected the piece as our best-of-volume fiction for that year.

22. The story pulls you in from the very beginning—or, more accurately, from the title itself. “How to Kill Gra’ Coleman and Live to Tell about It (Vauxhall, NJ, c. 1949)” by Kim Coleman Foote is partially born out of the author’s exploration of her own family history, which she later described to TMR’s editors. In my first semester interning at #TMR, I read this piece with classmates. It’s killer.

23. An excerpt from Alethea Black’s memoir, You’ve Been So Lucky Already. In this piece, titled “A Place in the World,” the narrator explores the aftermath of grief while navigating through a world that’s changed overnight.

24. The poem of the week from last May, “he doesn’t flirt with me, he just texts me love poems,” by Zain Murdock. In the author’s note, Murdock described how emotional honesty factored into the poem: “This poem was really the first time I allowed myself to write about love in a way that didn’t make me feel ashamed.”

25. “Serpentine,” an essay by Ember Johnson. In this piece, which was a finalist for the 2018 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, Johnson masterfully evokes tension and anguish through her poignant exploration of her experience as a military wife and widow, offering a unique perspective on the burden of carrying on alone.

26. “A Djinn Hums in Sakhnin” by Tarik Dobbs. The poem, which he wrote “frantically on [his] airplane home,” includes reflections on his Muslim faith.

27. “Heart-Scalded” by Daphne Kalotay. In this story, a terminally ill woman attends a party where she knows she’ll have to brave a fraught encounter with her ex. In this narrative of emotional pain and acceptance, we find intimations of magic—and mortality.

28. “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” by Jennifer Anderson. This raw portrait of Anderson’s experiences providing “diversional activities” for nursing-home patients was a 2012 Editor’s Prize finalist in nonfiction.

29. “Actaeon,” by Kelly Weber. On the origin of the poem, Weber said, “When I started writing about my personal experiences as an aroace woman, I turned to the myth of Artemis as a model. What I found compelling about the story of Actaeon and Artemis is how it differed from other myths like that of Daphne, for example, who becomes a tree to escape Apollo. In the Actaeon story, it’s not Artemis who must change but Actaeon. His entire way of being in the world must fundamentally shift, putting the burden of change and responsibility for his actions back on him instead of the one he gazes upon.” This one’s up next on my list, as I’m studying Ovid this semester.

30. A 2021 Poem of the Week, “Not an Ode to April 22nd, 2019,” by Gisselle Yepes. On the poem’s craft, Yepes explained, “This poem is one, too, that thinks with the anaphora, the litany in Aracelis Girmay’s poem, ‘Here,’ as it thinks with and revels in rupture, in grief, in noticing how we, Afro-diasporic people(s), more specifically Puerto Ricans, grieve, smoke, love, yell, wail, weep, and silence.”

31. A historical persona poem by David Mura titled, “A Soldier of The 100th: The Lost Battalion.” To provide some historical context, Mura explained: the 100th battalion “was part of the 442nd regiment, the most decorated unit in Europe [during World War II], and was made up of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland; the families of the latter were imprisoned in internment camps during the war and deprived of their rights as citizens.” We hope you’ll take the time to read this powerful piece.

Find them at https://www.missourireview.com/

#literature #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #poems #themissourireview #tmr #reading #national reading month

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kalinara · 4 years

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It does occur to me that episode 5 of the Witcher is possibly my favorite in terms of interpersonal dynamics. Specifically for Yennefer and Geralt.

It’s always tricky when we’re dealing with a limited series, with one episode per short story (and not even the full episode, really), to establish strong relationships of the sort that tie the narrative together. This is especially the case for Yen and Geralt, since its their relationship and its push and pull that’s so very important in the novels and the games. (Even if you go the other romantic path, it’s still incredibly significant.)

But overall, I think that episode 5 (and episode 6 after that) do a surprisingly good job with the set up.

A lot of the relationship dynamic between Yennefer and Geralt is set up with what came before. I joked about how the juxtaposition of Geralt’s interest at Calanthe’s torture threat and Yen’s “I *inflict* pain” are the show’s unsubtle way of showing how compatible they are. But honestly, it’s kind of true. If you look at the relationships set up at the very beginning: Geralt and Renfri, Yennefer and Istredd, we start to see how the two can fit together. Yennefer doesn’t play at being anything other than she is. Geralt (with one exception) doesn’t judge her ambition or lust for power.

I think for people looking for a conventional romance, episode five might seem more than a little lacking. But Yennefer and Geralt aren’t really a conventional romance. They’re a kinky romance. Their initial give and take is more about the exchange of power than it is sweet words and candlelight.

The moment they meet, in the middle of the orgy, the power dynamics are already visibly in play. He’s out of armor, disarmed, asking for help and bringing apple juice of all things. She’s gowned and masked, domme chic, lounging in what might as well be a throne. She’s standing above him as they meet and slowly descends as they speak. She sets the terms, he accepts.

Then there’s the bath. He’s naked, in plain sight, while she stalks around him appreciatively. She lowers herself into the bath, but only after making him turn his back. She shifts the mirror so he can’t see. He doesn’t seem to mind that at all.

It gets really interesting though when he mocks her transformation: what was her flaw? A clubbed foot? Split ends? That’s the moment that Yennefer freezes up. And I don’t think it’s because she was offended. I think it has to do with the way Yennefer sees her transformation. Because Yennefer’s transformation was never really about fixing her physical flaws. If you recall the beginning of episode 3, Yennefer’s big complaint was that she had no idea what her idealized self would look like. She tells Istredd that he’s lucky: Ban Ard boys don’t have to go through the transformation at all. She’s not ashamed of her disfigurements, nor should she be. They may have made her a target for village bullies, but in Aretuza, they’ve never held her back.

Istredd accuses her of being angry that she missed her chance to be beautiful, but there’s no real indication that Yennefer was even thinking about that when she missed the ceremony. She was still focused on the damage her ancestry reveal had done to her ambition. She does choose to undergo the transformation, but as a weapon and a means for the power she wants. It’s a mask, the same as she was wearing in the orgy.

What Geralt did in that moment was say “I see that you’re wearing a mask, and I don’t really care what you’re hiding.” And that is where things shift.

She immediately drops the idea of him prostituting himself for his friend’s life (something that he finds obviously disappointing. Clearly he was enjoying the power exchange too) and goes for a more overt means of getting him out of the way. But the sexual chemistry is still there and unspoken, and she can’t completely drop the domme act: see, for example, the way she dresses him.

So then we get mind control and an almost execution. I don’t necessarily think Yen was trying to kill him there. She probably assumed he’d escape before execution (I doubt she had any idea that the one guard really wanted to “play” with a Witcher. And how fitting is it that we get those sexualized taunts in an episode that’s all kinky power exchange.). Or that Jaskier would wish them both away. Though Yen is also pretty focused on her own desires, so I’m not sure that she that she’d have felt that badly if he had died there.

But then he comes to save her. And that’s where things get really interesting. He offers her his wish, she can have whatever she actually wants if she just takes it. But she refuses. Her desire for a fertility cure has never really been about having a child. It’s about being denied something she wants. It doesn’t mean anything if someone else gives it to her. And I think she especially doesn’t want HIM to be the one to give it to her. Yennefer will always be dominant, damnit.

Then Geralt makes his wish. We don’t know what his exact wording was, but I think we know Geralt well enough to know that whatever wish he made wouldn’t have involved Yennefer falling in love with him. He’s as emphatic about choice as she is, in his own way.

But at that point their relationship has shifted again. Yennefer realizes, at least subconsciously, that this is a man who has seen her at her most power hungry. He saw her in the center of maelstrom screaming that she wanted everything. Istredd may have loved her before she was beautiful, but he found her lust for power revolting. Tissaia ridicules it. But Geralt, who saw her at her worst, experienced her at her worst, doesn’t mind it.

In fact, he trusts her enough to fall asleep in her presence. That’s got to be intoxicating for someone like Yen.

Geralt’s side of things is also interesting. (And requires a bit of future knowledge to analyze.) I think there are a few elements at work here: first, his desire to save self-destructive women is clearly what gets him back into that building after she puts him under mind control. But I don’t think that’s the point where he truly became enthralled.

I think it was seeing Yennefer at her worst actually: it was seeing her power-lust and her ambition. It was seeing how much she WANTS.

Because that’s the thing that stands out about season 1 Geralt: except maybe at the very beginning, he doesn’t seem to WANT much of anything.

Of course, he demands coin for service. But he shies away from any kind of more substantial reward. Especially if it feels like it’s undeserved. The whole reason he got a Child Surprise is because he didn’t want a reward at all. Duny had persisted and Geralt just said “fuck it, give me the next goat you have.” Geralt’s a dumbass who doesn’t appreciate destiny’s sense of humor. But he still tries like hell to refuse that gift.

He doesn’t seem to have much by way of long term physical possessions, besides that amulet. He has Roach...possibly, assuming Roach isn’t a sequence of horses under the same name. But with the way he talks to her, it’s clear that Roach (Roaches?) is a being to him, not a possession.

Geralt doesn’t seem to care about personal comfort. He rejects gifts. And the only thing we ever see him buy for himself is a night’s companionship with a sex worker.

And I think that’s not meant to be a positive thing. It’s like Geralt says in episode 6, when Yennefer asks him if he ever wanted anything else besides being a Witcher. And he says that if he had, it was too long ago to remember.

That’s heartwrenching in its own right. Kaer Morhen did such a number on him that he literally can’t imagine anything other than being a Witcher.

But it’s also even more heartwrenching after episode 8, when we do get to see a Geralt who IS young enough to want something. And we see at least some of what happened to him to change that.

And it’s sad-funny too, because early on Yennefer doesn’t believe that he went looking for a djinn just to get a good night’s sleep. But I think we’ve seen enough of Geralt to believe just that. That’s how broken he is, the closest thing he has to a “want” is sleep.

And then he meets Yennefer. Who is indeed magnificent. And she wants EVERYTHING. She’s everything he doesn’t know how to be.

And when she refuses to accept his wish for herself, she forces him to make a wish. And in that second, he does want. He wants HER. Not her love or companionship, obviously, or she’d never have been able to storm away from him in episode 6, but he still didn’t want to lose her.

It’s not a healthy relationship by any means. Not yet anyway. (Maybe Jaskier can give them a pamphlet about safe BDSM practices and teach them about safewords?) It’s not a traditionally romantic relationship at all. But I find it absolutely compelling.

And hot. I own my kinks.

#geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #yennefer x geralt #geralt x yennefer #do we have a pairing name for this?#the witcher (netflix)#beautiful of face dumb of ass #the real antihero of this opera #vengerwitch

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prairiedust · 4 years

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The Further Folklore of Supernatural

Here’s a little more folklore meta in light of how season 15 has been playing out if anyone is game. I genuinely thought that Moriah would be the end of the folklore stuff and tossed out “Folk the Author” as an “epilogue,” so this is probably less of an addendum than it is a waymarker as I try to continue to parse these themes into the last seven episodes.

Welp. *waves hands at everything* THIS is not how anyone expected 2020 to go. Things got a little bit big and I stopped thinking about Spn in light of needing that energy elsewhere. But I also don’t want this crapfest to ruin how I fan my favorite show, so here I go again. I will attempt a TL;DR, too!

If you’ve read my old “folklore” analysis here about how I think fairy tales and all their baggage fit into Supernatural season 14, you know that I believe Castiel has stepped into a Sleeping Beauty type story, and that coincidentally a few themes and symbolism from Snow White kept popping up around Dean. (I hold Sam to be a Protagonist in the modern “literary fiction” sense of the word, but emotionally, thematically, and narratively he’s always been a little inaccessible to me. I finally understood him when the death-of-the-author plot surfaced, and I’ll get to Sam eventually here. And Jack, there’s a little Jack in here, too.)

If you would rather have the TL;DR than read several thousands of words about how folklore and myth *might* be abstractly connected to an American genre show, all I can say is that I tried. The textual support is all in the folklore posts. This is as succinct a summary as I could fabricate. At least I’m not gonna talk about Sam and bricolage and freeplay! This is an almost completely theory-free post! If you don’t want to read or don’t need a refresher and just want to know how this has been working in 15, you can scroll down to “END OF TL;DR”.

So, to catch up, I’m not talking about the folklore and mythology that this show has always relied on for plot and MOTWs. I wasn’t drilling down into urban legends like Hook Man or world folk monsters like shtrigas or pishtacos. By “folklore” I mean the study of storytelling tropes and tale types that have been with us for ages. One of the many subtexts of the end of the series. I’ve been tracking this because I think it’s fun to see how fairy tale imagery and mythology might layer preconscious suggestions into the text of the show. I personally think it was loud enough to be seen easily, but more than likely viewers felt unsettled, felt cheered, or felt like they knew what was coming? I’m curious to know. Anyway.

When we found out that Kelly Kline was going to name her baby “Jack” waaaaay back in season 12, things started chiming. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack the Giant Killer. Jack Tales. Jack is a powerful Western character, sort of a cross between a noble hero and a trickster, featuring in stories that often blur lines and boundaries. He is both the poor man’s youngest son and the equal to King Arthur’s heir. Jack is both everyman and extraordinary. Jack is so cool, I wish I had more time to parse that but his qualities are not subtle in the text/subtext, anyway.

But back to my half-crack reading of seasons 14 and 15.

Once upon a time in Supernatural, there were two fairy tales being told. Both fairy tales are found all over the world and in many forms, but they all can be grouped together because they all contain shared elements of the same basic plot or shared themes, and these two in particular are sister stories. So when I mention “Sleeping Beauty,” I’m talking about lots of different versions of the folk tale, and the same for “Snow White,” which can be found in one form or another in storytelling traditions all over the place. It is both helpful and irritating that these are both Disney movies, too.

Jack makes an allusion to Sleeping Beauty in 14x03 The Scar while talking to Castiel-- it’s the kind of subtextual flash that in and of itself means little and proves nothing, but then beginning with The Scar we got three stories in a row that dealt with “sleepers” of some sort-- Lora in 14x03 doomed to die because of a witch’s spell, Stuart in 14x04 Mint Condition in a coma because of a ghost attack, and Sasha’s father in 14x05 Nightmare Logic under the spell of a clever djinn. It’s powerful subtext, like a soft light that bathes these episodes in the color of fairy tale and makes Jack’s Dramatic Swoon at the end of Optimism all the more Dramatic-- subtext amplifying the plot. Jack goes to Heaven, but is eventually cornered by the Shadow, who wants him in the Empty where he will sleep forever-- the Shadow being an entity who has claimed the husks of dead angels since their inception and thus implies a “curse” laid on Jack from the moment he came into being-- but Castiel, who is ever a thief in oh so many ways, makes a bargain with the Shadow and essentially takes over the consequences of Jack’s Sleeping Beauty story (hence my rarely used but hilarious tag “Castiel Thief of Endings.”)

Now that we know from 14x20 Moriah that the Shadow and Billie the Reaper are, if not allies, at least working together when Jack is awakened in the Empty, does that mean that Castiel’s deal is still on the table, or has that fate been thwarted? *pounds table* Was Jack’s death and Chuck’s rise as a “greater threat” in 14x20 enough to shift Castiel’s ending? It’s the kind of subtextual question that lends tension to the narrative and it’s what I am here for.

Well, speaking of thwarted expectations, Dean’s arc was being shadowed by a Snow White tale type. We all know Snow White but why don’t I sum it up anyway, since Disney messed up the folktale ending lol. Snow White is cast out of her home by her jealous stepmother (and echoes of the stepmother’s magic mirror show up in 15x02 Gods and Monsters) who sends her huntsman to kill her; the dude can’t do it and turns the girl loose in the forest instead. Snow White joins a band of outsiders who live in the forest-- in the Disney movie and the Grimms’ tale they are dwarfs, in some versions she happens upon a band of robbers-- and they love her very much and we presume she’s safe for the rest of her life; Michael mysteriously turns Dean loose to join Sam’s gathering of hunters, however we know, like Stepmom, Michael is still out there. The stepmother finds out that Snow White is actually alive and contrives to kill her herself. Eventually succeeding, Snow White appears to die and is usually laid to rest in a crystal casket/glass coffin. Her stepmother’s machinations have _stolen her agency_ (further paralleling Dean’s possession by AU!Michael.) A Handsome Prince stumbles upon Snow White, is besmitten with her, and he asks her protectors if he can have her, as one does. Leaving the Disney adaptation aside, Snow White awakens when whatever item that has caused her death-like state is dislodged (piece of apple in her throat) or removed (magic corset) or withdrawn (poisoned hairpin) by her protectors. Snow White is a story about the community of the dwarves of band of robbers or adopted family caring deeply for her, and when Dean starts making his own crystal casket, the ma’lak box, in which he will ride out eternity in tormented symbiosis with Apocalypse Michael, he has to rely on his family to help him see the plan through. However, here’s where Jack-- who is as much a chaos engine as his surrogate father Castiel if not more so-- steps in and ruins the ending. Jack smites Michael. Dean Winchester is saved. Again. To put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, Jack later destroys the ma’lek box entirely.

That was quite the surprise ending… for one of the stories.

Was the end of season 14 the end of the Sleeping Beauty theme, also?

END OF TL;DR

I quit writing about “folklore” for a while, but that doesn’t mean it stopped being a theme. It just stopped being fun to write about as the story got more and more dark, and when it transmuted into two parallel themes of “folklore” or storytelling by the people versus Death of the Author--or storytelling by a lauded authority-- and there was so much angst about the boundaries of Chuck’s powers, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy that. I did distill my thoughts about Sam’s new arc in the DotA plot, which I thought would subsume the folktale themes but hey, we still have folktales around, too. I mean, we have Sam and we have Dean, and we have two “literary” subtexts, or maybe rather two subjects about the nature of story, something that I thought was a little bit of a surprise.

Storytelling was a Feature of 15x07 Last Call, both in the sense that Lee and Dean swap new stories and tell old tales of their adventures together as they catch up, but also in the sense that we got additional “text”-- hints of a backstory where John and Dean hunted with Lee in that swampy long-ago “Stanford era,” and again we get storytelling when _Lee recounts how he ended up keeping a marid in his basement_. There is also an allusion to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights in that episode that I yelled about in a meta that I never put on the interwebs, but the “marid” is in a specific tale in many editions of that collection, and thus calls in not only a different folktale tradition but the concept of a framed/nested narrative, which I believe will be important to understanding the last episodes of the series, but that’s an aside. In 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t In Heaven, Castiel _tells Michael the story_ of how everyone ended up where they are now to convince him to help. And Michael and Adam’s allyship, if not friendship, was probably the best subversion of any “storytelling” expectation we’ve ever had on this show. Belphagor set us up for “room full of crazy” or something, but, no. We got symbiosis.

That almost sums up how I’ve been viewing the last “era” of spn. This wasn’t in the master post, but I shouted a lot about underworlds before 15x09 Purgatory 2: Return to Purgatory, and then stopped shouting because I had to ferment for a while. Also, as has been mentioned, the world turned to crap. But talking to other meta writers during the ramp up to the resumption of the season helped me realize just why this reading of myth to folktales to literature feels so right.

Underworlds and Otherworlds…. Everybody has crossed into an “underworld” or three in Supernatural, it’s really nbd. It was actually surface-level plot in season 13. By the time 15x09 rolled around, our heroes are just, like, strolling in and out of “sealed off” Hell after doing a level one spell and chilling with Billie in the Empty and even that Purgatory trip didn’t have the same feeling of danger that, say, crossing into the AU did. But also, we’re at the point where subtext is leading us to a _satisfactory_ ending. Where before we had serial text, like a cumulative tale type-- “The House that Jack Built”-- which just kept adding more and more plot, we’re hurtling o’er the apex of Freytag’s pyramid now and things are getting loud.

But they’re also getting very shifty.

I wrote a little bit about Sam Winchester successfully reviving Eileen in 15x06 Golden Time and the “Orpheus and Eurydice” symbolism of him keeping his back to her. (I’m not linking it because it’s so, so rough.) But because Sam is not an underworld hero, not completely-- I see him as a modern Protagonist coming to terms in a psychoanalytical model with things like mortality, fallibility, and mastery-- maybe bildungsroman, even -- he was able to subvert the tragic ending of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice because it is not “his” story. But if I were pressed to find a mythic or folk tale type to measure Sam against, I could. I would probably sideye “the sorcerer’s apprentice” trope (ATU 325-The Magician and his Pupil :D ) which began as a poem that entered European folklore on different fronts. (and weirdly, that story was also Disnified in Fantasia. That’s probably more my own limitation as a gen x american lol than anything coming from the writer’s room.)

Dean got his moment in Purgatory where he was able to finally come to grips with his anger and heal the rift between himself and Castiel because Purgatory is a different kind of underworld. Dean is a successful threshold-crosser, having crossed that boundary out of Purgatory before, but in 15x09, his prayer to Castiel is all a subtextual evocation of doing the emotional and mental work of therapy, which Sam, as a modern protagonist, is usually caught up in. The mythic hero also deals with mortality, failibilty, and mastery, but in different terms. I hope I’m doing an okay job peeling apart these nuances that I’m seeing.

Since Castiel accompanied Dean to Purgatory, and in the past made his own wildly successful incursion into and out of Hell with Dean’s soul, and was the one in The Trap who actually retrieved the Leviathan blossom, Castiel counts as an underworld hero, too, but you can pull the lever and send the tumblers spinning again and make him a fairy tale character in that he has made this Bargain with the Empty which is both in the “modern” tradition of subverting a fairy tale, and the tale type “deal with the devil.” Or he could be seen as a modern protagonist in that he’s lowkey grappling with questions of selfhood and identification. “I am an angel of the lord.” “I am no one.” “It’s Steve, now.” “You are nothing.” “I am an angel.”

We even got an episode that playfully explored the concept of “hero” by subverting our expectations (Sam and Dean were rescued by, of all people, an upgraded Garth.) It was called The Hero’s Journey, after the Joseph Campbell book about mythic heroes.... !!! Like, what??? !!!! I didn’t even have anything to say about that episode, it just rocked. The “meta” was just all out there in plot, like the olives and boiled eggs in a 1950’s gelatin recipe.

Some of this slipperiness in the subtext points right at the study of folklore and the (admittedly Eurocentric at first) efforts to transform a “soft science” into something approaching scientific rigor. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale index is today a codifying or cataloguing tool, with which anthropologists and literature scholars can line up stories based on the motifs found within them-- it is useful for cataloguing tales, making comparative studies, and for trying to trace these stories back through human history to find the One First Story of that type, for instance the ur-story that led to Snow White. When did people first start telling that tale, where, how did it spread, and why are we still telling it today? The danger in using the ATU index is that by stripping a story down to it’s bones, we lose the story, if that makes sense. The beauty of using the ATU index is that you find many, many more interconnected stories. It’s sort of a paradox. Some scholars criticize the ATU, claiming that one could take a random selection of these motifs and shuffle them to create a story and, you sort of could? That’s the beauty of the system.

So that brings us to Jack. I feel like Jack, as in Jack of all Trades, is anything that the narrative needs him to be. As far as I can find, “Jack” is not a “tale type.” He shows up alongside any number of them-- sometimes as a trickster, sometimes as a hero, almost always as a kind of slippery character. In the first folklore post, I invested many words in exploring Dabb’s obsession with threes-- AU Michael asks three beings what they desire, asks his human victim to guess his name three times, then we follow three sleeper stories, and so on. The original TFW was three people. But Jack makes four.

What is Jack’s story going to be?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And speaking for a sec about the origins of myth and folklore-- what about ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE in the world? Are they lowkey churning the matrix of reality on their own and generating their own content, like Becky and her AO3 stories and mackettes?

*¯\_(ツ)_/¯ intensifies*

It all just feels so good at this point, even the peril that I feel surrounding Castiel.

I *think* this will be the last of the longform metas before the end of the series. I mean, I can only hope so. I’ll drop some stuff about individual episodes that might be applicable as I rewatch, and I might clean up my post about Last Call and drop it on here, but I just wanted to kind of hold this up as a mile marker before the Final Seven air.

#the folklore of supernatural #idk even what to tag this

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toonqueen · 4 years

Text

Duckvember 2020

--Ponder--

Linking to an old playlist of mine BUT also including why I have these songs on there. Kinda fits the ponder theme okay. I’m trying I’m so behind here *SOB*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-BLrUhg7cOKMsu8bGh4CBh5C3EVXCUpy

This is my generic duck feels playlist I use when writing but I often have so many other playlists I use it's insaneeee but this is a nice beginning base until I get a feel for a story to make its own playlist haaaa.

**Joywave - Bad Dreams***

-Ominous feel that some shady end of the world stuff is happening song. One of the main things I put this song to is Magica having a premonition of something bad is going to happen. But she doesn’t have the best rep with powerful magic types and with hero types so she has to make a ragtag team willing to help her. Haaa. Mind you in my headcanon the De Spell family line started by a witch that had a really good future sight so Magica takes it seriously and I GUESS she has to like… stop the world from ending.

**M83 ft. HAIM - Holes in the Sky***

-Another ominous oh crap bad stuff is happening song wheee. I had an idea that I ended up using in a Duckverse RP of some of the alien hats from Darkwing being a different set of alien hats that were actual powerful witches. The RP I ended up having was for a parody of Hocus Pocus. What I attach this song to is where the hat set grab Magica, Gladstone, and an OC thats a powerful De Spell sibling (that's a whole other story.) That leaves Poe to defeat them save the Earth the usual. My headcanon for Poe is he cannot cast magic but has a wide knowledge of artifacts and spells. Could arm himself with some good magical artifacts. He ALSO would make a ragtag team to try to stop the 3 most powerful magic based people controlled by alien hats. That team would include Fethry and Gyro lol. Notice this song is a lot more postive than Magica’s Bad Dreams song because Poe’s being more positive about getting it done. Magica’s more ‘well we’re going to die anyways might as well TRY” and Poe is ‘ WE’RE GONNA DO THIS AND WE’RE GONNA MAKE IT OMG. Once I get over this crippling depression that I’m useless. Whee.”

**Do You Realize - Ursine Vulpine***

-Vague sad song for sad things. Main reason I had this song is for my Mighty Ducks the Animated Series headcanons for Drake Ducaine. I pretty much kill off all this family and friends in the past. You know, the war, saving stuff. SACRIFICING THEMSELVES SO HE CAN LIVE. His young daughter makes it. Am I not merciful.

**My Tears are Becoming the Sea - M83***

-Really acidy trippy sad song. Great for fighting elder gods. For my main RPing OC’s on Duckverse this goes with some scenes of their past. Other main thing I use it for is Mighty Ducks the Animated Series I have it for Wildwing’s death.. Haaaa. I kill him off in his 60’s when he has to help save the 2nd Gen team (All the kids of the first team.) Well you know. He’s like the only duck chars I kill off ‘youngish.’ I dunno why most of these story ideas came in high school FRICK.

**In A Heartbeat - In the House***

-I have loved this song from the second it was in 28 Days Later. I do not have one defined story line plot or character this goes to. I would put it on every song list I had if I felt like I could get away from it. EXCELLENT ATMOSPHERE.

**The Darkest Evening of the Year***

-Another great ominous atmosphere song. I stick this one with Gladstone but don’t put it on my actual Gladstone playlist for being too dark?!? I put it with him finding out what I headcanon the origins of his luck. AND OH BOY. I really want to give the vibe of that scene like some suspense/horror energy let me tell you.

**No Time for Caution - Hans Zimmer***

-Great like, ‘team prepares to fight a boss fight’ type music. Let's do this. We can fight an elder god. LETS GO!!!! But still that bit of dark tone like - hmmm we may not be successful. Ahhhhh.I also think of Tanya from Mighty Ducks working late fixing something or lawd taking care of a teammate gotta find a cure for something. They just gave this woman all the jobs. AGH.

**Happiness Does Not Wait - Olafur Arnalds***

-A sad yet happy tune. That mix of energy. This one I put with Grandma Duck. In my headcanon all her adult kids have since past but you know all her grandkids visit all the time. It's kinda weird that like, the whole gen in between was wiped out but uh, I have a reason plotted out for that. But you know, Grandma little sad all her kids are gone but sees them in her now adult grandkids ahhh.

**Low Gravity - Hugo Kant***

-Actually ModMad suggested this one to me when I shared this playlist with them when they made the “Over the Rainbow’ comic. Shared it because it really fit this playlist so I could not not share ahhh. Anyways. That's one of my top fav comics by Modmad, and actually in an unrelated way inspired some of the backstory for the two main OC’s I RP in Duckverse. Wheeee.

**Everything You Do is a Balloon - Boards of Canada***

-A good ominous ‘the hero has won but at what cost’ energy. This is a song I’ve had for ages and directly put to the abuse I put Drake Ducaine through. I’m so sorry. Weh. I literally have a separate playlist that is Drake Ducaine/Wildwing anxiety cuz I headcanon Wildwing the reincarnate of Drake Ducaine because of COURSE.

**Goodbye to a World - Small Dust/Porter Robinson Cover***

-I just love music like this. First used this song for Mighty Ducks because the previous life of Drake Ducaine I had be a little duck boy that showed kindness to a Saurian Goddess and she ended up taking the Duck side in whatever fight went down and well the rest is history which will I ever write a story for I dunno. And in the next life as Drake Ducaine the Goddess also reincarnated in a mortal body so they get to work together again yay. This is also one of the main themes I use for my Duck OC’s Felicity and Faustina. In RP land uh they’re from an alternate universe that got all ate up by an elder god and they were the only two survivors cuz some weird luck and magic runs in their family. Their version is a more trippy version here: https://youtu.be/HzuHAMg1Hng OH WAIT I’M WRONG THEIR MAIN THEME IS A DIFFERENT PORTER ROBINSON SONG HAAA still enjoy.

**Soldier - Fleurie***

-I use this song several times for Gladstone. Mainly for one story I DO plan to write someday I have so many parts of it done. Anyways he screws up big time and has to fix a problem while he still have luck that works on him, he needs to actually do something to solve the problem and its grueling and takes a long time and travel around the world and bad stuff just happening to those around him and AHHH. Anyways. Also a good song for Djinn in new Ducktales theres stories I have reason for his for him let me tell you someday. Ha.

**Battle Cry - Imagine Dragons***

-A great mello fight song for everything. Just. Some good shit. Heroes making sacrifices. Stuff going down. Hidden powers having to be used getting exposed but you GOTTA SAVE THE WORLD.

**Elephant Survival - Emancipator***

-A good song for villains to think about their feelings. I loved this song when I came across it. I put it to my headcanon for Negaverse Gladstone. And a little Gladstone in there too. There is a darker mix here: https://youtu.be/59A3k8tpPMI

**Do You Realize - The Flaming Lips***

-This song again but with a slight positive energy?!? Dying and seeing loved ones that passed on kinda vibe. BUT ALSO I abuse reincarnation tropes so bad. This is a good reincarnation trope song. Lawd.

**Saturn - Sleeping at Last***

-Roll Credits energy to a movie that ended not happy but not sad just the normal in between of life. There is a really good Poe De Spell short story I need to finish that makes me think of this song. I also put it to Drake Ducaine who supposedly dies of old age having saved and rebuilt Puckworld Society. That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy y’all. Also fits my abuse of reincarnate trope abuse. Also for some Djinn x Gene okay like they’re gonna adopt a lot of kids and all those kids are going to write stuff down to their kids like how Djinn writes stuff down and they’re gonna tell stories of their great great great great great grandparents Djinn and Gene forever OKAY.

Anyways, have some feels y'all.

#duckvember 2020 #duckvember #ducktales #ducktales 2017 #magica de spell #poe de spell #gladstone gander #negaverse #fethry duck #gyro gearloose #mighty ducks the animated series #wildwing #tanya vanderflock #drake ducane #drake ducaine #mdtas #duckverse

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scribblingfangirl · 4 years

Text

CHILD SURPRISE | The Witcher - Part One

not my gif!

.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.

Author’s Note: My first request! Thank you so much nonnie! I’m sorry it took me so long and I really, really hope you like and enjoy what I came up with. I’m very aware that this is mostly a shorter and changed recounting from Ep. 6 and that you’d probably wanted to see more of the aftermath, but somehow that’s where my mind went and I had to follow it. Please excuse me if I went totally against your will. I could do a part two if you wanted to? Or rewrite it?

word count: ~ 1.9k

request: Hello! Please could you write something where the reader is Geralt's child surprise (instead of Ciri) and they find out that Geralt said "I'd rather use my child surprise as bruxa bait"? Perhaps set during that mountain scene with Jaskier & Yen? 🌷

warnings: swear words, mentions of death, spoilers for Episode 6 of The Witcher

.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.

You were sitting on a bench in front of the tavern when they came back. The room you were actually supposed to wait in seemed to grow smaller by the minute and your bouncy legs were no longer satisfied with walking the same line up and down while waiting impatiently for Geralt and Jaskier to return.

You hadn’t been travelling around with them for long. As the daughter of a common farmer, you would’ve never travelled with them, but there was that little and annoying law of surprise. Once claimed, the law was inevitable. And well, long story short, your father had been saved by Geralt and kind of insisted on the law as repayment. They then parted ways and Geralt said that he’d come to get was is rightly his. A few years later their paths crossed again and Geralt met his child surprise. You.

You quickly jumped up as you saw them in the distance, running towards them. “What happened? And who are they?” you asked curiously, pointing at an old man, you’d later know him as Borch, and his two female warrior companions.

While Geralt gave you an angry look, otherwise completely ignoring you as he passed, Jaskier hooked your arm in his and pulled you with him. “Nothing a kid like you has to be concerned about,” he said as you both followed the others into the tavern, “but there might be a story coming up.”

x-x

And what a story it would be. You were off to a dragon hunt! You couldn’t believe it! And so the race to the mountaintop began. It was actually a rather pleasant adventure if one forgets about the death of that hirikka creature and Sir Eyck. Having other people around you meant that you didn’t have to spend time with Geralt or better, he didn’t have to spend time watching your every move. Jaskier, however, he probably should have.

“We’ll watch each other’s backs until we reach the next peak, then every man for himself. What say ye?” the dwarf leader asked Borch.

“Let’s go.”

“Go on. I’ll catch up,” Geralt said in your direction, but looked solely at Jaskier and then followed the mage called Yennefer.

You had yet to get properly introduced to her, but you’d seen the glances she had thrown you over the camping fire and during your travels. Each time it felt like cold water running over your back and it was as if your blood turned to ice. “Quick question, do we like her?” you asked Jaskier as you watched Geralt walk away, following his instructions and walking behind the dwarfs.

“I don’t.”

x-x

“Yeah, you’re right, this is a shortcut… do death!” Jaskier exclaimed as he leaned slightly around the curve, glancing warily at the wooden pathway.

“We should turn back,” Geralt said behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder, “This is not a place for a little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl!” shaking off his hand you stomped up to Jaskier, following his glance, “I’m not afraid of heights!”

“You heard the girl.” Yennefer grinned and for the first time, her smile was full of warmth and encouragement. The ice in her eyes gone.

“See ya on the other side!” the dwarfs yelled as they passed you and started walking along the floating wooden path.

“Yeah, yeah, yes,” Jaskier mumbled to himself and then turned around to you, “Ladies first then?” But before you could say something Yennefer had already pushed him in front of you, urging him to go on.

Everything that happened afterwards was a blur to you. The adrenalin that rushed through your veins and your beating heart the only memory of the horrible accident. You didn’t see how Borch lost his footing, only heard Jaskier scream. The wooden path vibrated dangerously under you and let him push you against his chest.

“Geralt! The planks won’t hold!” Yennefer shouted as another vibration went through the wood, more planks loosening up under your feet. And then you heard Jaskier gasp and Yennefer sigh sadly.

x-x

You were sitting beside Geralt on the stone, overlooking the beautiful yet tragic view, still shaking due to the aftershock.

“Here,” Jaskier wrapped you in a blanket as he took a seat beside you, stroking your back soothly while he turned to Geralt. “You did your best,” he said in the most calming voice he could muster, “There’s nothing else you could have done.”

The wind blew while he waited for Geralt’s response and his hand left your back to join his other one in his lap, as you heard him breathe out. “Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow? We could head to the coast. Get away for a while. A little bit of sea salt never hurt a child.”

Yet again Geralt didn’t say anything, just kept staring into the distance. You three, probably a very unique looking bunch, stayed there in silence, basking in the last sun rays of the dying sun. Then Geralt stood up without a word, making his way to Yennefer’s tent on top of your own resting place.

“Come on,” Jaskier whispered, embracing you, “Let’s get you to bed.”

x-x

The next morning you were awoken by a bird cry. You were laying back to back with Jaskier, sharing the blankets as it got cold during the night. Heaving yourself into an upright position, you realised that you were alone. “Jask? Jask!” you woke him up, nudging his side, “Where are the other ones?”

Jaskier lifted his head with a snort. “Uh,” blinking he looked around confused, sniffed and sat up as well. Then he stood up, still a little bit stiff from sleeping and walked around the camping site. “Geralt? Dwarfs?”

“Well thank you, I could’ve done that myself.”

“Alright, but thanks to me you see the dwarfs over there though,” he said as he pointed to your left and in the distance, you saw little tiny black dots lined up along a path.

“They’re not moving though. You sure-”

“Yes, let’s go!”

x-x

You had laughed at the dwarfs as you passed them. “Are we… queuing for something?” Jaskier had asked. The moment you and Jaskier had seen the scene in front of you, you started to run.

“Oh fuck!” Jaskier quickly turned around to you, a shocked expression on his face. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Really?! Dead bodies everywhere, an old man fell to his death and that’s what you think about?!”

“I’m panicking, okay?! Let me!”

“Yeah, whatever. What hell happened?”

x-x

A lot, apparently. Not that anybody would tell you, or Jaskier for that matter. You were sitting with him, looking down at Borch, Yennefer and Geralt who were talking about things neither you nor the bard needed to hear.

“What happened?” you asked while you scratched the ground, carving tiny lines into the sandy stone floor.

“Hm? Your guess is as good as mine,” Jaskier stated and looked at you.

“No, I mean way back then. How... Why did Geralt save my father’s life?”

“Oh… well, that’s a funny story actually,” Jaskier chuckled embarrassed and scratched the back of his head, clearing his throat.

“How could we ever know?” Yennefer then asked loudly as she stood up which made you and Jaskier snap your heads towards them. “Disregard for other’s freedom has become quite your trademark.”

You couldn’t make up what Geralt answered, but it obviously didn’t help as Yennefer angrily shouted, “I didn’t need your help!”

“Like fuck you didn’t!”

“There, say you heard him from him,” Jaskier mumbled beside you and you punched his shoulder, “Ouch.”

“And you, you flit about like a tornado, wreaking havoc, and for what? So you can have a baby?” Geralt's words made you both look down to them again. “A child is no way to boost your fragile ego, Yen. I would know! I have one now!”

She scoffed. “I’ll take advice from you about children as soon as you take responsibility for the one you bound to you and then abandoned!”

“Abandoned? She’s here, isn’t she?”

“Are you really sure about that? I haven't seen you talk to her once these past few days. If I didn't know better, I'd say she belonged to the bard,” Yennefer said, already walking up the slope you and Jaskier were sitting on. As she passed you, she threw you a pleading look. Run as long as you still can.

Meanwhile, Jaskier had stood up and had made his way downwards to Geralt. You stood up as well but kept your distance. Unsure if you wanted to walk after Yennefer, who was making her way back or stay behind for Jaskier.

“Phew! What a day!” Jaskier tried to lighten up the mood with a chuckle, “I imagine you’re probably-”

“Damn it, Jaskier!” Geralt suddenly screamed, making you flinch as his voice even reached you in full force. “Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it's you shovelling it?!”

“Well, that's not fair-”

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! If you hadn’t run into that stupid ambush and dragged the farmer with you, he would have never been able to burden the law of surprise upon me! All I wanted was to save your ass and now look at this! If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands! And you know what? The child too! Because I'd rather use my child surprise as bruxa bait but that’s not going to happen as we’re bound by destiny!”

It felt as if you were back on the wooden path, the planks breaking under your feet as you plunged into unknown depths. It shouldn't hurt that much. You knew it, it was as clear as the morning sky that Geralt had never liked the thought of you. You were a burden he had picked up during his travels but never welcomed like Jaskier.

Your legs were moving without your consent, carrying you away from Geralt, away from Jaskier, away from the last piece of life you had. What were you now, an orphan? You parents didn’t die, but you wouldn’t be able to go back to them, you couldn’t run from your destiny. Could you?

“You could come with me, you know?” Her voice was soft, even caring as she appeared by your side. Or where you fast enough to catch up with her?

Your mind was racing, your view blurry with the tears that had found their ways into your eyes. You wiped them away, sniffled and looked up into the face of the mage. Her smile was warm and inviting. “You might not be my child surprise, but seeing as we both are bound unwillingly to that witcher, we might as well stick together, right?”

#the witcher x reader #the witcher imagine #jaskier x reader #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt of rivia #jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #the witcher #the witcher netflix #jaskier the witcher #geralt of rivia the witcher #yennefer of vengerberg the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #the witcher one shot #viascribbles

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thewitcheress2389 · 4 years

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The Most Beautiful Secret

Jaskier x Pregnant!Reader (Part 2)

Summary: After a long time, you, Jaskier, and Geralt are reunited. And it happens to be near the most important event in your life. Fluff. Lots of fluff. More so than my last story.😂

It has been many months since that incident on the mountain, where the witcher broke your lover's heart. Honestly, you knew Jaskier shouldn't have gone to talk to Geralt. You knew that the witcher would take all his self-afflicted anger and put it on the bard.

But what could you have done?

Jaskier's heart was just too big, and Geralt wasn't use to receiving that kind of love. The love where people actually care for him.

Well, better for you guys to be kicked out now rather than later because now the witcher knew your guy's secret.

That you were pregnant.

Geralt would have dropped you off somewhere. Granted, it probably would've nicer than the way it had gone on the dragon quest.

So that's how you ended up here. Going from tavern to tavern while your lover played for the people, earning as much as he can to support his soon to be small family.

You were nearing the end of this pregnancy. It was quite clear now that you were with child. Your once flat stomach had grown to the point where you missed seeing your feet. Your feet and back ached. The baby moved around so much that you can now see why Geralt wanted to find a djinn. At least they calmed down when Jaskier spoke or sang or just put his hand on your belly.

It was cute really. Jaskier was so in love with the baby before it was even born. Ever since the baby started moving, Jaskier was growing more attached to the baby. He could actually feel his child moving around. Jaskier was also growing more and more anxious as your due date approached. In the evening, you and him would lay in bed with his head in the crook of your neck, and his hand caressing your bump. He would talk about his concerns, his worries that he wouldn't be a good father. You would gently run a hand through his hair and tell him that it was gonna be okay, that he was gonna be amazing. Then he would quietly laugh and say he should be the one comforting you. You would smile and just tell him it's a team effort. He would then quietly sing till you fell asleep.

Now here you were, lying in bed with your eyes closed while the mid-day sun shined through the open window. You were trying to rest while Jaskier was trying to make money. You guys were staying in a small village that was isolated in the north. It was not so closed off that it couldn't provide for the people who lived there, but closed off enough that there's hardly any travelers.

You and Jaskier being exceptions. You were planning on staying there till the baby is born.

Speaking of Jaskier, you can barely hear him from downstairs. After the whole Geralt fiasco plus his impending fatherhood, the poor bard was trying his hardest to keep his cheerful personality that you fell in love with.

You sighed dreamily while putting a hand on your belly. You could feel the not so gentle movements of your unborn child. You could not wait to have your body back. Now that your child was active, sleep seemed impossible. So instead you decided to leave the room and head downstairs to check on Jaskier.

Getting up was hard without help, but somehow you managed and were soon making your way down. You expected to hear your lover's joyful singing, or perhaps the chatter of the people in the tavern, but it was dead silent. You couldn't see what was going on yet, but Jaskier let out one word that cleared it all up.

"Geralt?"

Sure enough, once you arrived downstairs, you saw the white-haired witcher. He hasn't changed a bit. The people who were in the tavern were quietly talking to one another. Surely they didn't know the past that you three shared?

Jaskier was closest to you, and you could practically see the uncertainty in his eyes. How should he feel? There was no smiling at the sight of him, no nothing. You, on the other hand, felt boiling rage at the sight of the witcher. Your maternal instincts made you want to go right over to Geralt and slap him. However, Jaskier grabbed your hand as if he could sense you're bold desires.

The witcher's cat-like amber eyes flickered over the both of you till they landed on your swollen middle.

"You were telling the truth..." That's it. That's what he says after all this time. All that heartache.

"No," Jaskier retorted. "Said that for the hell of it."

You were shocked at Jaskier's sharp attitude, but hey, the witcher deserves the sass.

"Hmm." Was Geralt's reply. Yeah, he hasn't changed a bit. The stares of the people were beginning to make you uncomfortable. Jaskier could sense this, and started to guide you back upstairs. You could tell that Geralt's presence was starting to disgust him, and there is no way he'll be treated like that again.

"Jaskier." Geralt's voice caused the bard to stop in his tracks. You could tell your lover was at his breaking point. With a flourish of emotion, he spoke.

"Geralt, do me a favor and please leave." The bard gave him a look of intense dislike. "I don't need you to mess up my life while it's at it's most important moment."

Geralt opened his mouth to retort that comment, but Jaskier kept going on his rant. "Do you understand what stress I've been under!? Having to watch over Y/N when she's so close to giving birth! Making sure she's safe while I know I have NO fighting capabilities! Also, let's add to the fact that during the dragon quest she was-"

"I'm sorry."

Geralt's solemn voice cut the bard off. The witcher actually looked apologetic, his eyes gazed at Jaskier as if asking for forgiveness. Jaskier's eyes softend in return. He then nodded slightly as if he was acknowledging the apology. You then saw Geralt smile slightly, and then you looked to see that Jaskier was smiling a toothy grin. You wondered if the witcher would leave again now that his conscience was clear.

Your thoughts were interrupted, however, when back pain suddenly hit you like a bolt. You groaned in pain, and put a hand on your lower back in agony. Jaskier was at your side instantly putting a hand on your back as well. You were shocked to see Geralt was nearby as well, looking at you in concern.

"I'm fine," You gasped out. "Just some back pain."

"Well, that's expected at this stage." Geralt said while staring at your bump in curiosity.

Jaskier soothingly rubbed your back and said, "Maybe a bath will make you feel better."

You winced and nodded.

Later that evening, you were in a tub filled with warm water. The calming scent of lavender filled the air. It was serene and quiet, the earlier pain becoming nothing more than a numbing throb. You closed your eyes and leaned back with your hands coming to rest on your belly. You could feel the child moving and upon opening your eyes, you could actually see them moving. You hummed lightly while trying to sooth the unborn baby, but to no avail. You chuckled slightly.

"Maybe we'll get daddy to sing to you later." You said with a smile. Then you decided to get out of the water before you fell asleep there.

Jaskier showed up just before you put on your top. You expected him to give you privacy and leave, but instead he stood and watched you dress yourself. With red cheeks and a slight smile, you scolded him.

"Jaskier!" You whisper-yelled. "Thought you learned some respect!"

He smirked and walked towards you, gently grabbing your hands in his. "You should know by now that I don't do respect."

Then he kissed you with a heated passion. You returned it, running your hands through his hair and caressing the back of his neck. His hands gingerly rubbed you waist and back before pulling you closer. The baby, however, protested at the sudden scene of passion by kicking vigoursly. It caused you to groan in pain and grab a nearby dresser for support.

Jaskier, who tried not to look so disappointed at the interruption, gently rubbed your shoulder while saying, "Let's get you to bed."

Then he glanced down to where his child was and placed his hand there, smiling when he felt the wild movements of his baby.

"I'll help them sleep as well." Then his blue eyes glanced back at you and with a smile added, "For your sake."

You both layed in bed at the inn you were staying at. You learned from Jaskier that Geralt was staying there as well. Apparently, the witcher got a contract to check out some pack of monsters that were stirring up trouble. So, maybe you all meeting up was destiny's work yet again.

The full moon shone through the window of your room. Jaskier had his head resting on your belly while you gently rubbed his shoulder. Your eyes were closed as he gently sang a song that he wrote just for your child. Soon, you both were asleep.

A dull pain in your lower abdomen woke you up later that night. You sat up, and stared at the wall trying to figure out if what you were feeling was a sign of anything at all. You glanced to your right to see your lover was still sleeping soundly. You were slightly envious that he got to sleep all night while you had to deal with the pain. Speaking of pain, the tightening in your stomach came again. You bit your lip and gripped your stomach to stop yourself from groaning out.

You knew it was time for your baby to come.

When the pain subsided, you began to shake Jaskier's shoulder.

"Jaskier." You whispered. The bard just nuzzled deeper into the pillows. You growled slightly.

"Jaskier!" You tried again, whispering louder. When he still didn't budge, you smacked the back of his head. Now THAT woke him up.

"I'm up. I'm up." He said while tiredly running a hand through his messy hair. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he glanced worriedly at you caressing your stomach. "What's wrong?"

You opened your mouth to answer, but a scream interrupted. Both your heads whipped to the window where the high-pitched scream was followed by a guttural growl. Followed by several more guttural growls. Jaskier got out of bed and glanced out the window whole you sat through another contraction.

"Okay," he started while coming back over to you, looking a lot more alert. "We need to go."

"What's going on?" You said, panicked. He hesitantly looked into your eyes.

"Monsters are attacking the town." Was his reply. Your eyes widened and suddenly another contraction hit you. Jaskker noticed this time, and carefully placed his hands on your shoulders.

"Y/N?" He asked. You bit your bottom lip and looked into his blue eyes.

"The baby is coming."

You could see all the color drain from his face. You prayed he wouldn't faint on you, not when you needed him the most. Pain hit you again and you cried out. Jaskier gently rubbed your back. He was being calm, but you could tell that inside he was freaking out.

"Okay. Alright..." He whispered before suddenly your door slammed opened. It was Geralt, sword in hand. His eyes widened when he saw you doubled over in pain.

"The baby's coming..." Jaskier stammered. "I-I don't know what to do?"

"You guys need to leave." Was Geralt's command. "Alghouls have attacked this village."

Jaskier's eyes widened. "But Y/N..."

He glanced at you with concern in his eyes. He knew that in your critical condition, you guys wouldn't make it very far.

"Take Roach." Was all Geralt said before rushing down the stairs and out the door. The sounds of a swishing sword and ripping flesh along with guttural roars could be heard. Jaskier's eyes widened even more if that were possible. The witcher was letting you guys take his beloved horse. Maybe he has changed some.

"I know this is a lot to ask," Jaskier said softly. "But please try to hold it."

You nodded weakly while the bard helped you to your feet, supporting you slightly. You weren't even thinking on how your going to get on the horse. One problem at a time. Once you guys made it out into the crisp night, you saw Geralt slashing at the alghouls who had huge spikes penetrating out of their back. Roach stood calmly a couple feet away, and Jaskier urged you towards her.

However, your body had other plans. You had to wait at least a full minute for the contraction to cease. At that point, most of the monsters were dead with Geralt being covered in blood. Not his own. The bad news being everyone else in the village was dead or dying.

Oh, and your baby decided it was time to come out.

"Jask..." You gasped. "It hurts so bad..."

He rubbed your back and kissed your forehead. "It'll be okay..."

Geralt approached you two and directed his words at Jaskier. "There's no way she can walk to the next town in that condition. Get her on the horse, or she'll be having your baby in the woods."

Geralt and Jaskier then assisted you onto the mare who snorted at the sudden weight.

"I don't think we'll make it to the next town..." You groaned through the pain. Jaskier was fidgeting a lot and was about to grab the reigns of the horse, but Geralt beat him to it.

"Comfort her, Jaskier. She needs you." Geralt then pulled Roach along the path. You weren't going to admit it, but you were scared. However, Jaskier gave you his hand through all the pain and you have never been so grateful for him.

It has felt like hours since you guys left the destroyed town. The pain was near unbearable for you, and you could tell that your baby was going to be born soon. Very soon. It was near evening again when you just had to stop.

"Geralt..."

The witcher turned to look at you. Jaskier also looked up as he continued to gently rub your knee.

"I can't keep going..." you said miserably. The witcher swore under his breath. He glanced around quickly before tugging on Roach's reigns. You wound up off the beaten path and deeper into the forest. An old, weary hut lay there degraded by the aging forest. However, there was a candle flickering in the window.

Geralt tied Roach to a tree and Jaskier, as gently as he could, helped you back down to solid ground. Jaskier looked to see the witcher banging on the door of the structure. After a few moments with your pained breaths and the life of the forest being the only sounds, and elderly woman opened the door. She leaned against the doorframe, and looked at Geralt with a questioning stare.

"What do you need, witcher?" She asked with crossed arms. The venom in her tone was thick, but that didn't phase Geralt.

"My friend needs your help." He said.

Friend. He used the word friend.

"Friend?" The lady questioned. Geralt turned his body to look at you and Jaskier. The bard was supporting you with both arms as you were near collapsing with pain.

"She's in labor. And neither one of us," He gestured to himself and Jaskier. "Know what to do."

The older lady bit who bottom lip in uncertainty. Geralt gave her a pleading look.

"Please," he said. "If I make you uncomfortable, I will leave. Just please, help them."

She glanced back at you and Jaskier, who was whispering words of comfort to you. Then she sighed through her nose and shrugged.

"Bring her inside." She said. Jaskier took no time in helping you into the house, thanking the lady profusely. Then she glanced back inside and yelled at an older man who gave the young couple a startled look. Jaskier quickly explained, what he was assuming was the lady's husband, the situation.

Now that you guys had help, Geralt turned to leave. He figured they'd all feel better if he left, his presence making things more uncomfortable.

"Oi! Witcher!"

He turned around to see the elderly lady smiling at him. "We'll need an extra pair of hands."

Finally, you were laying on a bed. A cold cloth was constantly being put on your head by Geralt, the witcher who offered to help. However, he didn't expect to end up in the room with you during this experience. Jaskier was almost more anxious than you, constantly holding your hand no matter how numb it got. Turns out, the older woman used to work as a healer. So, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Destiny plays her hand once again.

Turns out you were nearly done with this whole ordeal. So, about a half hour later when you were instructed to push, you did not hold back.

The early morning sun peaked through the window as a newborn baby's cries pierced the atmosphere. You were exhausted, sweaty, but glowing as you held your new daughter. Your smile radiated like the sun. Jaskier was sitting beside you on the bed, trying his hardest not to cry. Geralt stood at the doorway, with the faintest smile on his lips.

"Wow..." Jaskier whispered as he gazed down at his mini-me. She literally looked exactly liked him. Dark whisps of hair could be seen on her head. However, her nose looked like yours. After a couple minutes of giving your daughter, D/N, time to calm down, you handed her to Jaskier.

She squirmed slightly in her father's arms, opening her tiny blue eyes slightly. D/N let out a small cry and gripped onto the collar of his shirt. He swallowed back some tears and smiled wide, gently grabbing her tiny hand in his fingers.

"Hello..." he said. "I'm your father..."

She cracked opened her blue orbs at the voice and cooed slightly. You smiled.

"She recognizes your voice." You said. Then you tried to hide a yawn. Jaskier held D/N closer to him and said, "Sleep. I'll watch over her."

You smiled and fell asleep to the sound of Jaskier lightly singing to your guy's daughter.

Moments after you fell asleep, Geralt stepped more into the room. Jaskier looked up from his now sleeping daughter to meet the witcher's gaze.

"Congratulations Jaskier." He said in a monotone voice. The bard smiled and glanced back down at the baby who was subconsciously gripping his shirt.

"Thank you Geralt." Jaskier glanced back up towards the witcher. "Do...do you want to hold her?"

"No." Geralt deadpanned.

"Oh come on." Jaskier said while gently standing up, making sure not to jostle D/N. "It's not that hard. It's just like holding a lute."

Geralt just stared at the bard with an unfazed look. "Don't compare your newborn daughter to an instrument that you've broken twice."

Jaskier resented at that response and held his daughter closer with a pout.

"Well," he said. "Your still gonna be her godfather."

Geralt's eyes widened at that. In the time frame of two days, Jaskier went from hating the witcher to wholeheartedly forgiving him and making him godfather to his child. Geralt took a couple small steps forward to peer at the small bundle of life in Jaskier's arms.

He remembered back during the dragon quest where he would always hear a strange sound whenever he was around you. Like a hummingbird beating its wings. He realizes now, that it was D/N's heartbeat. Geralt smiled fondly at his goddaughter, who felt the looming shadow over her and opened her ocean blue eyes. She cooed at Geralt and reached a hand towards him.

"See," Jaskier urged. "She wants you to hold her."

Geralt hesitated. "I've never held anything so...fragile."

Jaskier smiled. A true, confident smile. "I trust you."

Then baby D/N was handed over to the witcher, who was copying Jaskier's position of holding a baby. He said he trusted Geralt, but the witcher could see him fidgeting with hands and anxiously keeping an eye on her. Geralt realized that she fell asleep in his arms and he smiled at that. A true smile.

You opened your eyes slightly to see the tender scene before you. You didn't acknowledge the men with your consciousness and instead closed your eyes again. You heard everything and couldn't agree more with Jaskier. You trusted the witcher with your daughter. If anything happened to you or Jaskier, you knew Geralt would protect her.

I guess he did have Jaskier to thank for this child surprise.

#the witcher x reader #jaskier #the witcher imagine #jaskier imagine #jaskier and geralt #jaskier x reader

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there-must-be-a-lock · 4 years

Text

Marked (Part 25 - Epilogue)

Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2740

Warnings: Bit o’ smut, but nothing too explicit and nothing you haven’t seen before in this story.

A/N: This is tied closely to Part 16, aka the djinn chapter, and I recommend re-reading that one first if it’s been a while. It also references Part 20 a few times.

As many of you know, by now, this fic is very personal and very honest. I’m not going to get into it too much, but this story is my way of telling anyone who needs to hear it that things will get better, and the bad days will pass, and the scars don’t define you. I hope you wake up tomorrow and decide to try again.

Thanks for reading.

This is not a happy ending.

We’re not always happy people, Dean and me. We have good days, but we have bad days too: days when it’s all I can do to get out of bed, days when I feel like I’m being crushed by the weight of everything we’ve been through. We are battered and bruised and worn around the edges. We’re kind of a mess. I’m okay with that.

Love is messy. Love is showing someone your weak spots, your knitted-up ripped-apart insides, the dark broken pieces, and saying, here I am, I’m yours to hurt.

And yes, sometimes we hurt each other. Sometimes we rip each other apart all over again. Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing but scar tissue, held together by duct tape and sheer stubbornness.

At the end of every day, though, we dust each other off and bandage each other up, and in the morning, we try again.

- - - - -

The humid spring air drags at my skin, tugging at my fingers when I stick my hand out the open window and let it ride the pressure of the wind.

It’s an overcast day, threatening rain, and Dean looks as stormy as the sky as he drives in silence. I just shrugged when he asked me about work, and we’ve both been quiet since. When he catches me watching, though, he gives me a rueful little attempt at a smile. It looks more like a grimace, but he’s trying. I know he’s trying.

I’ve been working at a new place nearby, a roadhouse one of the boys’ hunting contacts opened recently. It’s perpetually full of plaid and testosterone and people asking if I’m “Dean’s girl,” trying to get a message to the Winchesters. I guess word spreads fast with hunters. On the bright side, though, I can be honest if I need to call out because of a potential apocalypse, or something.

Dean usually comes inside, has a beer while I’m finishing my shift, but today he was waiting outside with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped.

“Can we go somewhere?” he said. It wasn’t an apology, but I know better than to expect an apology right away. He’ll get there.

We don’t fight often, not really. Usually when I get scared and pull away, he knows how to follow, how to reassure me, how to make me feel safe. Usually I’m tough enough to withstand his sharp edges and push through the walls he likes to hide behind.

Today has been a bad day. It’s bad for both of us, in our own ways, but this morning started with his nervous little sideways look as he folded up his pocketknife, and it ended with the vicious things he says when he’s angry at himself but wants to make me hurt for it. Usually I’d roll my eyes and tell him to go punch something, but today marks exactly two years since the demon showed up on my doorstep. Today I already felt raw and vulnerable and stripped-bare; when he lashed out, he cut right into the softest parts of me, and I slashed right back, snarling at him through my tears, and we were still screaming at each other when I stormed out to go to work. The anger’s gone now, but it’s left a cold, heavy ache in its place.

He takes us to Lawrence, of course. We park in front of the old rusty gate and hop the fence. He reaches out and takes my hand, giving it a little squeeze without actually looking at me, and we set off down the old path together.

We sit on one of the big flat rocks, watching the water: green-grey, steady, endless. It’s familiar, now, the shape of the eddies and the gurgle as it rolls smoothly around the rocks.

Just a couple weeks ago, we had a picnic here for Sam’s birthday. The surprise had been Dean’s idea. He’d told Eileen and Cas beforehand, and we’d packed a checkered blanket, a cake, the whole nine yards. We didn’t tell Sam where we were going, not until we’d pulled up at the fence and he’d stared at us blankly.

“So, you remember when Dad used to take me fishing?” Dean had said, running a hand through his hair nervously. Sam had gotten teared up when he realized, and Dean looked so startled, like he usually does when his efforts to open up are met with something other than disgust.

The memory makes me soften, slightly. I move in closer and Dean shifts to meet me, and I tuck myself snugly into the curve of his arm, resting my head on his shoulder. He lets out a long shaky exhale and then clears his throat.

“I love you,” he says gruffly.

“I know,” I whisper.

He kisses the top of my head and I rest my hand on his knee, thumb stroking over the rough denim. The rock is too hard to make a comfortable seat, and my neck is at an awkward angle, and the sky is slowly growing darker, and I don’t mind.

We sit for a while without talking. It’s enough just to be here together; I know what he’s trying to say.

Around dusk, we get up. My legs are cramped and stiff, and Dean helps me get to my feet. He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight, and I bury my face in the softness of his worn flannel.

“I love you too,” I say, muffled against his chest. He strokes my hair and takes one more deep breath, and then he grabs my hand, and we start along the path back to the car. It starts to rain as we jump the fence, warm heavy drops that thud into the dirt, and for a moment I stand still and turn my face up to the sky, letting the water run down my cheeks.

I still feel cold and achy, inside, but mostly I just feel leaden with exhaustion. I’m ready for the day to be over. I’m ready to be home.

I curl up in the passenger seat and turn on the tape deck. Dean sings along just a little bit off-key, and when the rain drumming on the roof starts to drown out the music, I turn up the volume. Dean pulls back onto the highway and we head west.

“You gotta drop me at my car,” I point out, as he cruises past the exit to the roadhouse.

“You can just take Baby tomorrow,” he says, deliberately casual. It’s a big gesture, and we both know it; it’s like the Dean equivalent of a dozen roses, or jewelry, or whatever the stereotypical romantic gift is. I can’t help the way my mouth twitches up in a smile.

My clothes are still slightly damp from the rain when we get back to the bunker, and I strip down to my underwear as soon as we get back to our room, burrowing in under the big comforter. Dean follows, slower, pausing to turn on the small bedside lamp and turn off the overhead lights before he takes off his jeans and his flannel and crawls into bed. He looks at me hesitantly, like he’s not sure I’ll want to touch him, but I slide on top of him and kiss him, and I feel his sigh of relief against my mouth.

We kiss, deep and heated, until my lips feel bruised, and then I sit up and look down at him, running my hands down his chest to the hem of his shirt so I can tug it up. He lifts it up over his head obediently and tosses it away.

I grab his wrists as he settles back down. I press them into the pillow on either side of his head, leaning in to pin him, watching the way his lips part and his eyes go huge and dark.

“Do you want…” I ask hoarsely, thinking of the cuffs I got him for his birthday, but he just shakes his head slightly, looking up at me, open and trusting.

“Just like this?” he asks quietly. I kiss the frown line between his eyes and hold his wrists tighter.

We take our time. There’s no rush.

I kiss his mouth, his cheeks, his nose, nibble his earlobe, and then I drag my mouth down the side of his neck, sinking my teeth into the soft skin, biting until he’s bruised and gasping. I grind down until he’s rock-hard, until I’m soaking the thin fabric of my panties where I’m pressing against the length of him. He stares when I sit up and take off my bra. When he reaches up, reaches out for me, I grab his wrists again and shove them down, and the way he whimpers sets my skin on fire.

I roll away clumsily, just long enough for both of us to get rid of the last of our clothes, and when he reaches out again, hands flying to my waist like he can’t help himself, I let him pull me up to straddle his face. He holds me down and fucks me shallowly with his tongue until I reach down and pull his hair, tugging sharply. He moans low in his chest and I rock down against his mouth, tilting my hips, until the filthy slick suction of his lips around my clit has my legs trembling and my head spinning. His nails rake down the small of my back and that’s it, I’m gone, arching my back and shaking, coming so hard I black out for a second.

My muscles are limp, totally useless, and I’m unsteady as I swing my leg over and tumble onto my back. I pull him on top of me and he fucks into me hard and desperate, muscles surging under my palms as I run my hands down his shoulders. I dig my fingernails into the swell of his ass, urging him closer, and tell him how perfect he feels, how good he is, how much I love him, and when he slams into me one last time, he lets out a long broken groan and then melts down against me, a hot perfect weight all over me as our heartbeats slow and our sweat cools.

I almost drift off, just like that, with his breath tickling my neck, feeling the flutter of him starting to go soft inside me. I grumble when he starts to pull away and he makes a soothing noise, turning to shut off the lamp. I roll onto my side and squirm back against him in the pitch-black, and he spoons up behind me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“S’okay. Me too,” I sigh, already half-asleep again.

“Is this… are we okay?”

He sounds so small and scared in the dark.

“We will be,” I say.

We sleep.

I love waking up with Dean, the way he holds me in his sleep, pressed firmly to my back with his arm curled protectively around me, his breath tickling the nape of my neck. I take it in for a few minutes, still and silent, until he starts to stir, his thumb stroking over my collarbone and his nose nuzzling my ear.

The alarm hasn’t gone off yet; I have a few minutes before I have to get up.

I roll over lazily, molding myself to his chest, and kiss him properly. He’s frowning against my lips. When I look at him, he’s looking back through half-closed eyes, sleepy and sweet and soft, the Dean that only I get to see. I love him, love him in a way that makes my heart swell and puts stars in my eyes and brings every other stupid cliche to life. I love him so much I can barely breathe sometimes. The bad days don’t change that.

“We’re okay,” I say firmly, before he can ask again, and the tight worried line of his mouth eases slightly.

“I’m trying,” he whispers. “I don’t know why I can’t just - I get caught up, and… fuck. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” I answer, and I run my fingertips over his cheek, rubbing my thumb over the curve of his lower lip.

The alarm goes off, beeping insistently, and we both grumble in unison as Dean swats at the clock.

“Do you have to?” he pouts. I kiss the tip of his nose.

“Gotta get to the library and finish this essay before class.”

“We have a library.”

“And if I needed to write an essay about ghouls, I’d be all set, but I need actual books, not grimoires.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll go get coffee started.”

I watch him get out of bed and fumble with his pants. I admire the muscles in his shoulders as he pulls on a shirt, half-tempted to drag him back into bed and map the freckles with my tongue.

He looks back at me as he leaves, and his smile gives me butterflies, even after all this time.

Dean’s got my favorite mug waiting by the time I shower quickly and shuffle into the kitchen, and there’s a fresh pot of coffee, still steaming hot. Cas is sitting at the table and staring into his own mug like it holds the secrets of the universe. Dean is muttering darkly as he slams cabinet doors, looking for another box of his favorite cereal.

Laughter from down the hall announces Sam and Eileen’s return. They come in sweaty and beaming, fresh off their morning run.

“Egg white omelettes, anybody?” Sam asks cheerfully, rummaging in the fridge, and I just roll my eyes.

Dean sits down, nursing his coffee and looking sourly at the empty cereal box on the table. I sit next to him.

“Frigging morning people,” he mumbles.

“Seriously,” I agree, and kiss his cheek.

“Sure you don’t want an omelette?” Sam asks, pointing at me with a bundle of spinach.

“Gotta go. Abnormal psych essay to finish.”

“What’s it about?” Sam asks, as Eileen ducks under his arm to get to the coffee.

“Assholes,” she says, and holds up the empty pot accusingly. Cas sidles away with an apologetic grimace.

I suppress a laugh and answer, “Sublimation. I think I’ll probably do okay.”

I smirk at Dean, who huffs and rolls his eyes. Sam and I exchange a knowing look.

Dean grabs my hand. He squeezes gently, interlacing our fingers, and I pick up my coffee left-handed, reluctant to let go.

The classes were Sam’s idea to begin with; he always asks how it’s going, and he fusses about my grades like a proud parent, even though it’s just a part-time thing, for now, to see if anything really grabs my interest. I’m on my third psychology class, now. I’m starting to think about enrolling full-time, but… we’ll see.

I drain my mug and give Dean’s hand one last squeeze before I let go and stand up.

“You gonna be home for dinner?” he asks, watching me as I fish around in a cabinet and pull out a granola bar for the road.

“Yup,” I answer absent-mindedly, checking my pockets for my wallet as I head to the door.

Dean calls my name, and I turn impatiently. He catches up and cups my face in his hands as he kisses me.

“You forgot something,” he whispers, and gives me one last quick peck before he releases me.

“Love you,” I say. “You big fuckin’ sap.”

He grins. “You know it. Love you more.”

I can’t help but ogle him slightly when he turns his back: broad shoulders, bowed legs, mine.

I wave to the rest of my strange little family before I leave. There’s a chorus of goodbyes, and I smile to myself as I walk away.

Today is a good day. Not all of them are, but today is a good day.

I think we’re going to be okay.

-----

This is not a happy ending.

This is not an ending at all; it’s just another day, just another step. And I have no idea where we’re headed, Dean and me, but it’s not about the destination.

We woke up this morning and chose to try again. We chose to keep moving forward, one tiny step after another. We chose to move forward together.

It’s not about getting somewhere. It’s the step that matters.

If you enjoyed this, please reblog, leave a message here, or buy me a coffee over here.

Tag team: @winchesterprincessbride @ultimatecin73 @mrswhozeewhatsis @mogaruke @babypieandwhiskey @amanda-teaches @hannahindie @fandom-princess-forevermore @just-a-touch-of-sass-and-fandoms @maddiepants @fangirlxwritesx67 @leatherandfrackles @waywardbaby @covered-byroses @thoughtslikeaminefield @dean-Winchesters-bacon @atc74 @onethirstyunicorn @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @wayward-and-worn @the-chocolate-moose @geekgirl1213 @notyourtypicalrose @myfanficlibrarium @calaofnoldor @indecisive20something @carryonmyswansong @akshi8278 @woodworthti666 @sandlee44 @flamencodiva @weepingwillowphoenix @shamelesslydean @rockhoochie @fookinghelljensensthighs @ladywinchester1967 @magssteenkamp @vickyfarley @olivia-whorelow @vicmc624 @daddys-little-princess67 @stoneyggirl

#marked #dean winchester fic #spn fic #spn fanfiction #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader smut #dean x you #Dean Winchester #dean winchester smut #dean winchester angst #supernatural fanfiction

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buttered-ghost-toast · 4 years

Text

ASTAROTH

Lazy background is lazyyyyyyyyyy.

But hey, I'm done with it! That was a fun time. THIS ISN’T EVEN HIS FINAL FORMMMMMM!~~!!~!~

Anyhow, i’ve been playing with this guy for a while now and maybe it’s time I gave you more information on this gem of a demon?

it’s a long read, but FOLLOW ME TO THE TALE~~

HISTORY--Pre and Post Celestial War

When the heavens were united, Astaroth was one of the Seraphim, the highest rank of angels, caretakers of the holy throne of God. Day and night, they sang praise to their creator. Arguably the most devout of these angels, Astaroth was chosen by God to hold visions of eternity- all past, present, and future.

When Lucifer began to formulate his rebellion against the Father, Astaroth was the messenger chosen to deliver God’s decree that any angel found guilty of treason would be banished from the Celestial Realm. As he met with the Archangel, Astaroth’s heart was touched by the love he saw in his brother for their sister, Lilith. He carried out his orders, delivering the word of God, and returned to his post uneasy.

As the battle began, Astaroth divined the future, and unable to bear the pain he felt at knowing what was to pass, resolved to speak to God on behalf of his brothers and sister. Unfortunately, before he could say a word, the Order of Thrones descended on him. The order burned a celestial sigil on his face which rendered him blind and took his visions of time, then cast him out of heaven branded a traitor to the Almighty, but whether because he did not shed blood, or because God had favored him for so long, he was cast into the wilderness rather than condemned to hell, fated to wander lost and broken for all eternity.

Dozens of thousands of years passed, and civilizations rose and fell, hundreds of billions of his prayers went unreceived, and at last Astaroth was found by someone he knew. Asmodeus happened upon him in the mountains, as he tells it, he was drawn by the song he heard there- the song of praise Astaroth had continued to sing to God in hopes of mercy and a chance at redemption. Asmodeus at first mocked him for this pathetic effort, but before long took pity on his fallen brother and told him about the wonders of life after the fall. He took Astaroth by the hand and the two traveled through the circles of hell, arriving finally at the palace of the Demon King who restored Astaroth’s vision in exchange for his service and a vow that he would never again sing to the glory of God.

ASTAROTH- Grand Duke of Hell

As a demon, Astaroth was titled a Grand Duke of hell and its treasurer. He commands 40 Legions of Demons and is heralded one of the “Supreme Evils”. He appears to those who summon him either as a beautiful angelic being that brings a sweet perfume, or a hideous and hateful beast who’s breath can melt skin from bone depending on their alignments and what it is they seek him for. He sits upon an infernal dragon and carries a vicious viper in his right hand (neither pictured above). Where once he had six gleaming wings, he now has six curved horns that glimmer as if tipped in molten silver, and atop his head is a golden crown that is recounted as appearing to be made of polished gold, or other times burning like living hellfire. It’s not certain whether he is a male of female because of his beautiful face and flowing hair.

Though he is regarded as a wicked being, Astaroth is a gentle entity to those who are truthful and willing to learn and has vowed to never do harm to anything existing. He brings to man a knowledge of science and mathematics, helping further new regimes who seek his counsel and even teaching some mortals how to command the snakes he governs on the mortal plane. While he no longer has knowledge of all time, he remembers quite a lot of what has and is to pass, and will give this information to those who ask, be it in their favor or not. He sets knowledge and truth above all else and takes any opportunity to speak about creation and set the story straight when asked about the Celestial War and the fall of the angels, and though he vowed to the King of Demons to never sing God’s praises again, he still holds hope in his heart that someday, the truth of what occurred will reach God’s ear and he will be allowed back into heaven.

Mistakenly, Astaroth is often associated with demonic possession. Though several of his legions are demons that have possessed humans and animals, it has never been under any order from Astaroth himself (all matters of possession are handled by a lower class of demon or the ruler of hell himself if it really warrants their attention).

ASTAROTH AND KING SOLOMON…and Asmodeus, too!

Though fairly opposed to the idea, Astaroth has made a few necessary pacts over his long life, most notably with Solomon, King of Israel, and only as a means to convince Solomon to rectify his ways after he defected from his beliefs and sought out witchcraft and foreign deities. Solomon, at the recommendation of Asmodeus, summoned Astaroth in his throne room and requested knowledge and power beyond his understanding in exchange for a life of servitude. Astaroth agreed and became the 29th of Solomon’s 72 Spirits. Some years later, knowing of a betrayal in Solomon’s future at the hand of a demon who’s face he cannot recall, Astaroth advises Solomon to plead with the angels for a ring that would allow him to control the devils at his feet, this is how Solomon begins to return to God and obtains the seal ring that grants him power over demons and djinn.

As it turns out, the demon who betrayed Solomon was meant to be Asmodeus. After he cast Solomon into the desert, Asmodeus throws the ring into the ocean where Astaroth commands an eel to swallow the ring for safe keeping until he can find Solomon and help him to overthrow Asmodeus despite the love he feels for his fallen brother.

As he awaits the moment where Solomon will find the ring within the fish that ate the eel, Astaroth, haunted by the betrayal he spearheaded, confesses to Asmodeus and the two battle one another, nearly demolishing the temple Solomon built. (If you have ever noticed, Astaroth has a chunk missing out of his left ear. This is a wound that never really healed properly from this fight with Asmo.) The only thing that stops the fight is Diavolo himself dragging Astaroth back to hell as the Demon King had fallen into his sleep, his final command being that Astaroth be the one to perform the ceremony of crowning Diavolo interim ruler and future-king.

Solomon did return, after some time, with the ring. He was able to overthrow Asmodeus and set the remainder of his life right, regaining the favor of God. Astaroth was the first one there to welcome Asmodeus back to hell after his second fall. The two resolved then to never again battle one another.

That night at the ceremony praising Asmodeus’s near triumph, Astaroth stood alone in the gardens of the Demon Lord’s palace, praying silently as he had done every night since being welcomed into hell. He looked up just as a glowing white feather floated down on a sudden breeze. He is still not sure if God finally heard him, or if there was something more happening that night, but it steeled his resolve to do good and return home.

TODAY

Astaroth remains much the same as ever, only his sense of humor and style having truly evolved. Where once he was a bit strict and humorless, he now has a very lively personality having learned much more about the world and humanity (as well as a few billion of their silly jokes and pranks) and he is now usually found causing a bit of a ruckus just for a laugh. He and Asmo are thicker than thieves and can often be found gossiping and having all kinds of fun when they’re not bickering or having their bi-weekly squabble that somehow seems to always divide the devildom (TEAM ASMO! TEAM ASTA!). Btw, his hair is short on one side because Asmo got so mad over a comment Asta made regarding his hairstyle in the 1980’s, that he waited until Astaroth fell asleep to chop off half of his hair. Joke’s on Asmo though, because Asta found a neat way to style it and loved the look so much he started cutting it that way regularly. Asmo was BIG BIG mad.

Astaroth was one of the few command class demons who wholeheartedly backed the exchange program, not only because he wanted to see an Angel again, but because he’s grown rather fond of humans having seen how they applied the knowledge he imparted over the ages, though he’s still a little wary of them for a lot of the bad things they do so willingly (as well as a little residual guilt from the few humans who died violently due to his old pet viper who didn’t really like when humans lied to his master…oops).

Once MC arrives in the Devildom, Astaroth has a vision in his sleep, the first glimpse he has had of the future since he was cast out. He doesn’t remember much when he wakes, but he knows he has to protect this human at all costs.

#OC backstory time #anyhow here's Astaroth!

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spnfanficpond · 4 years

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December Angel Fish Awards

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle or Mana to check and make sure we got your submission.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE DECEMBER’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nominated by @princessmisery666

Gone (oneshot) by @there-must-be-a-lock

@impala-dreamer’s end of year quickie challenge was a great one but this on by @there-must-be-a-lock stuck with me. So much emotion in under 500 words :)

Why Can’t There Be A Santa (oneshot) by @risingphoenix761

This was kinda heart breaking and fluffy and sweet all at the same. I love me some fluff!!

Who’d Have Thought (oneshot) by @firefly-in-darkness

Daisy got me all hot and bothered with this one and then unexpectedly pulled my heart out of my chest!! Love a surprise ending and a bit of smut!!

Nominated by @flamencodiva

A Series of Firsts (series) by @fictionalabyss

I love her story a series of firsts! it is amazing to see the ups and downs and the alternate endings.

Wayward Hearts (series) by @foreverwayward

This has to be my all time series re-write! I think Brittney captures the story so well and is able to weave Riley into the story as if she is actually a part of the show! Brittney does a good job in her storytelling and the romance between Dean and Riley is so innocent and pure!

Moonstone (series) by @impala-dreamer

This is one of my favorite stories by Beka! it was one of the first ones and it wasn’t the last I have read of her work. I love the dynamic and the story she wove in. I’m also always a sucker for a hero and protective Dean.

His Property (series) by @negans-lucille-tblr

This is an amazing fic! I love the bdsm and the way Dean is set up in this! It is a great and hot story as well as a well woven story of angst and unrequited love in the underlying reading. The twists and turns of this story also have you on the edge of your seat!

Nominated by @wildfirewinchester

About A Boy (series) by @percywinchester27

The series is amazing, and it perfectly encapsulates Dean’s character. It also has enough hints here and there where you always think you know what’s going on (sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t), and then there’s a twist and you get to find out whether or not you were right! The idea is so original and I’ve never read a fic with the same premise. I’m always so excited when I see there’s a new part and I always have to read it right then and there.

Nominated by @sorenmarie87

Five Minutes (series) by @idabbleincrazy

This fic started out sweet, moved into angst and somehow rounded out with its ending. I won’t spoil it for those who want to read it but it was worth it :)

What Hurts The Most (oneshot) by @iflostreturntosteverogers

Carrie is great with writing angst and this fic, even though it was for a challenge, managed to do that with only 500 words.

Flip (oneshot) by @luci-in-trenchcoats

It’s no secret that I love A/B/O fics but I think this is the first one that I’ve read that involves body-swapping.

Nominated by @manawhaat

Who’d Have Thought (oneshot) by @firefly-in-darkness

Ok, the smut is lovely. Smut is always lovely, but what earns this a nom is the last fucking line. I was slapped in the face, hard, with the goddamn feelings. And as much as I hate that, I’m also a SLUT for that shit!

A Different Kind of Therapy (series) by @saxxxology

JESUS CHRISTO. There are only three chapters out right now but the whole premise behind this is just FASCINATING! I’ve read about different kind of meditative sex therapy, but the way this unfolds is really unique and honestly, I feel like this should be a fucking thing in the real world. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Nominated by @lovetusk

I’d like to nominate Special One (oneshot) by @evansrogerskitten & The marvelous lands of Sam’s chest (oneshot) by @focusonspn for the simple fact that I am a Sam girl and a total sucker for not only Alpha Sam, but also his chest hair. Yum.

Nominated by @impala-dreamer

Renegade (oneshot) by @princessmisery666

Very nicely done!! The descriptions were lovely and I heard Billie’s voice so clearly!

Bite Me (oneshot) by @maddiepants

OMGOMGOMG me toooooo!!! This is just perfectly delicious and naughty and… sames. Sames… the TEETH!!!!!

Ghost Rider (oneshot) by @squirrelnotsam

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH! Such a clever idea! Like, of course he would attach himself like that! And he’s still so …DEAN. protective and sassy and Y/N is perfect. I loved this a whole bunch!!

Nominated by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters

Strong leader type having to physically fall down in order for people to see they’re exhausted (oneshot) by @imagineteamfreewill

I decided to start the new year off right by finding my way back into the world of tumblr spn fics after an unplanned hiatus. And what better way to do so than by spreading the love through these amazing awards? This is the first fic I came across and I immediately fell in love. Anything that emphasizes how amazing and hardworking Sam is - and how he deserves a break and all the love in the world - is something I’ll defend with my life.

Vision of Love (series) by @princessmisery666

Second fic I wanted to put a spotlight on is this prequel to an amazing series by an amazing author. I remember reading parts of this before I went MIA and I cannot wait to finish the series and find out what happened now that I’m back. For now, I’m reveling in the wonder that is this fluffy prequel.

The marvelous lands of Sam’s chest (oneshot) by @focusonspn

If this isn’t a mood, I don’t know what is. It’s hot, it’s sweet, it’s everything I’ll ever need. Yes, it is indeed so good that I felt the urge to rhyme.

Unstoppable (oneshot) by @evansrogerskitten

Talk about sexual tension. I love the idea of the reader hiding her true nature and the consequences that had. On top of that, the author’s writing is amazing as always.

Christmas Gone Wrong (oneshot) by @peridottea91

Next up on my mission to spread the love is this fun little domestic oneshot. I love the bickering and the jokes. Also, now I’m craving cookies.

Masterlist by @pink1031

I was so excited when I saw this author on the new pond members list, meaning I could nominate her. She’s an amazing writer and I couldn’t possibly pick just one fic to nominate, so I went for the entire masterlist instead. Besides a talented writer, she’s also just an absolute gem who works hard and deserves to be recognized for it.

Nominated by @slytherkins

Recompense (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Pretty tasty. Kinda makes me want to piss Dean off. (But that might just be my inner Brat talking.) <3

Nominated by @thelittleredwhocould/ @samsexualdeancurious

Old Man (oneshot) @manawhaat

This fic is a companion/sequel/alternate ending to one of my own fics and I LOVE it. I was so excited when Mana came to me with it. Some good old fashioned Alpha!John/Omega!Reader smut. So, so good.

Lucid Lies (oneshot) by @manawhaat

Fucking love this fic. So, so good. I’m a sucker for a good djinn-related story cos they’re the perfect vessel for the best angst and this is no exception.

Maybe (oneshot) by @manawhaat

Read this if you want to cry cos this has ALL the feels. All of them.

A Bed is a Bed (series) by @saxxxology

I think this one is inspired by a play and Saxxy was texting me when she planned it out. So, so good. Saxxy does a great job setting the scene and unf the smut. *heart eyes*

About a Boy (series) by @percywinchester27

I’m in loooooove with this series. I’ve never been big on young!Winchester fics but the premise of this is so good and the payoff is even better. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

A stranger in need (oneshot) @percywinchester27

I love the AU in this fic and I’m not gonna tell you what it is cos that would give everything away! This is just so good. Sam is such a sweetheart and I just adore him.

Caught (series) by @thecleverdame

I’m just dying for the next chapter of this fic! The concept pulled me in immediately. There’s only two chapters on Tumblr so far but omg I just. Love it.

This is How (oneshot) by @mrswhozeewhatsis

Angsty angsty angsty angst. Love it. I’m not the biggest Amelia fan but I this peak into Sam’s thought process and feelings at the beginning of s8. So good.

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

As with the BFAs, these are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

#afa masterlist #angel fish awards #spn fic rec #spnfanficpond #supernatural fanfic #fan fiction #fanfiction #fan fic #fanfic #spn fan fiction #spn fanfiction #sn fan fic #spn fanfic #supernatural fan fiction #supernatural fan fic #supernatural fanfiction #fic rec #supernatural fic rec

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wizardhecker · 4 years

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ollie’s book rec list

hey y’all i got libby this last year and its expanded my reading a bunch. I talked about what books I liked on twitter earlier but I wanted to move that over here. These books aren’t in order of preference, just when I read them. I’ll probably be updating this list throughout the year as well.

Stuff I loved:

Gideon the Ninth- Tamsyn Muir: Probably my favorite book from this year, I’m eagerly awaiting for the sequel. WAs everything I wanted in a book, witty and clever. Lesbian necromancer and buff swordgirl end up taking part in a contest that entangles them in murder and mysteries. Its sci-fi but not hard sci-fi and sticks mostly to one planet. I’m witholding judgement on the ending until I read the second book because I have some conflicting feelings about it. Tags: F/F romance, bones, so many bones, Sci-fi, mystery

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie: Told from the perspective of a ship AI that was once many different ancillaries. The story jumps back and forth between the present where she inhabits one body and the past to how that came to occur. It was super unique and engaging. I’ve seen this on a few lists for LGBT content which maybe there is in later books but that tag comes from the the ship AI being confused by gender since her language just uses “she/her” pronouns for everything. Therefor, yes technically any romances that occur are queer because every single character is referred to via she/her. I love language stuff like that though. Theres so many details that I was deeply fascinated by. Tags: sci fi, space politics, clones, unique perspective.

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: Similar to her other book above, she plays with storytelling and narrator perspective. This is from the perspective a god who is a giant rock and switches between past and present. It was a bit slow at first, as it is a rock telling the story, but its well worth it and the ending was so fulfilling. I REALLY enjoyed the world building, everything felt neatly crafted as piece by piece the machine comes together and turns slowly. The protagonist human is also explicitely trans. Tags: politics, fantasy, god wars, trans protagonist.

Swordspoint - Ellen Kushner: An older book, but focuses around the politics of a city where swordsmen fromt he lower city are hired to fight for the aristocrats in the higher city. Follows the best swordsman and his [insufferable] scholar boyfriend, but switches perspectives a lot. Its fun, I might reread it. Tags: heavy politics, aristocrat bullshit, M/M romance, swordfighting!

Kings of the Wild - Nicholas Eames: This book read Very much like someone’s first classic D&D campaign, for better or for worse. I Loved it because the heart, passion, and sincerety put into it was so palpable and it feels like a campaign where everyone comes in with goofy joke characters and then midway through they get Really into it and suddenly everyone’s crying because that joke backstory they made has implications. Its about a bunch of retired legendary old men adventurers who get called back for one more job - to rescue the leader’s daughter. Tags: Sad old men, good fathers, fantasy, gay wizard, tabletop inspired.

Bloody Rose - Nicholas Eames: The sequel to the previous book (though it could be read alone). It really goes into more depth and analyzes some of the previous worldbuilding more, pulling apart some of the problems in the world that were swept away previously. I liked it slightly less but its still very good. It follows a bard joining up with an adventuring band to fight a...dragon? Maybe. Tags: F/F romance, are monsters people, necromancy, dragons, fantasy.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker: A newly made golem woman and a Djinn who was trapped for thousands of years both in up in New York City in 1900, and their paths eventually intertwine. Really amazing perspective of Jewish and Arab immigrant communities and cultures in NYC. Switches point of view through many characters in the communities who come in and out of their lives. Tags: Supernatural beings, urban fantasy, historical.

The Monster of Elendhaven - Jennifer Giesbrecht: Very short book I read in one sitting about terrible evil men doing terrible evil things. One of them is unkillable, the other one is sorcerer and theyre tied together through a dark fate to destroy the world. I was deeply into the mythology and the way everything wove together. You know I’m a sucker for weird god stuff and I was provided for. Uhh trigger warning for a lot of stuff here, graphic violence, sexual assault, etc. Tags: Evil stuff, magic, dark mythology and folklore, capitalism, revenge plots.

The Black God’s Drums - P. Djeli Clark: Another short one read in one sitting, set in an alternate post-civil war setting New Orleans where a girl has a Goddess of storms living inside her. Tags: alternate history, bi protagonist, gods and goddesses.

The Claidi Journals - Tanith Lee: So this was a reread of a kind of obscure series I read when I was a kid and I immensely enjoyed. Caveat that it is a young-adult series but it was such a fascinating and vibrant blend of fantasy magic and sci-fi, there’s little blend between the magic and technology of the realm. It’s about terrible families doing terrible things and the women who got accidentally caught up in it. It also has one of the most interesting women characters I’ve ever read who doesn’t even appear much in the books but whose legacy impacts every character. Tags: Science fantasy, aristocrat bullshit, bad moms, hetero but chill.

Mixed Feelings:

Uprooted - Naomi Novik: Reclusive wizard who holds an evil forest at bay takes on an apprentice girl who gets entangled in further politics of the nation. I got Really into the worldbuilding, plot, and writing of this book and it hooked me pulling me along. However I have a major frustration with it that really prevents me from putting it in the “loved” category. If I could edit out about 20 lines I’d have found it perfect. I know other folks who disagree with me though so I’ll still recomend it. Tags: wizards, nature magic, politics, grumpy tower wizard, unfortunately heterosexual.

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst: Lesbian princesses and arranged marriages uh oh. Ones a ranger jock the others a sorcerer. Its fine and cute, I wasn’t really happy with the antagonist reveal at the end though. Tags: Aristocrat bullshit, politics, F/F romance, arranged marriage angst, forbidden magic.

Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell: I really enjoyed the first book of this series and found it a delightfully self-indulgent transparent Harry Potter derivation. That sort of falls apart in the second book where having to build off something that worked as a one-off just doesn’t extend to a more filled out story and left me feeling unsatisfied. But, once again, the world building is delightful and I’m charmed by the magic system and a British person’s opinion of America. Tags: M/M romance, magic, America!, roadtrip, vampires

The Last Sun - K.D. Edwards: Modern fantasy tarot inspired world building. The main character is the last remnant of the “Sun” house that was ripped apart in a terrible way. He has PTSD and is hired to find a missing man, along the way uncovering a deeper conspiracy involving his house and past. It was fine, its a good book. I just wasn’t into it that much. Also massive trigger warnings for sexual assault, torture, etc. Tags: M/M romance, mystery, gritty, magic.

Vicious - V.E. Schwab: I enjoyed it and it was a short quick read, but for some reason I’ve never been able to get into V.E. Schwab much. Not sure why. Man with power over pain is released from prison and seeks vengeance on his former friend who put him there - who is now a superhero, and adopts a young girl necromancer in the process. Tags: villains, everyone is evil, superpowers, modern, necromancy, unwilling father figure

The City Stained Red - Sam Sykes: I really just started skimming while reading this one tbh. Trash man swordfighter and his disfunctional adventuring party trying to collect their payment in a terrible city. It felt like someone’s D&D campaign but in the worst way where everyone is an edgelord dark backstory. I honestly didn’t like a single character. But, that’s fine it just wasn’t for me. I see this get put on lists for having a bi-character. Which I guess technically but I wasn’t a huge fan of how that became relevant. Tags: tabletop inspired but insecure about it, gritty, terrible city, terrible people, bi protagonist

#i also read a bunch of stuff i hated and almost put on here to warn folks away #just get a goodreads account olivia #books #lgbt books #ill talk about any of these in further depth #gideon the ninth #claidi journals #if youve read the claidi journals please talk to me about them

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