#sh’eenaz

[fkaluis]

a little sacrifice

#the witcher #sword of destiny #a little sacrifice #sh’eenaz #mermaid #procreate #drawing

[bluedillylee]

Fanart of To Become the Water’s Foam

“He had gills. There, on his neck, below his jaw, were delicate, green-edged gills. That was why his hair seemed to be that funny greenish tone. That was why his skin seemed that strange colour, and why his eyes seemed to have shifted colour to green, too. It wasn’t the reflection of the light off the water making him see things. That was why Jaskier was singing that same mer dialect that the mermaid Sh’eenaz used: for some reason, Yennefer’s magic orb had put a Jaskier here who was a merman.”

this fanfic has such an interesting twist on the Mer-Jaskier idea. There’s also wonderfully complex Yenralt and Geraskier. Seriously go read it!

@jackironsidesfic

also posted on Ao3

Reference

#the witcher #witcher netflix #fanart for fanfic #jaskier #geralt #MerMay 2023 #mermay #creature jaskier #geraskier

[reinvent-and-believe]

episode 2 here we go!!!!

ciri wandering through the desert singing jaskier’s song about “a little sacrifice” 😢😢😢

ciri devouring the skin cream because she’s dying of thirst 😢😢😢

ciri talking to herself about mousesack to keep herself company 😢😢😢

that’s my baby girl 😢😢😢

i’m really happy we got more of “a little sacrifice”! that we got some of the agloval/sh’eenaz lore in the lyrics!

ciri wandering in the desert had always felt like something that should be boring in the books but in reality i love it. i guess because in a lot of ways, it feels like ciri in the desert is where we start to feel the shape of the narrative shifting. it’s where ciri starts to come into her own as the protagonist of the series.

i love ciri, i love getting some of her interiority, i love her struggles and defeats and triumphs with magic, i love her darkness, i love her rage, i love her fierceness, i love her devotion, i love her doggedness

i’m glad that, at least so far, we’re really taking the time with ciri here

#sam watches twn 3 #witcher season 3 spoilers

[hanzajesthanza]

you know what sapkowski does really well in the witcher that doesn’t really get talked about? the minor characters. the guys that show up once and never again.

looking at how the short stories are structured, the people geralt interacts with are not just placeholder characters who seem incredibly shallow when held to our main characters. they seem just as “real” as the rest of the characters. they have their own lives and motivations, they’re part of the living world. and the way that i know it’s done well is that i don’t even notice it. i don’t even question it. he made coming up with these background characters look easy and natural like they’ve always existed there in this world and aren’t the work of intentional creation.

there’s entire B-plots going on in the background that have little relevance in the long run but are so important to the enjoyment of the story. coocoodak has a wife he ignores. chireadan’s kin errdil and his wife live in an abandoned inn which they’re fixing up. sh’eenaz has girlfriends. freixenet was a fucking cormorant and his sister has consumption.

#thinking abt this bc the hardest part of writing a canon compliant fic is coming up with ocs #it makes me think so much about the strangers we meet in our lives and spent a day or week with and will never see again #literally everything hinges on yurga (and goldencheeks hehe) and nary a word is said about him 😥 #analysis #txt #the witcher books

[vesemirsexual]

essi and sh’eenaz though…we could’ve had it all…essi stop trying to get that pathetic old man to smash and get in the water with the fish upgrade now!

#katie txt

[laurelnose]

I've got a witcher-ish!biology question!!

Your many posts about how drowners would hypothetically breathe was so interesting and I just wanted to ask the same about sirens/merfolk (if they existed in canon..)

Like..are their very human looking noses just for aesthetics or would they functionally breathe/smell? If they have gills would they need a secondary way to breathe air when they're out of water or are they more likely to be holding their breath like reverse whales? And if they do have 2 functioning breathing methods would it be a conscious decision to use whichever is suitable for where they are or does that happen automatically?

FRIEND I AM THRILLED TO BE THE ONE TO TELL YOU THAT SIRENS/EKHIDNAE AND MERPEOPLE ARE CANON. Though canon sirens bear aggressively little resemblance to the fandom’s preferred usage for them. there are also the vodyanoy but what the fuck even are the vodyanoy. I’m not going to talk about the vodyanoy.

Sirens are canonically faking the human form to lure in prey and do not have noses or resemble humans in their true forms. So sirens can be doing whatever they want with their lungs/gills, freed from all variety of nasal misery.

Merpeople... have regular human faces. people have spent SO MANY WORDS on how and why mermaids would look like people, and frankly I do not have the energy to recount all of the mermaid thoughts I have ever been exposed to, esp. because my investment in drowners comes from my real-life fondness for horrible snappy little toad-faced amphibious creatures like cottids and batrachoidids, and this is not really at all what a mermaid is like. why would a mermaid look like a human? idk. you might as well ask why do elves look like humans? witcher mermaids aren’t trying to lure people in like the sirens (Sh’eenaz is having a bit of a problem with a human who is attracted to her) so that’s just... what they look like.

however, here are some more thoughts about being amphibious & respiration because respiration is sexy and interesting.

merpeople could be using their noses for breathing; lungfish do this, with their nasal openings connected to their throats like ours leading to their lungs, with a functioning set of gills as well. although despite their gills, most lungfish are actually obligate airbreathers and cannot be deprived of access to the surface of the water. congrats on ditching the ability to respirate where you live, idiots. it’s been working for them for about 420 million years, though.

or merpeople could be only using the noses for smell/chemoreception like most fishes, and primarily respiring through mouth/gills. either is fine!

> if they have gills would they need a secondary way to breathe out of water or would they be more likely to be holding their breath

man, the term ‘more likely’ actually does so much work in these discussions. like I say ‘more likely’ myself a lot, but respiratory adaptations are hugely varied and wild and the likelihood of any one coming about rather than any other is actually kind of impossible to quantify!

Geralt says Sh’eenaz can breathe air, and I am usually inclined to believe him. We could also consider him to be oversimplifying, in which case—both! either! it depends on how long they regularly stay out of water (which to my knowledge, aquatic airbreathers are actually much more limited by things like sun damage, skin dryness, dehydration, and temperature regulation and whether they have adaptations to deal with these things. many anabantoids like gourami are obligate air-breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface but you had still better put a gourami back in the water right quick before it shrivels up into a prune. lungfish do not have this problem because they are weirdos who roll themselves up into mud cocoons whenever the water goes away. on the other hand, humans soaked in water for too long start having issues like skin maceration (don’t image search that, it’s the breakdown of skin) so, basically, hanging out in the wrong environment is more complicated than whether or not you can breathe. this is canonical for witcher mermaids; Sh’eenaz is extremely cross about wasting her time above water because it chaps her skin).

they could be holding their breath like whales (because mermaids could be airbreathers first and waterbreathers second) or reverse whales (i.e. they store oxygen for periods of time whenever they leave the medium they can breathe). or they could be like epaulette sharks, which have an absolutely crazy anaerobic metabolism and just... deal with hypoxia. two hours at 5% of normal oxygen levels? they’re fine. that’s fine. what the fuck, epaulette sharks. also here’s a video of one doing the walking thing, because they got lil feety fins and it’s cute. fucking superb, you hypoxic little fake tetrapods. the main issue is still actually that the sun will bake an epaulette shark!

but yes, if merpeople want to be above-water for more than two or three hours at a time (provided they have adaptations to deal with other stuff), they will need a secondary respiration method of some sort. though they don’t generally seem to give that much of a fuck about humans or other things going on above-water. (Since sirens seem to split their time relatively evenly between air/water, I would guess they have two methods.)

re: the consciousness of the decision: you would have to ask a lungfish or one of the facultative air-breathing anabantoids if they think about it when they switch respiratory methods, probably. my best guess for sapients like merpeople is it’s instinctual (oxygen access is so fundamental, these things tend to be baked in) but they can also do it consciously to some extent, like when you suddenly become aware of your own breathing. my apologies. for non-sapients it’s likely 100% instinctual. oxygen is really important.

#[bill wurtz voice] THE SUUUN IS A DEADLY LAZERRR #kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #sorry sh’eenaz you’re not a monster but the sirens are #asks #anonymous

[gayregis]

a little sacrifice was the beach episode of the witcher 😳🥺

#i want geralt and dandelion to play volleyball against essi and sh’eenaz #thoughts

[sometimesiwrite]

Essi Daven Headcanons

Spoilers ahead from “A Little Sacrifice” in The Sword of Destiny

My theory: Essi is descended from the lost city of Ys

She tells Geralt she grew up by the sea, which explains why she knows so much about the tides and the ways of the ocean. Yet Jaskier also says they practically grew up together and he is utterly useless by the water. So what gives?

She speaks fluently and effortlessly to Sh’eenaz in her own language, an Elder dialect used by sentient sea-dwellers.

It’s implied, at the end of the story, that Essi has convinced Sh’eenaz to accept her legs in order to help dissuade Agloval from waging war against the Ysians.

Her seemingly rash, naive, and desperate love for Geralt is not unheard of in other lore of mythical creatures falling in love with humans, in fact it’s quite common, particularly among the Fae, but also other entities that don’t immediately come to mind.

The story consistently refers to her “large blue eye”, and while this can serve to create a wide-eyed affect for a young, naive character, it’s also not too far of a stretch to believe it’s due to her being part-Ysian, since the creatures that attack Geralt on the Dragon’s Fangs also have “large fish eyes”.

When they leave the seaside and head farther inland on horseback, they "...still [have] the scent of the sea in their nostrils, and in their ears the roar of breakers, and the piercing, urgent cries of seagulls (ch. 9, pg. 1, pgph. 2). I have reason to believe that Essi brings that with her a little bit wherever she goes; it lingers because she is with them.

Related ideas/theories:

The eye she hides behind her hair is a different colour than her other one if you look at it for long enough. 

Like the Aen Seidhe, the Ysians have intermingled with humans over the generations, though in far fewer numbers.

Their presence is not detected by Witchers’ medallions.

Essi is eighteen, but she has inherited certain memories of past generations; this means she has a deeper knowledge, understanding, and wisdom surrounding certain things (language, the location of Ys, the nature of the ocean, the history of her people, a psychic connection to other sea beings/fellow Ysians, etc.).

Though she’s an Old Soul with regard to her Ysian heritage, having a human form means holding more in a smaller vessel—emotions, understanding, thoughts, knowledge, sensations, intuitions... This is why she equates her love for Geralt to sickness. Obviously, this again could easily be Sapkowski writing a lovesick, impulsive, over-feeling poet... but where’s the fun in that?! I choose argue that she feels with the intensity of the ancients, but her human body was not built to hold it all. As much as she has “experienced” through her memories, she is still young in her own lived experiences). She is a living contradiction which leads to a certain level of tempestuousness. 

She is alone in her experiences, like a witcher without any brothers to share the intensity of living in a heightened reality. There are very few land-dwelling Ysian descendants, if any at all, and surely spread far and wide if that is the case. I believe she, like our witchers, longs for kinship and a sense of sharing something, but being a child of the water, her emotions live very differently in her than the witchers, and poor Geralt finds himself quickly at a loss for what to do. 

She’s in Bremervoord because of the pearl divers:

I have reason to imagine, based on my above musings, that Essi is not in Bremervoord to play for an engagement banquet. Rather, I choose to believe she is there because she knows about the disappearance of the pearl divers and is there to facilitate an unsuccessful investigation, thus protecting Ys from discovery and preventing further bloodshed.

BUT she doesn’t really have a plan

Until Geralt comes along. 

She intends for Geralt to find Ys, knowing that a witcher (specifically Geralt), having uncovered a lost and ancient civilization, would do everything in his power to protect it.

She knew the Ysian soldiers had found and injured him. She tells Geralt she heard that they had brought him, bleeding, onto the shore, but that news travelled awfully quickly, didn’t it? She gets there before Dandelion can finish fish-hooking his arm closed.

While he’s recovering, Essi opens Dandelion’s blue seashell and finds her birthday pearl; she asks Geralt over and over again if he’s content to part with it, knowing how much money it’s worth. Again and again, he insists that she keep it. This is how Essi knows that she can fully trust him not to exploit the new-found city. 

This was all sparked by a conversation with @rawrkinjd a little while ago, followed by another chat with @pressedinthepages and I haven’t gotten Essi out of my head since. Thanks for reading!

#essi daven #headcanons #the lost city of ys #the witcher #a little sacrifice #thoughts and theories #scribblings

[number63liveblogs]

The Sword of Destiny: A Little Sacrifice VIII-X

‘Indeed. Because I love you too, you loon. And what kind of love would it be if the one who loves were not capable of a little sacrifice?’

Yeah, no, I don’t like this ending. This is not meeting in the middle. He was willing to imprison her, there’s nothing in this story that says he’s not going to wage a war against a whole civilization because of profits, and I while he was willing to make one show of good will of waiting for Sh’eenaz for three hours, but in the light of everything else I don’t think that counts.

Sure, it would be quite easy to construct a better ending with what we were given, like Sh’eenaz being able to talk the Duke into not attacking the beings living in the ocean, or even opening a channel of communication, but that’s all conjecture. There’s nothing in the story that actually says anything like that is going to happen.

Compared to that, Essi dying to smallpox is downright acceptable. And it’s not even about her dying. Personally I would have liked to have seen her leaving a boyfriend or something like that behind or dying beside one, and left the pearl thing intact. But I guess my interpretation that what Essi felt towards Geralt was just fleeting infatuation wasn’t what the book wanted me to take out of it, was it?

#the witcher series #the sword of destiny #a little sacrifice #liveblog #number 63

[on-a-lucky-tide]

In the spirit of sharing love for minor characters, I bring you this: do with it what you will—read, reply, quietly muse, whatever. It may become a story at some point if I can get it out of concept-form and into something more malleable in my imagination (building lore and worlds is not my strong suit).

I can’t get Essi Daven out of my head. I know she appears only very briefly in one story, but if you don’t mind I’d like to bounce an idea.

A Little Sacrifice left me with way too many questions and too much character depth for my imagination to just leave her to be Geralt’s anti-Yen and Dandelion’s Complexity Insert.

The fact that she speaks so easily to Sh’eenaz is the first thing that got me thinking. Going back through the story, we learn that she “grew up by the seaside”. By she and Jaskier also “practically grew up together” and yet he seems to be useless by the sea. So what is it with Essi? Even in her first conversation with Geralt, she asks him how he feels about the ocean, what he associates it with. To me there’s a deeply mysterious wisdom behind Essi’s relationship with the sea, one that defies her otherwise naive impulsiveness in loving Geralt.

But that kind of impulsive naivety in loving is not uncommon in lore about sprites, fae, and other mythical beings falling in love with humans.

The thing that gets me thinking the most—with all these details in mind—is her final appeal to Agloval, that waging war against the lost city of Ys would be provoking a power the likes of which he’s never seen, doesn’t understand. True, it seems a straightforward enough caution, but there’s a knowingness behind her confidence that I can’t shake. And it seems she’s spoken with Sh’eenaz, convinced her to accept legs and join Agloval to prevent him from self-destruction.

So my theory is: Essi is more than human. Maybe a child of Ys, maybe something else. Regardless, I don’t buy that she’s just an 18-year-old travelling bard.

Your storytelling has been getting my imagination revving, and this is one such biproduct. Like I’ve said before, I love thinking about character and nuance, but it’s hard for me to do it by myself—I’m an actor, creating alone isn’t something I’m really built for. But your stories both encourage and challenge me, and in a way that makes the process feel less solitary. So thanks!

Have a wonderful day! 😁

You know when you encounter someone so frickin' intelligent and you're always blindsided by them? And have to take a quick breath and find some brain cells before you interact? That's Margaret. Wow.

I would love to read this in its finished form. Essi often gets ditched because she's the one Dandelion forces on Geralt (and is a vehicle for some other realisations, I guess). But this could be such an interesting exploration. And also another example of why I too latch onto side characters: so many stories untold. Perfect example.

Thank you! You dazzle me.

#rawrkinanswers #Margaret #holy hell #this would be so good

[tallgreenlady]

An automatic improvement to the short story “A Little Sacrifice” is to make Essi Daven and Sh’eenaz the mermaid fall in love and kiss. This is an improvement for many reasons including but not limited to:

1. Counteracts the hideous lesbophobia in the opening chapter

2. Essi gets to exist outside of her role as a vehicle for male character development

3. If Sh’eenaz still decides to gain some legs, she has a traveling musician girlfriend to show her around instead of being stuck in some castle

#the witcher #a little sacrifice #carla reads

[sheepinthesky]

The Witcher - The Sword of Destiny

I haven’t written about the Witcher in a long time, have I. I did finish reading the second title – Sword of Destiny. A little fun fact in the beginning – the original Polish version was released before The Last Wish, aka the first book. Interesting!

Sword of Destiny is another collection of short stories based in the Witcher universe. This time, it’s just six stories (the first book had 7!), however they’re all good. I’m not fan of first book’s “A Question of Price”. Not at all.

The first short story is called The Bounds of Reason and it’s a really good story to start a book with. It has action, it has talking and politics. And, the best characters take a part in this story. Talking about Dandelion and Yennefer. Sure, they’re “main characters”, that doesn’t mean they’re in every story, though. Anyway, the story starts off with Geralt, who has been hired to kill a basilisk. The people who hired him were impatient and they thought that he was dead already and they decided to take his belongings. However, they have been stopped by Borch Three Jackdaws, accompanied by two Zerrikankian women. In the end, Geralt keeps his things and fortunately gets paid. Three Jackdaws invites him to a local inn and there they befriend. The next day, they decide to continue they travels. They are stopped at the border though, because king Niedamiris hunting a dragon there. And then it gets interesting. Many people are there to help the king – mages, dwarfs, warriors, even Dandelion. Geralt, even though he’s a Witcher and they do not kill dragons, joins this mixed crew. Because not all of them share the same motives and even goals, they soon start to argue and Geralt decides to leave them. However, it gets crazy and he just can’t easily leave! I liked this one story, because it did have all. Dragons, action, politics, jokes. And plot twists.

A Shard of Ice is my least favourite story of his book. It tells us more about the relationship of Yennefer and Geralt, however… It’s kind of boring. Geralt meets Istredd, who is Yennefer “lover”, which makes him angry, because, well, they have a thing together, too. Istredd thinks that Yennefer couldn’t be happy with Geralt and Geralt thinks the same about Istredd. And that’s the story. A fight for Yennefer. And Yennefer concludes the fight with her ice-queen style.

The third story is called Eternal Flame. In this story, we learn about the dopplers and how Dandelion created one of his better-known ballads. Dopplers are shapepshifting creatures and one of them took a shape of Dainty Biberveld, a halfling. This doppler Dudu concludes many deals and makes a lot of money. The real Dainty finds out, though, and he doesn’t like this identity theft. And of course, this all is happening in Novigrad, where the Eternal Fires prosecutes all “monsters”, dopplers included. And by prosecuting, I mean they kill them.

A Little Sacrifice is the fourth short story and this one is inspired by the Little Mermaid. In this story, we learn the tale of two lovers, Sh’eenaz the siren and Agloval. Agloval is a regular human who is in love with the siren, however he doesn’t seem to make any compromises. Agloval doesn’t speak her language so he hired Geralt, who honestly isn’t that great either. Sh’eenaz gets offended, because Agloval wants to marry her. With legs, not with tail. She thinks it’s unfair, because just for him she sits on a rock every single day and it hurts. She gives him all she can and he just takes. Because of this, she leaves and Agloval is angry at Geralt, thinking it’s his fault. And so, Geralt doesn’t get paid. In the meantime, Dandelion arranges a performance on a wedding and so Geralt and Danelion have something to eat and somewhere to sleep. During the wedding, Geralts meets Agloval once again and he hires him, this time to investigate the deaths of pearl divers. This story had a nice atmosphere and it did show us that we, humans, can’t rule all land and all water.

The fifth short story is The Sword of Destiny. This is the story in which Ciri gets introduced! Geralt is on his way to deliver a message to the queen of the dryads. He finds two corpses and the baron of Valen, Freixenet. Freixenet is looking for a princess, who ran away. Before Geralt can do anything, dryads surround them. One of them, Braenn, takes Geralt to Duén Canell, to the queen. Freixenet is escorted by the other dryads. Along the way, Braenn and Geralt find the princess, who has been attacked by a giant centipede. Braenn takes them both to the queen and she must decide, what to do with Ciri. Normally, she would be raised in Brokilon to become a dryad, but Geralt asks Eithné, the queen, to let her go. Eithné knows that Ciri is in fact a child bound by fate to Geralt (as we learned in book 1) and she does use this knowledge while making decisions.

The last story, Something More, is very, very nice. The story begins with a merchant, who has difficulties during his travel. Thankfully, he meets Geralt and he decides to help when merchant says he’ll give him whatever he desires. Geralt asks for what he finds at home yet doesn’t expect. He gets in a fight, and is injured. The merchant tries to heal him and Geralt takes some of his potions, which makes him unconscious and he dreams of past events. We learn of the second battle of Sodden, of the battle of Cintra… All the sad stuff! We also meet someone from book 1. The best thing is what Geralt receives in the end. J

There is no need to read the first book. If you’re into fantasy and can’t find book 1, grab book 2. Doesn’t matter. It’s a good introduction. As I said earlier, I love Sapkowski’s writing. It’s very detailed. And there isn’t much action, however, it’s not boring. He uses this casual humour. I suppose that’s what makes The Witcher great.

[gayregis]

As much as i hate twn it's been very interesting seeing the surge of interest around the witcher and seeing how people outside of poland/EE interpret it and what they focus on? Like I dont mean this in any negative way at all but in a "its fascinating how people's cultural background shapes how they look at foreign art and it's weird to be part of the original culture that produced it and not the alien culture consuming it like it is with american movies or something" like it's just Fascinating

it is interesting, i don't have much to add as an american, but i think this should be an open discussion. i think cultural background definitely shapes how one sees characters interact, reads lines that were said, etc...

in my experience, what i've appreciated is reading the books once just to get my first impressions, then going through it over the past couple of years with additions and translation notes from a variety of sources (polish mutuals and other eastern european people on here that post about the witcher, r/wiedzmin commentary, random wordpress blogs, etc) to get a better understanding of what's going on in certain contexts and understanding some of the cultural differences. because i believe translator notes do not just begin and end with "this is what this word means," but rather are needed to understand whole characters and scenes, because of a variety of aspects. for translation in the sense of translating words, the syntax and diction changes a lot from the polish to english official UK translation. of course, some change is inevitable because of the way that polish and english grammar works. but in some cases it's so severe that it changes how the prose sounds and in many cases changes how the characters come off. @karanfile has spoken about this, where in english geralt is pretty wordy, whereas in polish geralt is brisk and curt, and it makes them entirely different characters. 

here is also, of course, context surrounding cultural references, such as torque saying “goodnight” at the end of edge of the world, or the bounds of reason/limits of the possible with regards to villentretenmerth and sheepbagger. the witcher does draw on a variety of european mythology (and even extends as far as japanese mythology in season of storms), and many tales are utilized and inverted. but i think where an american audience will know sh’eenaz and duke agloval from hans christen andersen’s the little mermaid, we will be completely in the dark when it comes to princess adda, torque... i have seen many american and british reviews of the witcher praising it for its uniqueness and never-seen-before quality in including kinds of creatures from slavic mythology, and i can’t help but chuckle a bit because it’s not really a matter of uniqueness, just that the american and british audience are not familiar with the mythology! plus, since it loses that “familiarity” like these characters are living in a strange, inverted rendition of a story from your childhood, the message highlighted right on the page that “THIS IS A SERIES ABOUT INVERTING FANTASY TROPES” can be missed sometimes (though i also feel like it still remains obvious, with main characters who are blatant inversions of their tropes...)

another thing i have noticed (also spoke about this with karanfile and others in the discord) especially is how love and romance is interpreted by polish and american audiences. i was reading this wordpress article by sylwia of warsaw about the differences between how polish and american cultures concieve of friendship (i was thinking about how geralt calls dandelion his przyjaciel as his first introduction). (also here is another good article by her on the subject). a few things which came to my mind from reading this, and these thoughts are about broad cultures, not individuals!: 

americans generally seem to not recognize that “a friend” can mean someone very close. the word “friend” basically stands in for any kind of friendly relationship, you may spoken to someone once or have known them closely for 20 years, and both are your “friend.” it is also suggested usually that one’s friend is at odds with their boyfriend or girlfriend, i.e., it’s usually suggested that people will prioritize their boyfriend or girlfriend over their friend, nevermind how close either relationship might be to their friend (again, there’s only one real word for “friend”). there is also attitude against this, in a counter-culture manner, in which you get the “bros before hoes” type of sayings. this attitude i think affects how many americans see geralt and dandelion’s relationship - i.e., it is read that dandelion is just geralt’s “friend,” so he is not important to geralt, and that being “friends” doesn’t insinuate any closeness, and is “lesser” to romance. this i think also affects how many geraskiers from twn have changed the dynamic between geralt and jaskier in their fanon, because much “happy” or “ideal” geraskier content is of them calling each other pet names, doting on one another, being overly and overtly romantic. geralt and dandelion have never acted like this in either netflix or the books, and in the books where they are actually friends, they do not treat each other like this and there is nothing to suggest that if they had a romantic relationship that their dynamic would change to fit this idea of what romance is like.

similarly, dandelion’s floweriness and “hyper-romance” (i have no idea how else to phrase it) in the books has been interpreted by some american fans as being genuine, cute, sweet, romantic, and admirable -- when it’s pretty clear that the intention is to make him look foolish and absurd. when he flirts with women such as detchka in eternal flame (the landlord’s daughter), he whines some bullshit (UK translation, made even more flowery and out-of-place by david french, “Forest dryad! Sylph! Fairy! O, Divine creature, with eyes like azure lakes. Thou art as exquisite as the morn, and the shape of thine parted lips are enticeingly…”) geralt and dudu (in the form of dainty) cringe at his performance. and this is who dandelion is, he plays with love and acts embarassingly dramatic and forward about it. but to an american audience, this behavior comes off as sweet, romantic, dreamy, desirable... not utterly stupid like it’s intended to?

i also think about geralt and yennefer. this is barring actual qualms about the writing of their relationship itself, but i have also seen american fans say that they do not act like a couple because they are not constantly doting on one another. and of course, misinterpreting yennefer’s sarcasm about the house dream in time of contempt as a genuine response (i do believe she also longed for a home, but was simply teasing geralt for being so optimistic as to think that they could ever achieve something like that, as it seems improbable (especially to her, as she is older than him and has seen more of life)).

bringing it back to what you have said, anon, i think “romance” is something the american audience definitely bangs their fists on the table to demand, and focuses very closely on couple relationships. not that this isn’t the case in ANY other countries’ cultures, but from my experience, a tie in for deep, blinding romance it seems to be essential to american storytelling. this is unfortunate to me because i believe romance is only one element which makes the witcher strong.

this attitude is also highly reflected in netflix’s witcher series, as they did not show how geralt and jaskier are close friends, did not show how geralt is ciri’s father, and did show geralt and yennefer together, BUT with the caveat that they ruined their entire relationship and made geralt insanely dominant, merciless in rebuking and taking advantage of yennefer. romance is prioritized and it’s only a certain type of romance that is...?

i invite more discussion on this post, if anyone else has thoughts, reblog at will

#ask #anon #the witcher #the witcher netflix #me: 'i dont have much to add' / me: [adds]

[gayregis]

list of monsters geralt encounters in the books and if he kills them

princess adda as a striga (the last wish) — no, lifted the curse

vereena, a bruxa (a grain of truth) — no, he did not kill her, but he intended to, he just could not. she was indeed killed but not by his hand

duny as an anthropomorphic hedgehog (a question of price) — no, lifted the curse, and he thought he befriended him

torque and the elves of the blue mountains* (the edge of the world) — no, befriended / parted on okay terms * elves were considered monsters by the humans of lower posada and they asked that geralt kill them

djinn (the last wish) — no, exhausted the wishes and let it go free

villentretenmerth, a dragon (the bounds of reason) — no, befriended (and shared a hot tub with)

zeugl (a shard of ice) — yes, as part of a contract

dudu, a doppler (eternal flame) — no, befriended

sh’eenaz, a mermaid (a little sacrifice)  — no, befriended

fishmen from ys (a little sacrifice) — yes, they attacked first

giant centipede (the sword of destiny) — yes, it attacked first

unnamed ‘little beasts’ (something more) — yes, they attacked first and also were part of him enacting the law of surprise for a second time

aeschna (blood of elves) — no, he fought it but did not kill it

eyehead (baptism of fire) — no, he scared it off instead

regis, a vampire that “defies easy classification” (baptism of fire) — no, then they became good friends

echninops (tower of the swallow) — no

barbegazis (tower of the swallow) — no

unnamed pekinese-like monkey-like monster (tower of the swallow) — no, but he did kick it gently trying to get it off his foot

knocker (tower of the swallow) — no

‘little tree,’ an ent (tower of the swallow) — no

kurolishek, aka cockatrice (lady of the lake) — yes, as part of a contract

succubus (lady of the lake) — no

solpuga of the castel toricella vineyards (lady of the lake) — unclear, he hunted it as part of a contract

mister schweitzer, a korred (lady of the lake) — yes, he attacked first

kilmulis (lady of the lake) — yes, it attacked first

pryskirnik (lady of the lake) — yes, it attacked first

unnamed shapeshifting, candelabra-like monster (lady of the lake) — yes, it attacked first

idr (season of storms) — yes, it attacked first

vigilosaur (season of storms) — yes, he was forced to

otto dusart, his wife edwina, and their two girls, werewolves (season of storms) — no (x4), he was friends with otto, and when his wife almost killed him he did not fight her

aguara (season of storms) — no, parted on good terms

i hope i didn’t miss any but this is just from all i remember. there were probably more that fell to his sword in toussaint in lady of the lake because fringilla attested that he had been taking contracts.

the final count is yes = 11, unclear = 1, no = 22 . and the ones he did kill, he did so because it endangered others or him directly and he was left with no other choice

#thoughts #the witcher #geralt #i love how vereena counts as a 'no' just because geralt got his ass kicked so hard he couldn't manage to do it #also even though pryskyřník is like buttercup in czech. uh. no relation to dandelion from what i can tell lmao

[gayregis]

I love your thoughts and i just wanna ask any opinion on Essi?

i love the talented trobairitz … yet i have many mixed feelings because i feel like sapkowski created a character with a lot of potential yet he didn’t give her enough agency as a character and ended her too quickly, before we could really get attached to her. i feel like she was really used for the development of geralt’s relationship with yennefer and dandelion’s character and she never really got a chance to stand on her own. 

i understand that she was only supposed to partake in one story and her entire purpose was to be another reason why geralt and yennefer are meant for each other, but it was kind of upsetting as to how she was treated by the narrative, because she demonstrates SUCH depth and is very interesting. 

another thing that totally pissed me off and grosses me out is that she’s supposed to be barely 18, yet she and geralt are briefly a thing and she’s sister to dandelion who is like 30ish. for my own sake, i’ve blanked that part out and think she should be in her early-to-mid-20s.

i have a few headcanons about how essi and dandelion met in the first place, i have a whole multi-chapter fic planned, actually, but i’ll never write it… the first part is about essi and dandelion meeting, which basically happens because essi is a student of high merit and is assigned dandelion as a mentor at oxenfurt (actually, she says she was assigned to him, but later on it’s revealed she had a choice and she chose him because she actually liked his work/wanted to meet him/etc). it’s kind of like a “perfect student + slacker teacher” duo… i haven’t read/watched the hunger games since like 2013 so i don’t remember much, but i think katniss and her alcoholic mentor is a good analogy here. since they’re closer in age based on my headcanons (essi is a teenager, dandelion has just graduated oxenfurt but has become famous and was brought back as an adjunct, so he’s maybe like a little older than cahir is in baptism of fire…) they develop their sibling relationship over time. it’s also fun because office hours are just jam sessions

the second part of the fic would be about how the conflict between dandelion and valdo marx becomes intergenerational as they both take on proteges and prepare for a singing tournament in which they will go toe-to-toe in separate duets. some key points i’ve made up are that dandelion actually lets essi lead the duet and it’s emotional because it’s like wow he believes in her and his arrogance subsides when he’s around her… also, i thought it would be fun to give essi chronic stage fright when she begins in her career, like i headcanon that dandelion had a lisp when he was younger. so there’s a challenge to overcome re: a stage career. i think in the end of the fic, essi and valdo’s protege (also a girl) find some quiet place to talk and kiss while their brother-mentors argue like cranky old men. hashtag love wins

but as for canon i love her parts in a little sacrifice. i love her interactions with dandelion and sh’eenaz… 

like ... this is so sweet lol... i love how they start throwing shade at each other like wow friendship... mentorship... siblingisms...

like look at this. she should have been gay with sh’eenaz... we were kinda robbed. i also want to write an AU ending to a little sacrifice where dandelion starts crying about how his sister’s become a fish and swam off, and everyone at the cape thinks he’s lost it lol...

#empress-du-lion #ask #essi daven