#( yeah i fucked with my own canon for dramatic effect sue me )

[ptrparkcrs]

& you say rise above (self-para)

summary: peter meets an old friend in an unexpected place and faces dire consequences word count: 3002 trigger warnings: violence, injury, death mention, spider-man cops (completely useless, but existent)

It was ten seventeen PM. He had been at work late, probably too late, troubleshooting something small and nitpicky that even he barely understood. At least there was always food somewhere in the building, and FRIDAY liked him enough to not yell at him when he stole a second donut, or a third, or when he ordered an extra-large pizza on Tony Stark’s credit card. As long as he didn’t leave his workspace too greasy and saved some leftovers for Tony, he’d probably be fine.

Whatever it was he had been supposed to be working on, clean energy or artificial intelligence or consumer goods or fancy sunglasses, it probably wasn’t supposed to have been reconstructing the lenses of Spider-Man’s mask to better conform to his facial expressions, but Peter had had to do some repairs after Gabby had torn the thing to shreds. If Tony caught him sewing on the clock, what was he going to do? Let Spider-Man go without a mask? Put Peter’s life at risk? No, he’d be fine. He’d been too antsy to focus on real work, his ribs still healing, his face still a little tender. He’d needed a concrete physical distraction and the satisfaction of knowing he was fixing something.

(He’d be totally fine in a day or two; he was almost there, but Gabby had done a pretty solid number on him. Broken ribs, a black eye, scabs where the pavement had rubbed his chin raw, the whole shebang. He told everyone it was a bike accident, even though he didn’t own a bike, because nearly beaten to death by a chemically ramped-up teenager wasn’t something that could realistically have happened to completely normal, non-superhero guy Peter Parker. In retrospect, he should have said he’d crashed his skateboard into a taxi again, which he had done more than once in high school, but hindsight was 20/20.) 

Still, the time spent on the mask during the day had meant a pile of unfinished work, which had meant staying at the tower later. Peter knew that, as best as he’d tried not to be, he was a nepotism hire. He’d waltzed into Stark industries with little training and few qualifications, and he was determined to prove that he was just as suited to be here as anyone else. Yeah, he’d had the internship, but he’d gotten that through sheer dumb luck and minor internet fame, and he and Tony both knew it had been a cover, anyway. Yeah, he had a college degree, but most of his actual work experience had been mediocre photography for a vaguely predatory, second-rate newspaper. He’d been a child prodigy, sure, but last he’d checked most child prodigies peaked sometime around high school, and building the Spider-Man suit for personal gain wasn’t about to go on his resume. He knew any interview process he’d gone through had been performative; he knew that the job had been his no matter what, so long as he hadn’t actually blown up the company. He didn’t want Tony to regret his decision, and he really did want to keep his job. That meant actually doing his work, even if he did have to stay long past dark.

So he’d finally finished—the work and the mask—and headed home to find Sandwich demanding a second dinner and a walk. Fine. Okay. He could do that.

“All you’ve got going for you is your body, bud,” he said. “Don’t know why you’re so determined to ruin that.” Sandwich was beautiful, in a scraggly rescue dog kind of way (Aunt May said he looked like the dog from Annie, which was probably a compliment), but he was also dumb as a rock. He put a few treats in the bowl anyway and went to find a leash.

As he dug through the storage cube where he was sure he’d left the good collar, Peter heard sirens. They sounded close, maybe a few blocks away, and getting closer. His police scanner was on his nightstand, but there wasn’t time to check. Sirens were as good a cue as any.

“I’ll be back soon,” he told Sandwich, as he grabbed his suit from the pile on the floor, pulled it on, and headed towards the window. “We’ll walk later. Promise. Please don’t eat the couch again while I’m gone.”

The dog grunted and went back to eating.

&&&

Web swinging was hard today. His body groaned with every movement, resisting the stress of his acrobatics. Still healing. He hadn’t realized she’d gotten him quite that badly; he’d been up against way worse than a single teenage girl, but he hadn’t had anyone try so determinedly to kill him from such close range in a long time--not since Norman, or maybe Harry, but that had felt a little more reluctant. Fine, he’d go easy on the somersaults.

So long as whatever was up there wasn’t a troupe of murderous acrobats, he’d probably be okay. At least the new mask was holding up well.

What was up ahead, three or five or seven or twenty-six blocks from his apartment, he’d lost count, was—lights. Sirens. Yelling. A strange, echoing thump-thump. Shit. He dropped himself onto a rooftop to survey the scene, his ribs only groaning a little bit as he landed in a crouch. A bank, long closed for the night, its windows smashed. A row of police cars, like a barricade. Coming in from the north, fire trucks, an ambulance. A small throng of bystanders, their phones out, edging around the scene. A trail of broken asphalt running away in the opposite direction.

And in the middle of it all, a figure.

A man, maybe. In a long jacket, something more than the night obscuring his face. He—if it was a he—didn’t seem very big, but he hovered several feet above the ground, supported by what appeared to be a pair of giant robotic arms. Another pair spread wide into the night air, lashing at anyone who tried to approach.

Peter was pretty sure he’d seen those arms before, or something very like them. Mostly in sketches, then once or twice in a lab in college, never in use, just propped up safely against the back wall. They help my dexterity, Peter. More precise.

But that had been in a secure research lab up at Columbia, where the arms had helped a man’s clumsy hands study nuclear physics at an atomic scale, not ravage a bank on the Lower East Side. Stolen tech, maybe? A copycat? Convergent evolution, two people independently building the same machine at the same time? But what were the odds of that, really? These were robotic arms, not clean energy or self-driving cars. It was too niche. Who was this man, and what could he want?

He swung down, closer, landing on the hood of a police car. The officer standing next to it looked down at Peter and sighed.

“Hey, Spider-Man,” he said. “You can go home. We’ve got this.”

Peter tethered himself to a lamppost closer to the bank and leapt off the hood, angry at his stupid fragile body keeping him from somersaulting away for maximum dramatic effect. “That’s what you always say, Bill.”

“It’s David.”

“I really don’t care.”

He landed on the lamppost, but just barely. The many-armed man had seen him coming and was getting closer, one of his robotic limbs swiping at Peter’s perch. Peter leaped off before the pole could crash down and rolled to the ground, where he finally got a good look at his assailant.

He hadn’t imagined it. He knew those arms.

“Doctor Oc—"

Doctor Octavius. His thesis advisor. A kind, absentminded, academic type, the brand who left their office littered with sticky notes to remember to buy milk, who replied to emails four days late at two in the morning. He’d called Peter a genius kid, said he’d had what it takes to save the world. Because that’s what scientists do, Peter. We change things. We fix them. We make them better. We help the people who can’t help themselves—you get that, don’t you?

Oh, he got it.

Doc was wearing glasses, and his jovial smile had twisted into a sneer, but it was unmistakably him. He lowered himself to the ground, all four metal arms swirling around him.“Oh, great,” he said. “It’s the bug boy. What, couldn’t send any of the real superheroes to stop me? Daddy too busy arresting innocent people?”

With all due respect, Peter thought, what the fuck? Sure, he wasn’t an Enforcer, but his old professor going on a crime spree with a set of weaponized robot arms, probably having some sort of episode, called for enforcement.

He lifted himself off the ground slowly. His body was already screaming for a break, and they were barely getting started. “Look, dude, I respect the whole eight-legs thing, but you don’t gotta be so literal about it. It’s kinda—what’s the word? Tacky.”

Doc lunged at him; Peter dodged. “Wait, no,” he continued. “Kitschy. Campy. Gaudy.” Another swipe, another dodge. “No, I was right the first time. Tacky, it’s tacky.”

The next swipe came from behind him, and Peter jumped out of the way just in time. “What do you even want, Doc? For a guy in tights to teach you that robbing banks and taking hostages is wrong? Congrats, you got it!” He didn’t know if there were hostages; he’d been too stunned by Otto to check, he just assumed there were. There were almost always hostages when the guys in costumes got involved.

“How do you know my name?” Octavius growled.

Yep, there were hostages.

“I dunno, it was just a vibe. You kind of look like my dentist.” And the man who shaped my college career, but same thing.

Most nights he could go on like this forever. Banter, dodge, punch, jump, repeat. Talk him into submission, until he was too worn down by Peter’s endless punchlines to punch back.  Tonight, he was tired. He was injured. He had a dog at home waiting for a walk. This needed to be quick—rescue the hostages, get Otto taken in and looked after. (Kindly, he hoped; the Otto Octavius he knew was a good man, and was probably in there somewhere, scared and confused.) In the morning, maybe Peter Parker could call to innocently, coincidentally check in on his old mentor and get the full story.

“You’re a nuisance, Spider-Man. You know that, don’t you?”

“So it said on my report cards.”

Octavius stepped closer, and Peter webbed one of his metal legs to the ground, but he kept swiping. In his real arms, the human ones, Peter could see a briefcase, presumably full of the stolen money or techno-weapons for looting safety deposit boxes. So he already had what he wanted, but still the hostages, still the rampage, still the crazed look behind those horrible dark goggles. Peter could deal with him, the cops could free the hostages, they’d be fine, this was fine, everything was going to be fine.

But how had this happened—why had this happened? Did he poison everyone he touched? Ben, Gwen, Norman, even Harry, all either dead or driven mad by his proximity. Who next? Tony? May? Steph? MJ? His high school science teacher? His next-door neighbors?

You ruin everything, Peter Parker. They’re safer if you don’t love them, if they don’t love you. You’re a time bomb. A nuclear blast. Look at what you do to them. What you’ve done. You’re not worth it.

His spider sense alerting him to an incoming blow put a pause on the cycle of self-loathing. He couldn’t dodge in time, and an angry fist landed hard against his face. He groaned, and he tasted the blood from his (now probably broken) nose as it dripped into his mouth. “What do you want, Otto?” he spat.

Shit.

“Doctor” he could get away with as a joke, but how would Spider-Man know Doctor Octavius’s first name? He wouldn’t, that’s how. Not unless they knew each other in real life, civilian life, faces uncovered and feet on the ground. Peter, you idiot. His cover, which he had so carefully maintained for the past eight years, was about a minute from being blown by an academic in octopus cosplay. 

This shouldn’t have been happening. He was a professional, he was good at this. He had learned from his past, he was doing better, and these were amateur mistakes. He was off his game, that’s what this was. He was exhausted, injured, overworked, stunned by the improbability of it all. His whole life was improbable; he should have known to expect this kind of thing by now, but he wasn’t convinced he wasn’t living out some middle schooler’s sadistic Mad Libs. He still had time to fix this.

Otto said nothing; he just laughed.

Peter tried to launch himself in the air for a swing and a kick, but his reflexes were slowing, his injuries worsening. Whatever healing he’d done had been set back several days, and every movement was more labored than the last. Before he could evade, the arms, all of them now free of webbing, wrapped themselves around him and pulled him in. Peter hissed in response, his exhalation short and shallow, doing his best to suppress a yelp.

“Oh, come on. Personal space, dude,” he said, and the top left arm pinched his wrists together in response. He was now being held fast in evil, sentient handcuffs, no hopes of swinging away in sight. Nothing this stupid would have happened to Tony; Tony would have had lasers and lights and taken out this guy in minutes. Hell, he could have called in the Iron Legion for backup if he’d wanted, but a single man didn’t deserve it. Peter was a disappointment, again. This should have been so easy, and yet.

And yet.

Peter wasn’t Tony Stark.

“Otto,” growled Octavius.

Peter said nothing.

“Why did you call me that?”

This time, Peter squirmed. He was being held tightly, so tightly. His wrists were raw, his chest burning, and at some point, he had started to bleed. Work was going to have to buy bike accident twice this week. ”I told you. You look like my dentist. His name’s Otto. It was a lucky guess.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

His head spun and his mouth tasted like iron and asphalt as the world tunneled in around the edges of his vision. His hands still tied, he tried to gain some leverage with a kick, but the other arms squeezed even tighter until he was sure he felt a crunch. Great. This was it, this was how he died. Sometime around midnight outside a random bank because his college thesis advisor had taken up a life of crime and he’d been too weak and injured to do anything about it. Yeah, that tracked.

“Who are you, Spider-Man?”

Peter couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could only steel himself as his spider sense turned on high alert. Imminent danger, big time. Yeah, he got it. With the human hand not holding the briefcase, Otto pulled the mask from his head.

And immediately dropped him, limp and winded and battered, to the ground.

Peter’s bare skin was so cold, the streetlights so bright, every sound and smell heightened without the mask.

Otto’s face had cleared with recognition, and his sneer fell away. “Peter?”

Peter groaned. Then he peeled himself off the ground and launched a flurry of web bombs until Otto was wrapped tightly all over. It wouldn’t hold long, but it would have to hold long enough to get him taken safely into custody. Locked up in the Raft for ten to life, a brilliant man’s work cut short by his own creation. (Was it too soon to make Frankenstein jokes?) But Peter couldn’t think about the tragedy of it yet. He had to keep moving.

He kept his head down until he found the mask by Otto’s feet. His hands were shaking, and it took impossibly long to fit it back over his head. It was twisted or too small or made for someone else entirely, bunching around his neck and pulling uncomfortably against his swollen face. And then he stood up, wobbly and wheezing, and faced the officers who were pulling the hostages from the building. Maybe they’d been inside. Maybe they hadn’t seen him. Maybe it was okay.

“You’ve got this from here, Bill,” he said, and, with every ounce of willpower he had left, he swung away on shaky arms to pick up his dog, call Aunt May, and hide in his childhood bedroom for the rest of his life.

&&&

The officers may not have seen him, but there had been bystanders. There are always bystanders, just like there are always hostages. They have cameras. They have social media. They flock to danger, to drama, to sensationalism. They post suffering for the likes and the retweets and the fleeting moments of fame. A Spider-Man sighting was pretty commonplace--novel, but not extraordinary. But this tableau, a hero in crisis, an identity revealed, that was media gold. This was a millennial icon’s Pyrrhic victory. This was a new weak spot in the Accords. And under all that bravado, he was just a scared little boy. They didn't recognize him (there was at least one audible boo when someone realized that Spider-Man was just another pasty white boy), but they’d seen him, and that was enough.

The responsible thing would have been to keep his secret, to respect the sanctity of what had happened here tonight. But the bystanders are never responsible.

While all the others had been texting and tweeting and snapping and streaming, at least one had had the wherewithal to take a picture with one of their fancy, enormous, three-lensed phone cameras and capture Spider-Man unmasked, clear as day, battered and bloody but distinctly him, and send it straight to the Daily Bugle.

(The ball’s in your court now, Jameson.)

#( self-para ) #( & you say rise above ) #tw: injury #tw: violence #tw: death mention #( yeah i fucked with my own canon for dramatic effect sue me )

[frenchibi]

A rant-essay about The Witcher books (and comparison to the show)

((after having read book one, and started into a good chunk of book two.))

Proceed at your own discretion, there will be a lot of frustration and swearing. Also, spoilers for basically the entirety of the Netflix show. Also, there is discussion of sexual assault and objectification and lots and lots of sexism.

The structure of my rant is as follows (because yes I structured it):

 1. Things that I enjoyed in the books

1.1 Geralt talks more

1.2 Geralt and Jaskier have a better relationship

1.3 The fairy tale theme

2. Things that made me want to scream

2.1 Geralt (is not a good character)

2.2 Yennefer (deserves better)

2.3 Jaskier's sexism (Netflix!Jaskier would NEVER)

2.4 Female Characters; Sexy Fantasy That Fucks (it's bad)

2.5 Narrative devices and structure (it’s bad)

3. Bonus: Why the audiobook grinds my gears

Total length: 4k words :’) Click to proceed.

(So, we’re doing this? I think forty likes is sufficient general interest, so... okay. Obligatory disclaimer here: This Is My Opinion. However, I am not fabricating any of the… grounds for my opinion, it is based on the content of the books, that I read, and which are broadly available, so anyone can read them and see for themselves. Personally, I would not recommend the experience, and below I will detail the reasons why. If, like I was, you’re hesitant about reading them, this essay might sway your decision either way. You might go “oh thanks op now I know I won’t like it” or “huh I think I wanna see this for myself because you’re yelling a lot”. It’s all equally valid. Anyway, let’s proceed with “things I enjoyed”.)

1.1 Geralt talks more Geralt in the books is a bit of a mess as far as characterization goes - but I don't hate that he's less stoic here and less... idk, arrogant/superior towards humans than he is in the show. He talks to people, engages with them, discloses opinions and thoughts and… it's a good look. We even get several pages of monologue from him at one point (because he is talking to a priestess who has taken a vow of silence, but I’ll take it – the books in general have a monologue/structure problem which I will address in 2.5) which is way more than the show ever provided us with. I’d like to say it gives us an insight into the character but maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, see below (2.1).

 1.2 Geralt and Jaskier have a better relationship

Geralt and Jaskier are FRIENDS. And I mean that literally the first thing we hear Geralt say about Jaskier in canon in book one is "of course I want to see him, he's my friend". Which - Netflix!Geralt could NEVER and I'm salty about it. Jaskier in the books has his own problems (2.3) but I still think he's my favorite overall, he's fun and Geralt genuinely enjoys his company. They travel together and ENJOY it, they joke, they reminisce and it is Good. Netflix, take notes.

 1.3 The fairy tale theme

This gets lost in the Netflix adaptation altogether but. The idea in the books is that all these monsters that Geralt encounters are dark twists on fairy tales and I'm HERE FOR IT. Renfri is literally Snow White But Badass. Cinderella, Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin’s stories are mentioned in passing, and other ideas that are explored here have fairy tale elements, e.g. slaying the dragon. It's cool, but apparently the story loses this aspect in later volumes so I guess it makes sense that the show decided to omit it. Still a bummer tho bc I liked that.

 So. Now on to Things that made me want to Scream, which is what we’re all really here for.

2.1 Geralt (is not a good character)

Geralt, oh Geralt, I wish you weren't such an obvious Mary Sue, Saviour™ and thinly veiled Jesus allegory. Geralt is always, ALWAYS right and it pisses me the fuck off. Geralt gets all the women he wants with NO PROMPTING and it makes me angry. Geralt always has the last laugh in every and any situation. Geralt is always smarter and more powerful than the Idiot Humans. Geralt ignores advice and suffers no consequences for it. Geralt has no well-thought out character, no consistency - he just is the "main character" and "hero" that the story needs - if the story needs him to be smart, he is, if it needs him to make a mistake, he does - he has no AGENCY and it’s BORING. Why am I supposed to care about him, exactly? Because the plot tells me to, and because everyone else is framed like an idiot in comparison and you’re supposed to like strong and smart characters. Cool. Bleh.

 2.2 Yennefer (deserves better)

Strap in, because this is the longest part.

Yennefer in the books is… a badass (but sexy) until the plot needs her to be a damsel (but sexy). She also occasionally has one (1) other character trait and that trait is Crazy Bitch.

I’ll admit I was not her biggest fan after the show (I didn’t really connect with her that much after she became vindictive™, though I gotta say her role in the last battle was Very Cool) but in the wake of what I have read so far, I have decided to AGGRESSIVELY STAN because she fucking. Deserves better. Oh my GOD it makes me so angry. Here’s how I think her character creation probably went:

"Ok so here we have Geralt, who is a badass, and So Cool, and he could have any Female he desires. But his Female can't be inferior and giggly and vapid like literally all other women - she needs to be the ideal fantasy Fantasy.

First: she needs powers. So we'll make her a Cool Sorceress! And more powerful than the other sorceresses because Geralt deserves the BEST. But also, he needs to be able to be Cooler and save her so she needs to be (like all females are, because they are inferior) emotionally volatile and vulnerable, and Geralt will also be the only one who gets to see that Vulnerability because Geralt has the biggest dick is her love interest. So she will be weak around him because he's just so hung wonderful.

Secondly, she needs a believable weakness (besides being too emotional because all women are too emotional), and as we all know, women have one purpose: to bREED. But not Yennefer - oh no, Yennefer is (wait for it, this is the dramatic backstory, hold your breath) broken, she's BARREN, USELESS AND EMPTY AND SHE HATES HERSELF FOR IT!!!!!

*pause for dramatic effect*

I know right that's so SEXY

[This is the point where I’m like… this might, possibly, maybe, under very different circumstances have been a compelling storyline if the author had ever consulted a woman. Or, you know, if the story was written by a woman. This is objectification and fetishization of the worst kind and I hate it. The show has this element too and it’s bad there too but it’s nowhere near as pronounced as in the books. Anyway-]

Speaking of sexy - obviously Yennefer is the sexiest of all the women Geralt has ever encountered. And because I, as the author, am aware that's unrealistic, I will drop in YET ANOTHER PIECE OF DRAMATIC BACKSTORY: She used to be a HUNCHBACK!!! *air horns* I KNOW RIGHT OH MY GOD and now she made herself SEXY with MAGIC because YOU KNOW ALL WOMEN WANT TO BE OBJECTIFIED BY MEN!!! SEXY FANTASY THAT FUCKS!!!!

[also? This is revealed to Geralt (and the reader) not by her telling him, or by a flashback, but because he "sees that she has the eyes of a hunchback". I can’t even begin to state how much I hate this.]

Anyway every time she shows up it will be mentioned how shapely her legs and breasts are and how young she looks despite the fact that she must be Old. She will turn heads and men will scorn her because she is too pretty and not interested in them and men hate anything that has any amount of sexual power or agency. but not Geralt, no, because he gets to fuck her at the end of the day so he's the only one who doesn't objectify her out loud. (but he does in his internal monologue. hooray.)

Also, to emphasize this point, we will have a side character sexually violate her while Geralt is tied up because that is The New Hotness™"

And if that wasn't enough, she as a character subscribes to what is known as "Female Hysteria For No Reason" and will become a Woman Scorned over absolutely nothing if the plot needs her to be angry.

The plot regarding her relationship with Geralt is also a bit different - in the show, she gets angry once she finds out Geralt's third wish ties them together (whether this is justified may be subjective - except yeah, no, she’s absolutely right, Geralt what the fuck??). In the book, she hears his wish as he makes it because MAGIC and is somehow SUPER INTO IT because this author has never met a human woman before.

...and then I need to complain about the storyline with the dragon. Because, you will remember, in the show, she gets angry and storms off after learning of the third wish, but that can’t be the case because she already knows about it in the books, right?

Well.

 The story in the books goes like this:

Six years ago, after one of their affairs™ Geralt leaves without waking Yennefer (but like. Leaves her flowers instead) and admittedly that's kind of rude but also like... ok. That doesn’t seem too strange a thing for Geralt to do. Maybe he just wanted to let her rest? Anyway.

They don't meet for six years, in which Geralt idk... idly misses her or something, and Yennefer develops a deep lasting hatred based on her abandonment issues…? (I am. grasping. there's no good reason if this relationship is as casual to both of them as they have made it sound, but she is SUPER MAD because the plot needs her to be ANGERY).

So with his backdrop, cue the search for the dragon. Geralt is like "eh I'll join them. I have nowhere better to be, also Jaskier is here and he's not boring so ok" and then he hears Yennefer will also be there and goes "oh well all the better, haven't seen her in a while"

And when he follows her to her tent to greet her, she spits verbal FIRE at him and is like "bitch you're lucky i didn't gouge your fucking EYES out" and other lovely statements of a similar calibre, and Geralt just stands there and takes it and tells her he missed her.

which implies either a) he knows what he did and he thinks he deserves this, or b) he has done nothing wrong in his own eyes and this is just "bitch crazy" to be ignored. It is heavily implied to be b), because, in our third person POV narrative, we get NO REMORSE from him, no indication as to what he thinks about this whole thing Yennefer is accusing him of, nothing at all in terms of emotional response to her. Cool. She yells at him and then storms of, and he just… idk, shrugs I guess?

So, they travel, Yennefer is Icy Bitch Queen but also everyone hates her and insults her to an absurd degree (see above, she's Too Sexy and Powerful and also like, a Woman) and she takes it without saying anything back but it's obvious that everyone's trash talk is affecting her (so it’s obvious that at some point she will be Vulnerable again). Jaskier, who seems to have no personal grudge against her at this point in the books, joins in the teasing because he's there to make fun of everyone I guess? (boy.) No deeper malice from him than from anyone else though.

And then, for drama, the party reaches a narrow bridge. They’re debating whether or not it is safe to cross with all their supplies and then BAM! there's a landslide so they have no choice. The events go like this:

- Geralt lets the others cross first. Right as he wants to cross, he hears Yennefer yell because her horse fell over, because of course it did

- Geralt abandons his own means of escape to go help her up, and then she proceeds to save his ass because SHE HAS FUCKING MAGIC THERE WAS NO POINT IN YOU GOING TO SAVE HER YOU FUCKER she just makes a shield so nothing hits them and they stumble to the bridge

- they get caught on the bridge as it collapses, and of course Yennefer is the one who falls first, and he catches her, so they're both hanging there and he's holding on to her suspended over this. Canyon or whatever.

- Jaskier, from above, yells to the others to get a rope to help pull them up but they respond to "wait until the bitch has fallen, then we'll pull the witcher up"

which. wow. but ok.

Yennefer can barely hold on, and HERE is where Geralt asks her to forgive him for… his wrongdoings…? (you know, can't have her die with a grudge, I guess? Or whatever?) He's like "Yen, forgive me" and she says "NEVER"

((and also, she has consistently kept telling him to stop calling her Yen (which he first started when they started... having Relations™ so obviously now it has bad memories attached to it for her), which he blatantly ignores because her feelings don't matter))

In the end, Jaskier gets the others to help despite their reluctance and hatred of Yennefer and they travel on. Yennefer's back to being Ice Queen - and then they find the dragon. Some fucker tries to fight it alone and gets injured. Yennefer is in charge of healing this dude, and so she ends up alone with Geralt in a tent – where she asks him to double-cross everyone else and kill the dragon himself (after telling them all she would cooperate with them) - "for me. I want the dragon, Geralt, for myself. All of it. I don't want to share. Kill it for me" and then explains that not all is lost because with certain parts of the dragon, SOMEONE CAN CURE HER BARRENNESS and i want to launch myself into the fucking sun

Geralt is like "uhhhh"

she says "on the bridge, you asked for my forgiveness- if you do this, I'll forgive you"

and then HE GOES "well, that no longer matters to me. I'm over it now" which hsadjlkfhsajdklfhsajkldfhaskdfsj I cannot begin to impart to you how many levels of “UGH” I felt at the predictable reversal of roles because he can’t ACTUALLY have to apologize to her – it’s HER who has to apologize to HIM for being an irrational Female

and now SHE'S all like. quivering lip and wanting him back or whatever and I am SICKENED that SHE IS THE ONE WHO HAS TO GROVEL NOW BECAUSE THE PLOT CANNOT HAVE GERALT EVER MAKE A MISTAKE AND OWN TO IT?!?

Thanks, I hate it.

 Oh and I almost forgot in all my rage about that storyline – when we first meet her, we learn that Yennefer apparently doesn’t “bother with the whalebone [i.e. corset] nonsense other women use” (literal quote from the book) so I guess her tits are magic???

This just in, if she needs boob support SHE’S A THOT, if your knockers don’t stand on their own you’re INFERIOR and NOT DESIRABLE, GTFO.

 2.3 Jaskier’s sexism (Netflix!Jaskier would never)

Jaskier, you have been done dirty.

It could have been so cool too - Jaskier in the books is witty and likeable and makes friends wherever he goes because everyone likes a bard?? Also he's really smart and knowledgeable because "a bard needs to know about many things" which is SO VALID??? And Geralt trusts him and cares about his opinion??? And also it's clear Jaskier likes Geralt, not just for the purpose of writing ballads about him, but because they're old friends, they've travelled together a lot - yes, their relationship is good here, regardless of your shipping preferences. (Also, he wears a hat with a large feather on it, which is how Geralt recognizes him in crowds, and it's amazing and hilarious.)

HOWEVER.

Jaskier treats women terribly. At his first introduction, he literally gropes a priestess (and then makes fun of the high priestess for chastising him for it). He sees women very much as objects to be… maybe not “won” but, well, persuaded, which makes him a tiny bit better than most of the other men, who are basically straight-up rapists. But then there's the scene with Yennefer which. Made everything turn sour tbh. It goes like this:

Yennefer wants to go after the dragon alone (see above), but before she can get Geralt to do it for her and double-cross everyone, she's overwhelmed by some of the other men in the party and they're all tied up (Jaskier, Geralt, some other pacifist sorcerer who is around, and Yennefer). And one of the men, who hates her for her (sexual) power, rips open her blouse and exposes her and assaults her while she screams, so then he gags her. And then when he’s done he walks away and leaves her exposed. Geralt looks away after she screams at him not to stare (wow, points for chivalry, the standard is literally So Low - also his justification for obeying her wishes is that he’s already seen her boobs so it’s not a big deal to him anymore) but Jaskier shamelessly stares at her even after she makes it absolutely clear she does not consent to ANY of this and has no choice because SHE IS TIED UP, and he even jokes that he'll write a ballad about her perfect breasts. And I'm over here like.... no. no, no, no, no, no. Jaskier deserved better characterization and Yennefer deserves a better fucking franchise.

 2.4 Female characters; Sexy Fantasy That Fucks (it’s bad)

I have touched a lot on this already so I'll try to be brief, but. Ugh.

Sexy Fantasy That Fucks™ is practically a legit genre and sadly a lot of semi-progressive fantasy falls into this category - where we have moved on from having only like one or two named female character (see: LotR) to having several, and look, they can even fight, but only as long as they're aggressively sexually attractive to men while they do it. Poor Harley Quinn suffered the same treatment in Suicide Squad - The Male Gaze Filter.

Here in the books it goes like this: Oh look, “vaguely tribal” women who fight - but they're also the most overtly sexual and involved in a canon off-screen orgy with Geralt and an older (practically old) man and are portrayed as Perpetually Horny. Oh look, Yennefer, a badass sorceress who falls apart when Geralt so much as looks her way because Geralt is so fucking great I guess. Then there’s the 14-year-old striga princess who needs to be described, once her curse is lifted, with emphasis to her “perky breasts”. SHE'S FOURTEEN. And there’s the young priestesses, who are subtly flattered by Jaskier's direct "advances" because, you know, they've dedicated their lives to serving a goddess but understandably they just WANT TO FUCK™.

There is a single female character who is not sexualized - the head priestess, Nenneke. She's described as fat and old (and wise though, throw her a bone). Geralt respects her because of her wisdom but that's it - she has a Use™. And also, he ignores her advice in the end anyway. Pity she wasn't more beautiful I guess. I am Sickened.

 2.5 Narrative devices and structure (it’s bad)

Now, we get to the bones of the thing. There's... one main thing that really bothers me and that's a CLASSIC - the fact that this author prefers to have action explained to the reader through monologues by characters that inexplicably have All The Information, rather than have us, you know, experience the action first hand. There are a couple of fight scenes of Geralt vs A Monster, sure, but that's all we get - everything else is told to us through monologues. (and yes it's still a monologue even if Geralt interrupts to say "go on" or "get to the point". It's not really a dialogue if the other person is only being expositioned at. Now Geralt just looks impatient and annoying.) Even the short story format (of the first two books) is explained this way: the individual short stories are monologues within conversations in the base timeline, explaining to the reader (and to Nenneke in the narrative proper) backstories and how characters met.

Which... it's a choice? It makes more sense than the show with it’s wack-ass timeline with absolutely no conext. But like. Why can't you have us at least discover the respective monster through someone else's POV though? I get that we're always staying with Geralt because Geralt is oh so great, but rather than have some Constable explain to him for like twelve pages how the princess (who is, without any intrigue, an incest-princess - this is not a mystery, everybody is aware of this at the beginning of the story and freely provides this information without prompting) became a striga and how many people she has killed and what people say she looks like and how to allegedly cure her - can’t we see that shit happen? Like... ok, thanks? I hate it. The show did this better.

 3. Bonus: why the audiobook grinds my gears

Last and definitely least - the audiobook is BAD (but I don't want to buy physical copies, and my library won't have the English version because I live in Germany, so I guess I'm stuck with it). The guy who reads it is Bad At Reading Out Loud because his emphasis/cadence is incredibly unnatural (also regrettably all the books are read by the same guy) and his pronunciation of names (most notably Jaskier, who is called Dandelion in the English version of the books) is inconsistent??? He started out by (correctly) calling him dandelion in book 1 and now has changed to pronouncing it dandelion, like the flower, which is not how you say his name (and... no offense if he’d started out that way because I, too, thought that was how you said it just from reading the word - but he says it CORRECTLY in the first book and then changes it to the wrong pronunciation in book two so I’m confused?? How does that happen?)

Also - different accents for different characters are only a good idea if a) you're good at accents and b) they aren't overtly connoted? Like. Don't give a guy in a fantasy setting a bad russian accent??? Also what part of Geralt as a character made you think SCOTTISH???? Oof.

And another thing - these little descriptors after direct speech? They MATTER.

"Don't touch me," Yennefer hissed

and

"Don't touch me," Yennefer screamed

are two very different sentences and should be read as such. You can't just. Say "Don't touch me" seductively and then add "she yelled". That's not how voice acting works. Please, pLEASE I'M SUFFERING. I was already struggling enough with some of the content of the books and now you’re making consuming them really difficult and irritating :’) Oof.

 In conclusion – I don’t even know. I was mad and now I’m tired.

  Anyway, all this to say – I didn’t hate every aspect of the books. I will keep reading (in my case listening) because I’m stupid, I apparently love to suffer and I am, thanks to the show, invested in the storyline and want to know what happens. But I will most certainly keep complaining about them because that’s the only way to make this fun for myself. And are you not entertained?!

Who knows. Maybe stuff will get better.

Take from this post what you will, and if it’s only my personal hypocrisy then that’s fine. I hope you had a nice day – I’m gonna go make myself some tea to calm down. And I’ll have you know that despite what you may have heard, I have never worn a bra in my life, because I’m not like other girls.

#The Witcher #The Witcher netflix #The witcher books #Geraskier #Geralt x Yennefer #Geralt of Rivia #Jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #French speaks #am I worried about posting a possibly controversial opinion on the internet? yes #am I going to do it anyway? also yes #or should I say #and yet here we are