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wren-of-the-woods · 5 months

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I hear you're where to go for Witcher fic recs! How about some with Geralt being protective over Jaskier? Shippy, if you can find any, but I wouldn't mind platonic! I just want Geralt to look out for his bard. Thank you for your time!

Hello!! Here's what I've got! There's a wide variety of settings and levels of angst, so hopefully there should be something for everone :D

As always, please feel free to add more recs or promote your own work in the notes!

Don't Leave Me by @geraskierficrecs (Rated M, 6.2k)

Jaskier’s hands tighten around Geralt before slowly losing their grip, spasming where they fall limp. “Ger--geralt--” “Don’t you dare,” he snarls back, “Don’t you dare try to give me your fucking goodbyes. You are not dying.” “S--silly man.” Jaskier’s smile is full of painful fondness. “Would you fight death for me?” Geralt swings him up into his arms and nearly weeps at the sound of familiar hooves running in his direction. “Every. Fucking. Time.”

If You Give a Bard a Lute by @ghostinthelibrarywrites (Rated T, 10k)

After Jaskier’s father disowns him, confiscates all his possessions— including Filavandrel’s lute— and kicks him out with nothing but the clothes on his back, Jaskier spends a long, hungry winter barely surviving. When he reunites with Geralt in the spring, his witcher is determined to get his lute back, even if it means recruiting his fellow witchers to stage a heist.

Wild Blue Yonder by @jaskierswolf (Rated T, 5.3k)

Geralt's bookshop is slowly falling apart and he's ready to give up when Jaskier wanders into the store

remember me I sing by @echo-bleu (Rated G, 3.1k - also includes Yennnefer)

Filavandrel's gift was so much more than a simple lute. It seemed fitting, that Jaskier’s soul would be made of wood and strings and beautiful sounds. The problem is that now Rience has his lute and is threatening to burn it if they don't hand over Ciri. And Jaskier has never told anyone that his very life is tied to his beloved instrument.

This Is How I Disappear by @stacyholmes (Rated T, 5.4k)

Jaskier keeps texting unknown number. Geralt keeps reading said texts without answering.

The Footsteps We Follow by thiswildheart (Rated T, 16.5k)

Look, Jaskier's got a lot going on. He's painfully aware that there are cataclysmic events happening and that the troubled teenager he knows might save the world or speed along the end of days. He's also in love with a man who's never even admitted that they're friends, which is almost as bad. Oh, and he's still working as the Sandpiper, only now a terrifying eldritch creature has entrusted him with the Song of the Seven to give hope to the elves and help them fight back against their oppression. It's probably the bravest thing he's ever done, but not everyone sees it that way. Luckily he knows some people who excel at last minute rescues. ... then he just has to figure out how to tell Geralt why so many people are trying to kill him. This is going to go great.

Getting Warmer (orphaned) (Rated T, 8.2k)

Injured and freezing after a kikimora hunt gone wrong, Geralt and Jaskier must wait out a thunderstorm at the bottom of a cliff, huddling for warmth. It is here that Geralt finally confronts his feelings for the bard.

Jaskier and Mountains Just Don't Mix by C4t1l1n4 (Rated G, 3.8k)

Despite the other Witchers' positive reaction to Geralt's bard, Vesemir is reluctant to have a human stay with them at Kaer Morhen so Jaskier attempts to leave and ends up almost freezing to death on the side of the mountain. Hypothermia fic

Immediately, I Love Him (He's Doing His Best) by @hum-my-name (Rated G, 26.5k)

"In which Greg is some sort of guardian angel, I don't know" <><> A few days ago, Joey Batey did an interview in which he created a lovely little character named Greg. A few days ago, I decided to write a cute little thing about Greg and Jaskier being the best of friends throughout the years, with a dash of Geralt and Jaskier friendship as a treat. 13k words later, here we are. Enjoy.

Broken Mirror by happy_hermit (Rated G, 2.1k)

To Geralt’s credit, he waits until they’re well away from Kaer Morhen to ask the question. He also waits until Yennefer and Ciri have gone to bed, which makes the whole thing feel a bit too calculated for Jaskier’s liking, which is to say that he doesn’t like it at all. “Where’s your lute, Jaskier?” Jaskier doesn’t quite flinch, though his heart does something of the sort all on its own. It is very much a wound that hasn’t healed; as is most of him, these days.

Echo by @kingthunder (Rated E, 29.5k)

Jaskier loses his voice the morning after a concert. As he and Geralt find new ways to fill the silence between them, they realize it isn't only Jaskier's voice that's been lost—and getting it back will bring them closer than they've ever been before.

If There's Any Sleep At Night by @smolalienbee (Rated T, 22.8k)

The mare is but a silhouette of a human and yet at his words something passes through her expression - whether it’s surprise, joy, fear, Geralt doesn’t know. But it’s clear that what he said has struck her in some way. (“She is not some mindless monster, Geralt.” He remembers Jaskier’s words.) A mare, also known as a mara or a zmora - a malicious entity, a bringer of nightmares and a demon of the night. An easy enough contract to fulfill, if only frustrating, or at least that’s what Geralt believes when he first sets out to hunt down one such mare. What he doesn’t expect is to be wrapped up in a tale of a wronged soul, of love and of joy.

Also, because I'm not above reccing my own fics, here's a few I've written!

Wash Away the Blood and Tears by me (Rated T, 1.8k)

Jaskier re-injures his fingers while distracting Nilfgaard from Ciri. Afterward, Geralt volunteers to help wash his hair. Or: In which Jaskier gets a bath and a nap, and Geralt gets a new role in the group.

We'll Build a Den Out of Pillows (And Get Drunk Again) by me (Rated G, 2k)

Jaskier gets sick. When Geralt asks how to help, Jaskier jokingly suggests that he build a pillow fort. He does not expect Geralt to take it seriously. Geralt takes it seriously.

If you want more, there’s a Protective Geralt tag on AO3 that I’m sure has many lovely works I haven’t read!

(You can also find my other reclists here)

#wren recs #geraskier #geralt #jaskier #the witcher #the witcher fic recs #witcher #reclists #twn #asks #anon #am i getting a reputation? how fun!#i guess y'all are catching onto the fact that i have no self-restraing when it comes to reclists lol

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captainkirkk · 8 months

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✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

Stranger Things

Where the 20 Chain Links Lead by fandsart

Steve has always known he’s stupid. While it wasn’t exactly something he took pride in, it hadn’t really ever bothered him until he started socializing with what could probably be described as some of the smartest people in Hawkins. It doesn’t help that most of those people were so much younger than him.

A character study of one Steve Harrington, and a glacial slowburn Steddie fix-it fic

chat with you, baby (flirt a little, maybe) by desiccatedwithering (acornsofthemind) (+ podfic)

"Hey, shitheads!” Steve “the hair” Harrington barks, looming in the doorway like a monster from the Abyss. “What the fuck are you doing in here? Get your asses down to the gym right fucking now.”

Eddie gapes. First of all, the audacity— Second, he’s never been much for physical fights, but if this douchebag thinks he can bully any of Eddie’s kids, he’ll have to go through Eddie first.

“Let’s go! Move it!” Harrington snaps, making an impatient gesture down the hall.

SVSSS

Achievement Unlocked by The Feels Whale (miscellea)

One day, after five years of reasonably peaceful marriage with only a few kidnappings and sex pollen incidents, Shen Yuan is sent back to his old body without warning. Luo Binghe makes a deal with an alien entity calling itself the System to perform a mission in exchange for the ability to bring his husband home.

The mission is simple; [Uncover secret transmigrator plotline and flesh out the character wiki!]

At least it will be once he figures out what the words ‘transmigrator’ and ‘wiki’ mean.

Or: That one where Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe don’t realize they’re in a domestic fluff bonus chapter.

Written for the 2021 MXTX Big Bang with art created by Ataratah

The Witcher

The Footsteps We Follow by thiswildheart

Oh, and he's still working as the Sandpiper, only now a terrifying eldritch creature has entrusted him with the Song of the Seven to give hope to the elves and help them fight back against their oppression. It's probably the bravest thing he's ever done, but not everyone sees it that way.

Luckily he knows some people who excel at last minute rescues.

... then he just has to figure out how to tell Geralt why so many people are trying to kill him. This is going to go great.

Clone Wars

Every Shadow by Kenobster (kenobster)

The days on Kadavo were long, but the nights moved quickly. Hundreds of pairs of wide, sleepless eyes haunted the space of the holding cells. Droves of terror clogged the heavy, sweaty air, and every sound, however faint, was like a physical ripple across the crowd. Every sound. The jingling of keys, the clicking of locks, the thudding of boots, and that’s how the nights on Kadavo started—with a gradual increase in the degree of quiet.

OR—during the mass casualty event following Kadavo and Zygerria, Obi-Wan and Anakin seek ways to cope with trauma.

Shadowhunters

We All Want (to Change the World) by opalish

It starts with Simon, which explains why the entire process is such an unrelenting headache.

or, Alec's startlingly quick journey from Head of the New York Institute to Inquisitor.

#happy weekend!#once again i need to change this series to fornightly or monthly fic round up because i am Not uploading weekly #but i'm too far into this series at this point #i've got to stick to the tag #my posts #fic recs #stranger things recs #witcher recs #sw recs #shadowhunters recs #svsss recs #weekly fic round up

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abeautifulblog · 9 months

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Actually, let's talk about the Baba Yaga storyline

...And how much I fucking loathed it.

(A discussion of tropes, narrative choices, and how goddamn dirty The Witcher Netflix did Yennefer in S2.)

So this subplot is actually a pretty tidy object lesson in literary tropes, and why writers need to understand how tropes work in order to utilize them effectively. The trope at play here is the "Faustian bargain" or "deal with the devil," in which a character barters with a powerful supernatural creature of dubious moral alignment in order to gain something they desire (often something self-serving like wealth or power), at a price that's almost never worth it.

...It is pretty much a given that you will not be getting the better end of the deal, as it’s written. But there are a number of different ways to play this trope, and they each say something different about the kind of character who would take that bargain:

1) If you don't realize this is a trap -- if that sounded like a Pretty Sweet Deal! 😀 -- then you're either very naive or very dumb.

2) If you know it's a trap, but expect to get your prize and then weasel out of it with your soul intact anyway, because you think you're cleverer than this eldritch creature you're dealing with -- then you are very cocky, and probably wrong, because modern narratives don't tend to reward hubris.

3) If you know it's a trap, but you think you can get what you want without consequences to you, because you can pay the price with someone else's life or soul -- then you are evil. (And probably also wrong, because it's rare in fiction that you can commit an evil like that without doing some sort of spiritual damage to your own soul.)

4) And lastly, if you know it's a trap, but you are in such desperate, dire straits that even this self-evidently bad bargain looks like your best option -- then it might still be a mistake, but it's the one that audiences are most likely to forgive you for, or at least find understandable.

I don't make the rules. Those are just the audience reactions you can expect from playing the trope in those particular ways -- and if you want a different audience reaction (say, you want forgiveness for character who tried to sacrifice someone else), then you have to put in some extra work to make that happen, mitigating circumstances, etc (say, that the character genuinely believes it's the only way to save a greater number of lives).

So how did TWN play Yennefer's Faustian bargain with Baba Yaga?

E2 - Yen and Francesca and Fringilla meet Baba Yaga in her spirit realm or whatever, and she dangles their Heart's Desire, For A Price in front of them. Yennefer doesn’t ask for her magic, because at that point she doesn’t realize she’s lost it.

E3 through E5 - Yennefer tries without success to get her magic to work again. I don't recall any mention of Baba Yaga during that time -- it doesn't even occur to Yennefer as a means of getting it back.

E5 - Yennefer and Jaskier are being pursued by hooligans or something, and even though Yen has ducked into a brothel to hide and is nominally safe, that's when she decides to contact Baba Yaga for help. She gets whisked off to the spirit realm again, and agrees to give Baba Yaga a particular kid in exchange for getting her powers back.

She agrees to this deal knowing that she'll be sacrificing someone's child to this creature.

(And, critically, a point I’ll come back to later: she hasn't signed anything yet. She doesn't get her powers back here. That's the reward being promised for after she feeds a kid to a demon.)

E6 - Yennefer actually meets Ciri, but, notably, does not immediately swear off the plan. She's just kinda ~conflicted~ about it now.

(This was also the episode where they started trying to have Yennefer and Ciri do their mother-daughter bonding, and Yennefer says all the right things, to be sure, but since we-the-audience know that she is at least still contemplating feeding Ciri to Baba Yaga, that, uhh, RINGS KINDA FUCKING FALSE.)

E7 - Ciri reads Yennefer's mind and finds out about the plan to feed her to a demon. (Or so wikipedia tells me, since I have literally no memory of how Yennefer's Baba Yaga related plans got outed.)

E8 - Baba Yaga gets loose, possesses Ciri. Lots of high-drama CG bullshit. Yennefer sacrifices herself to become the host to get Baba Yaga out of Ciri. More CG bullshit, Baba Yaga is vanquished and leaves, and when everyone comes out of their woowoo CG trance, Yennefer has her magic back. But after that BETRAYAL, Geralt can no longer trust her.

So, Yennefer losing her powers is actually a subplot I'm entirely onboard for. Whenever a character loses something that is a pillar of their identity, and now has to reckon with who they are without that -- THAT'S THE GOOD SHIT. That's grief. That's loss. That is scattering the pieces of their self and seeing what happens when they have to put themselves back together again. Muah. Delicious fucking food. Peak drama.

We know that Yennefer has been raised to define herself, and stake her entire self-worth, on her magic. It's what she gave up everything for, because they told her it would be worth it, and now she has nothing -- not the magic, not the things she sacrificed for it. Of course she's searching for a way to get it back -- her first reaction is going to be denial and bargaining, not acceptance.

And I can think of two different ways you could play that arc, both of which have the potential for good, meaty character development:

The first (and the one I would have preferred) would have been an arc in which Yennefer discovers who she is without her magic -- that she comes to realize there's more to her than her power, that she's not helpless, that her worth isn't tied to having magic. We get a glimpse of that in the scene where she rescues Jaskier from Rience (my favorite scene in the whole damn season 😁😁😁) using her wits instead of her magic, and that was genuinely REALLY COOL -- it's intensely gratifying to see a character being clever instead of just magically overclocked.

They could have carried that through into her meeting Ciri as well, and realizing that she has more to offer Ciri as a mother and a friend than as a mage, that her love and support is worth more than her utility to Ciri. Yennefer reaches an enlightened understanding where she might well still want her magic back, but she doesn't need it to define herself anymore.

(This shares a lot of beats with disability narratives, and I think the sensitive way to handle it would be to treat it as such.)

The other kind of story would be one in which the character has no interest in reaching that enlightened understanding -- Yennefer’s not coming to the "acceptance" stage of loss, because she refuses to accept it. She's searching relentlessly for a cure, chasing down every lead for someone who could fix this, every avenue that might get her what she wants. Then the question becomes, "How far would you go for this? How much are you willing to sacrifice?"

And the answer is everything....... until it's not. And that is the pivotal character-making moment in this kind of story -- when you find out where this character's line is, the line they won't cross even for the sake of the thing they want most in all the world. Where the devil could dangle that oh-so-tempting bargain before them, and they would still say No. No, the cost you're asking isn't worth it, even for this. Yennefer -- who has spent her whole life being coached to be selfish, and has wound up alone and alienated for it -- finally has people she loves enough that she would choose them over herself.

TWN kinda went the latter route, but they didn't fully commit to it -- both the plot beats and Yennefer's emotional arc are so muddled that it's not clear what they were trying to say, and both the dramatic impact and the message got completely lost.

Problem 1: Yennefer wasn’t proactive enough.

She's sad about losing her magic, but she's not shown DOING anything about it. This is what I kept yelling at the screen about in E3, when she's just drifting aimlessly around Aretuza in that fucking prom dress and being ~helplessly damseled~ by Stregobor. Send her to the goddamn library to do some research! Show her arguing theory with Tissaia, and refusing to believe that this can't be fixed! Show us HOW BADLY she wants it, and how hard she's willing to fight for it.

Hell, seed the future conflict with Baba Yaga: Yennefer finds an account of someone who acquired their power through a deal with a demon, and she takes is to Tissaia as proof-of-concept, and Tissaia is like, yeah you CAN, but you SHOULDN'T. (Hoe don't do it!) That both establishes it to the audience as a possibility, and preemptively raises the question of what extremes Yennefer will go to in pursuit of this goal.

Problem 2: The stakes were never high enough

As I mentioned above, it's easier to get audience sympathy for a character who’s only making a devil's bargain because they're in extremis -- when something predatory has them over a barrel and is taking opportunistic advantage of the fact that they've got no other options. That hits a nerve with our sense of injustice -- we get angry when we see someone being taken advantage of like. It'll make us root for the character to find a way out of the deal somehow, because even though they agreed to it, we don’t feel that they should be held to that extortionate price.

But Yennefer is never quite desperate enough; the stakes are never quite high enough. She wants her magic back, but at no point does she need it. They never make her desperate enough to justify that bad bargain.

So raise those stakes.

Make it so that Yennefer is in desperate straits when she makes the bargain. She is in a situation that would have been trivial to escape if she'd had her magic, but now she is about to fucking DIE, and there's nothing she can do about it, and yeah, this sketchy creature that's been in her head trying to talk her into this bargain is obviously sketchy A-F, but she either takes its offer, or she dies in the next ten seconds. Them's her only two options.

Because without that level of desperation, her decision instead becomes premeditated, selfish, and stupid.

Problem 3: She needed to NOT knowingly make the evil choice.

Audiences will forgive a Faustian bargain made to save a child, but there's no way to sacrifice a child (or even seriously contemplate it) and come out of that looking good. 😬

The easiest way to fix that would have been for Yennefer to not know what the terms would be when she agreed to the bargain.

To be sure: handing a blank check to that kind of creature is a bad idea, but we've already established that Yennefer needs to be fuckin hard up when she takes that deal; she doesn't have time to negotiate or think it over, she barely has enough time to say yes.

TWN made a big mistake, imo, by not having Baba Yaga give Yennefer her powers back upfront in E5. They made an agreement, yeah, but it did not put Yennefer on the hook, in her debt. Yennefer could still have noped out at any time once she found out what the terms were, since Baba Yaga hadn't given her anything yet.

It would have been far better if Baba Yaga saved her first, restored her magic, and then presented her with the bill -- it becomes a hell of a lot harder for Yennefer to back out at that point.

(And also: get the goods upfront, because why the fuck would you trust that this sketchy creature has any intention of keeping their promise? Whoops, egg on your face, when it turns out you murdered a kid for nothing!)

Furthermore, raise the stakes on what happens if Yennefer doesn't hold up her end of the bargain: that if Yennefer doesn't deliver Ciri to Baba Yaga, then she gets eaten by the demon instead. It’s still evil to murder a child, obviously, but "their life vs my life" is a bit more of a dilemma than "their life vs my magic."

And after she meets Ciri, after Ciri becomes a real person to her rather than an abstraction, then she cannot continue to entertain the possibility of sacrificing her for another episode and a half. Full stop. Yennefer should have immediately started scrambling for "There has to be another way!" The fact that TWN-Yennefer is even still considering it after meeting Ciri says really, really shitty things about her.

(And when she does get caught out, she starts sobbing, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT YOU WERE TO HIM!!, which is, lol holy shit, not the defense you think it is! "I totally would have sacrificed you without a qualm if you didn't happen to be my fuckboy ex's kid" ??? What? Not "because you matter to me"? Or "because I realized that what I was contemplating was FUCKING EVIL”?? And she tells Ciri that to her face?

Writers, did you stop to think about the implications of that line for one half of one hot second??)

Problem 4: Revealing Yennefer's betrayal ahead of time

By having Ciri and Geralt find out about her incipient betrayal before it happens, Yennefer never got to decide for herself that she wasn't going to go through with it. There needed to be no guilt trips or external peer pressure -- just that she herself thought this over, and decided on her own that Ciri was worth more than getting her magic back.

The fact that it wasn't her choice to come clean about that -- that the choice gets taken out of her hands before it reached the moment when she'd have decide one way or the other -- not only robbed us of what would have been a massively powerful, character-defining moment for her, but also means that we have no proof whether or not she would have done it, if left to her own devices.

Because let's be honest: Yennefer doesn't exactly have a track record of prioritizing other people above herself. Maybe she would have found her conscience in time -- or maybe she wouldn't. (She had, after all, already made this bargain knowing full well that it was going to involve sacrificing someone's kid.) It is by no means a given that she would have changed her mind.

So what a powerful moment it would have been when Yennefer throws off those teachings that tied her worth to her utility -- when she proves that she’s come to care about other people, and puts their well-being above her own. Imagine the bomb drama if Yennefer had been the one to reveal the bargain to Ciri and Geralt, ideally at the moment when she also reveals that she's rejecting it and taking their side against Baba Yaga, even at the cost of her own life. The moment when her core of steel comes through, and she takes a stand and is willing to face the consequences of her mistake.

That would have been a fantastic climax for Yennefer's character arc in S2: when she decisively shows how much she's changed from the aloof and self-absorbed (and desperately unhappy) woman that she was in S1.

But that's not what TWN gave us. There's no big dramatic moment. I literally do not even remember her sacrifice in the final battle, even though I watched S2 twice, because it got lost amid the boring-and-confusing CGI fight scene that drags on forever. Everything is supposed to be big drama there, and so Yennefer’s sacrifice doesn’t stand out.

Moreover, it doesn’t even really feel like Yennefer's choice at that point -- more that she's belatedly trying to clean up her mess, after she's already missed her chance to trade Ciri for her magic. That makes it feel a hell of a lot less sincere, like too little too late. Of-fucking-course she's sorry for it, now, now that it didn't work and everyone's mad at her. Yeah I'm sure she does regret it, now. It's just that sorry rings pretty hollow at this point.

S2 didn't give her a chance make the right choice for herself -- and as a consequence, Geralt and Ciri will never, ever know for certain what she would have done if circumstances hadn’t intervened. And realistically, there's no way for them to trust her after this; she can’t retroactively prove that she wouldn’t have betrayed them in the end, which casts a doubt that would poison that relationship forever.

So.

Breaking down the story into granular detail like this makes it feel almost like nitpicking, but those small situational changes make a huge difference in what the narrative is telling you about the character, and what kind of person they are. And the audience doesn't need to understand the mechanisms operating behind all of this -- but the writers fucking do. That's their job. To know what the words they write are doing, and the TWN writers manifestly do not. The Baba Yaga storyline is the most egregious demonstration of that, in my opinion, but it's far from the only one.

Through their shoddy execution of a straightforward trope, they made a character we're supposed to love and root for -- whom we want the other characters in the show to love too -- make choices that were unforgivably, murderously, short-sighted and selfish. Which is pretty obviously not what they meant to say about Yennefer, and not how we as the audience were supposed to interpret her actions, but that’s what they wrote. Thanks, I hate it.

(And worse: half this shit isn't even in-character. Yennefer doesn't fucking waffle like that. She is decisive and proactive to a fault, but this season reduced her to such a passive character who just gets shuffled from setpiece to setpiece. I think she makes all of four proactive decisions in that season -- freeing Cahir, rescuing Jaskier, making the deal with Baba Yaga, and sacrificing herself for Ciri -- and half of them were dumb.

Ugh, it's such bullshit. Yennefer deserved better.)

To be honest, I don't think the season needed the Baba Yaga plot at all, done well or otherwise. It was a misbegotten attempt to pump up fake drama, one that showed a lack of confidence in the story they were telling and a lack of respect for the audience -- like they didn't expect us to care about the found-family story without some cheap ~betrayals~ to spice it up.

But all they succeeded in doing was permanently undermining Yennefer's relationship with Ciri and Geralt, the relationship that is supposed to be one of the bedrocks of the series. That’s a betrayal you can’t come back from (except by authorial fiat, because they're ~Destined~ and so they have to). That's a well that's been poisoned.

And lastly, it puts Yennefer on the defensive now in her interactions with Geralt. Despite the fact that he was the one who overrode her free will by tying them together with djinn, the season ends with her having to grovel for his forgiveness. Geralt is now the one with the moral high ground, the injured party who gets to dispense or withhold forgiveness as he sees fit, and he's not required to make any real acknowledgment, or apology, or amends for what he did to her.

THANKS, I HATE IT.

So yeah, there was a lot in S2 that was Some Fucking Bullshit, but that is my narrow-focus deep dive into my single least favorite of their bad-ideas-executed-badly.

#witcher shit #long meta #twn critical #twn season 2

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cap-sweet-and-salty-sadness · 3 months

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6 and 23 for the new year asks, thanks. Hope to see more of your writing this year.

Thanks! So do I tbh lmao. The spirit is willing but the spirit also has ADHD.

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

Finish the gods listened but didn't answer, an Astarion/Tav/Halsin smut that's been on the back burner since October. I didn't mean to, but I've been in no mood to write smut and it was meant to be a PwP. Luckily it's from Halsin's POV, who is perfect for purple prose.

I'd like to write a sequel to real darkness has love for a face, which is a Geraskier Regency Eldritch Horror with, of course, non-human Jaskier. It wasn't received as well as some of my other geraskier stuff, but horror isn't popular in fanfictions. A shame if you ask me. It's pretty angsty though and I love the concept. Horror allows for much weirdness and otherness, and it doesn't always have to be explained, so it's always a lot of fun for me to write.

23. Would you like to go on a writing retreat?

I never really looked into them so I have no idea what it's supposed to be like. I did a writing night a long time ago, a bunch of writers in a circle writing prompts and sharing them, so I wonder if that would be similar?

Thanks for asking!

Fanfic asks for the new year

#Anonymous #anon replies #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #the witcher #astarion x tav x halsin #astarion #bg3 tav #halsin #baldur's gate 3

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fanby-fckry · 2 months

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Requests:

Requests are currently open for mutuals only. I’m trying to limit requests at the moment, but will make an exception for mutuals if I think I can swing it.

Will Write:

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/comfort

Fluff

Familial relationships

Found family trope

X reader

OCs

Canon x OC

Any relationship style: platonic, queer platonic, romantic, sexual, D/s dynamics

Most kinks

Explicit kink

Non-explicit sexual content

Might Write:

Hurt/no comfort

Crossovers

OOC

Non-canon disabilities and mental illness *1

Alastor as a Voodoo practitioner*2

Explicit sexual content *3

*1 If I’m going to represent a marginalized group, I’m going to do my best to do so respectfully, even in fanfiction. If I’m not confident in my ability to do that, then I may choose not to.

That being said, I’m down to research and I have lived experience with chronic pain and a few mental illnesses. I am extremely confident in my ability to project my own experiences onto my blorbos, and do so quite frequently.

*2 This is mainly for the same reason I won’t write non-canon disabilities. Voodoo is highly misrepresented and I don’t want to contribute to that.

I may write him as a past practitioner depending on the circumstances and as long as his current magic is not Voodoo-based. I don’t have the knowledge or the lived experience to be able to untangle Alastor’s current magic from Voodoo stereotypes, and I’ll leave that up to people who do.

My personal headcanon is that he grew up practicing Voodoo and ancestral magic, but burned bridges in the pursuit of power and lost support because being a cannibalistic serial killer is generally frowned upon. I usually write his current magic as non-specific, demonic, or Eldritch in nature.

*3 My ability to write explicit sexual content varies, so I’ll be taking this on a case by case basis.

Won’t Write – This Fandom-Specific Content:

Note: These are due to personal preference, deeply ingrained headcanons, and nunn’yuh (none ya business). I am not judging or condemning any of these ships/headcanons/etc. or people who make fanworks involving them; it’s just a comfort thing.

Hazbin Hotel:

Rosie in an NSFW context

Chalastor

Alastor x Niffty

Angel Dust shipped romantically with women

Vaggie shipped with men

The Witcher:

Yennefer bashing

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with any Wolf School Witcher

Ciri (including adult!Ciri) shipped with Jaskier/Dandelion

Won’t Write – This General Content:

Note: I’m not here to take sides in anti-/pro-ship discourse, kink discourse, or police other people’s writing; this is, again, about my own comfort level with writing certain topics. That’s it.

Scat/watersports/emeto kink

Adult x minor ships

Underage NSFW/smut/explicit, including any underage kink

Incest, including adoptive/step family

Detailed or romanticized non-con *1

Detailed or romanticized dub-con *1

Detailed or romanticized suicide *2

Detailed or romanticized self harm *2

*1 I can write aftermath of non-con/dub-con or attempted non-con/dub-con, but will not go into detail or portray it as in any way positive. I won’t write the reader or a canon characters as the perpetrator, unless it’s already in canon – AKA: The Valentino Exception. This does not include negotiated CNC, which I would consider writing under specific circumstances.

*2 Any time I write content involving suicide or suicidal ideation, I write with the National Recommendations for Depicting Suicide in mind.

The way suicide is portrayed in fiction can have real world consequences:

“Studies have shown that both news reports and fictional accounts of suicide in movies and television can lead to increases in suicide. In contrast, when depictions are done responsibly, the media can help to encourage help seeking, dispel myths, and reinforce hope – and ultimately save lives.”

(Source: Alliance for Suicide Prevention)

I am a suicide survivor and have lost loved ones to suicide as well, so this is deeply personal to me. If you’re struggling with self harm or suicidal thoughts, please hold on, and don’t be afraid to ask for help:

International Suicide Hotlines

Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14

Canada Suicide Crisis Helpline: 988

UK Samaritans: 116 123

USA Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988

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whatspastisprologue-blr · 1 year

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At this point, I think that, for the last scene between Jaskier and Henry Cavill as Geralt, they just need to shoot the moon like SPN did where they just went, "Let's just make Destiel canon. What are they gonna do, cancel the show that's already over?"

Like, remember the chaos when that episode aired? Where it felt like surely that scene couldn't be real? Where Destiel trended higher than the 2020 presidential election and there were all those Putin memes? The rogue voice dubber who made the "I love you" line explicitly romantic?

This especially applies if Joey Batey decides to leave, too.

Just, go for it. Like, avoid the weird Bury Your Gays bit where Cas coming out is literally what killed him but then it got weird because they kind of undid it by bringing him back but never showing him again and only mentioning him once. That was terrible writing/editing (so, perfect for Netflix's the Witcher, actually) and reeked of the Powers That Be wanting to minimize the existence of canon Destiel at the last minute.

But otherwise, just go for it. You don't have to recreate the scene. But go big or go home on this. Make it as dramatic and angsty as possible. Make sure the subtext becomes text to the fullest extent that the Powers That Be will possibly let you get away with. Make Tumblr and the internet at large spontaneously combust the way that Castiel's love confession did.

And then go off and live your lives free and clear. Act in stories where the people in charge actually respect you and your character. Play more D&D. Write more songs.

Or start your own production company with your significant other so you can then figure out how to make sure the story ends up in your hands, giving you an opportunity to course-correct with the help of a writer who actually cared about LGBTQ+ representation. See Jensen Ackles for how to do this.

Actually, since Jensen is co-producing The Winchesters while also acting and recording (and I think there's an upcoming tour with Louden Swain?) , it's not like it's an either/or situation. Dude's just living his best life never letting Dean Winchester go (or maybe Dean's not letting him go) while also making more music and having fun in other roles. What I'm saying here is to consult Jensen re: life choices in the creative industry.

(Also, I now kind of want to see Joey as an earlier Cas vessel. Just, imagine Joey "might be a half-feral Fae creature from the dark depths of the forest" Batey playing the rebellious angel with "too much heart" to follow orders as he's literally programmed to do. Especially since this would be before Cas got to know more about humanity, so he'd still be pretty eldritch at this point, a "multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent" temporarily wearing a human body.)

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sleepsonfutons · 1 year

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@blueberrymffn tagged me and then I got distracted avoided facing the ordeal of my WIPs

Witcher Fandom

(Not Posted)

-Unconditional (working title) - (~6.6k written) - trans!Jaskier Geraskier fic post-Caingorn break-up where Geralt is looking for Jaskier to reconcile and also discovers that dysphoria has a unique scent.

Sandman Fandom

(Posted/Incomplete)

-Even When the World's On Fire, I Won't Stop To Watch It Burning - (~14.7k written) - my John Dee wins fic with protective BAMF Hob!

(Not Posted)

-Truss Me Up But Never Leave Me Hanging - (~3.8k written) - a Dreamling shibari fic

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Punishment" - (~800 written) - Hob is an adventurer and has heard unsettling rumors about a peaceful order of druids now holding a creature bound in their tower deep in the wilderness. He goes to investigate despite his requests for entry having been rejected and finds things far stranger than he expected.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Last of Their Kind) - (~300 written) - Dream remains imprisoned for far far far too long and is literally crumbling into sand as the Dreaming crumbles taking the universe along with it. Even freeing Dream from the fishbowl is risky at this point as the slightest shift of his form sees more of him crumble away. Hob will not be deterred though and will do everything he can to rescue his Stranger.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Love Triangle" - (~1.3k written) - Human AU Artist!Dream x Bartender!Hob with Wingman!Cori(Corinthian) trying to support Dream in his crush but making things extra awkward and creepy.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Tied on a Table" - (~500 written) - Hob succumbs to the hanahaki of his heartbreak following the disastrous 1889 meeting with Dream. He sets up a trust to pay the Constantine family to take care of his body once he's completely incapacitated by the flowers overrunning his lungs. Dream finds him in repose in Johanna's apartment when she enlists her help to track down his vestments after escaping the fishbowl.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Time Travel" - (~200 written) - Dream finds out that Hob accepted Death's gift a few decades before he escapes the fishbowl. Distraught, he resolves to rewrite the universe, but still weak is only able to return to when he was summoned and crashed to the basement floor of Fawney Rig surrounded by Burgess' cult.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Bound and Gagged" - (~150 written) - WARNING: Implied/Referenced Non-Con, Serial Killers, Demon Possession, PTSD - Hob is possessed by a demon who uses Hob's immortal body to become a prolific serial killer while Dream is imprisoned in the fishbowl. When Dream shows up to deal with the Corinthian at the Cereal Convention, he spots possessed Hob and exorcises the demon, rescuing Hob.

-Untitled Bingo Fill Fic for "Creature: Feline" - (~1.6k written) - Hob is actually a demon but Dream never realized. Hob didn't know what happened to Dream after their disastrous 1889 meeting, but when he comes across a helm imbued with his Stranger's magic he makes sure he claims it to return to the other man whenever they next meet...unfortunately that turns out to be in Lucifer's throne room in hell where he can't just give the helm back. Everything goes to shit, but ultimately Hob winds up becoming pet to the Endless and remains (voluntarily) collared in a demonic summoning circle as a kitten.

-In Darkest Dreams They Slumber - (~700 written) - The Dreaming is the tartarus to the elder gods and the dreamstones are the anchors of their binding. When Burgess traps Dream, far more is at stake than just the emergence of the sleepy sickness. Things better left forgotten and lost were rousing from their slumber. Their madness bleeding out beyond their weakening bonds, creating ideal conditions for Dream vortexes to emerge, and cracking the foundation of the current universe. Hob and Johanna have been investigating the mass dreaming of cosmic/eldritch horrors that have become the norm for dreamers in the 20th century since they started appearing in “weird fiction rags”.

-Untitled Soteria (original fic by @phinofthestorm) AU ficlet - (~900 written) - The Endless are shamans that channel the untamed magic of the seven core aspects of the realm. In the early days of Ubrudlys, there was an unknown successor to the shaman of Death. With no training and left alone in the wilds, the unbridled magic of the Sunless Lands flows through them trapping the dead they encounter in their decaying bodies. Soon the child Death has a host of undead following them and the people of the realm are frightened by this mysterious "parade of 100 demons".

-As a stranger I know myself - (~1.2k on my part) - Collab fic with @phinofthestorm ! WARNING: Dubious Consent, Non-Consensual Body Modification - Roderick Burgess wanted to capture Death, but instead he captured Dream, Shaper of Forms, and decided to force the Endless to reshape himself into his son. Hob attends a soiree to celebrate the return of his wartime friend (and lover) who he'd thought was dead at Fawney Rig. They rekindle their relationship now away from the war, but when the truth comes to light, what will happen to their relationship and will Dream be able to return to himself?

I have notes on some other plot bunny thoughts for both fandoms and a sizeable outline for a Dreamling Hook (1991) AU, but nothing actually written for those... I also don't know who all has done this already, but I want to see everyone's WIPs so feel free to say I tagged you if you want to do this! Hmm, I will poke @dramaoftheendless @thranduilland @mentallyinvernation @spockandthings @bluesundaycake @certifiedbisexualdisaster and apologies if yall have already done or been tagged for this~

#current wips #writing wips #my writing #tag game

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thewhitewolfandthebard · 1 year

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The Footsteps We Follow by thiswildheart

Summary:

Luckily he knows some people who excel at last minute rescues.

... then he just has to figure out how to tell Geralt why so many people are trying to kill him. This is going to go great.

❤️❤️❤️

#the witcher #jaskier #geralt of rivia #geraskier #cirilla of cintra #geralt and jaskier #blood origin #spoilers #geraskier fanfic #geralt x jaskier #song of the seven

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rebeccasteventaylor · 1 year

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Is everyone doing ok? Only 10 and a half hours to go and then Christmas Day is over. I’m intending to binge Stranger Things and then that new Witcher thing. Eldritch horror and gore-ridden fantasy with added Jaskier and Michelle Yeoh is the way to go.

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impossiblerebelblaze · 2 years

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15, 40, 53

15- personality description

Eldritch creacher that keeps tripping over itself and is ELATED when people show interest in things I like. Also my d&d DM compared me to Jaskier from the witcher series so there's that too KSBDJSBXJS

40- favourite memory

Looking back at the endings of my favorite games! Undertale, Hollow Knight, any Zelda game.. I always cry like a bitch ajdbsjfjsd

53- 5 things that make me happy

1- my cats!! They're both so goofy and they always make me smile!

2- d&d night! I know it's a silly thing, but we have a super nice table and an even nicer DM, I've been playing with the group for like 4-5 years, and we're starting up a little business together too!

3- my partner! They're good and they always know how to cheer me up!

4- my OCs.... I have SUCH brainrot about tgem. im insane I am foaming at the mouth about them

5- guilty pleasure: needlessly mean and long youtube videos ripping apart things I hate

#rowan speaks #thank you!! it's been a while since ive answered one of these ajdhsjcbsjch

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spielzeugkaiser · 4 years

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You wanted unglamoured Jaskier getting mad, you wanted to see why people are afraid of the fae? here we gooo. Also:

Geralt ate the last slice of pie :(

#fae!jaskier #geralt of rivia #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #cirilla of cintra #I wanted some eldritch horror vibes #like you can look at them #but you can't really LOOK at them #also Jaskier has teeth he just hasn't shown them yet #normal human beings:#probably loose consciousness #the other witchers: u n c o m f o r t a b l e #(but nobody is saying something ofc cause theY'rE nOT scARed)#Geralt: talking like you talk to a disgruntled cat

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dont-touch-the-phlebotinum · 2 years

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xibipíío (pirahã, adj.) - of experiential liminality; of a being in the boundaries of experience and the act of entering or leaving perception

geralt/jaskier, rated T, warnings for temporary character death and associated musings. prompt from this post

Geraskier alphabet masterpost | Ao3

As soon as he swings Geralt realises his mistake. His sword arcs a fraction of a second too slow to parry the blow coming towards him, and steel cuts through his armour and the flesh beneath. It's a shallow strike, not enough to do any real damage.

But enough to distract him. Another blade pierces his back.

He feels it sink in, though it's Jaskier's anguished scream that pains him the most. Geralt aches with it as he sinks to the ground, praying to any god that might listen for them to protect Jaskier now that Geralt can't.

The sound of Jaskier's cries still echo as Geralt loses his grip on the world.

He opens his eyes.

He sits up, his ears popping at the change in air pressure.

The alley is gone, as is the mob that attacked him. Instead, all Geralt can see are vague shapes and drifting shadow. He doesn't recognise any of it. It's impossible to even tell if it's day or night. Everything seems unfinished, somehow; rough around the edges, like he's viewing it through heavy fog. Geralt frowns as he climbs to his feet.

The pain in his abdomen is gone.

"There you are."

Jaskier's voice.

Geralt whirls around to try and face him, and immediately loses his bearings. Not that he had a particularly strong grasp on his surroundings to begin with. He blinks, and squints through the haze of shifting grey, until he sees something coming towards him.

"Jaskier?"

The thing that approaches him is Jaskier – it has to be – though he looks as strange as the rest of this place. It's as if he's straining at the seams, not quite sitting right in his own body. There's something surrounding his form, moving as he moves, like an echo of a shape attached to him. It's too solid to be a shadow, too unformed to be a creature. Whatever it is, it's far, far larger than Jaskier. And it's not shaped like any being Geralt has ever seen before.

"I thought you were already gone," says Jaskier. His voice echoes, yet there's nothing for the sound to bounce off. Perhaps it's echoing inside Geralt's skull. Damned if Geralt fucking knows. If he could feel his head, it would surely be aching already.

Geralt looks around at the vacillating space. There's energy all around him, thrumming against his skin like it has a pulse. Not magic, but something older, perhaps. Something wild. "Where are we?"

"Nowhere, I suppose. It's–" he fumbles for a moment, searching for the right words– "an intermediary space. Like a little pocket of air between our world and the next."

"Am I dead?" He blinks. If he is, does that mean Jaskier is as well? How else could Jaskier be here with Geralt if he wasn't?

"Not yet. Not if I can help it."

"Can you?"

Jaskier stares back at him. In this colourless space, his eyes are still blue. Too blue.

"I hope so," he says. He steps closer and takes Geralt's hand in his, squeezing lightly. "I just need you to hold on."

"Jaskier," says Geralt. "What are you?"

Geralt opens his eyes.

Bright sunlight streams into the room, and he squints against it as the realisation comes to him: he's in a room. He can see solid walls around him; feel the rough scratch of the bed sheets beneath him. He can feel the dull ache in his gut where the sword pierced him.

Looking down, he sees Jaskier sat at his bedside, head pillowed on his forearms beside Geralt's hip, his eyes puffy and cheeks tear-stained. There's no twisting shadow creature engulfing him, no sense that he's somehow… off. He's simply Jaskier. And when he blinks his eyes open the blue that stares back at Geralt is the same it's always been, except this time it's rimmed with red from his tears.

"You scared me," he says, his voice soft, as he lifts his head. He looks exhausted, and Geralt wonders how long he's been unconscious, how long Jaskier has sat awake at his bedside. From the state of Jaskier, he wouldn't be surprised if the answer was weeks.

"I'm scary."

Geralt tries to sit up and Jaskier's hand is immediately on his chest to keep him in place. Despite looking like he'd crumple from a stern glance, he holds Geralt down with ease.

"Careful," says Jaskier. "You were run clean through not two days ago."

Geralt's too tired to argue. He hums and closes his eyes again, though Jaskier's hand doesn't leave his chest. Two days, he thinks. Even a witcher's advanced healing couldn't bring him back from certain death in that time.

The memories of that in-between space are fast fading in Geralt's mind, like a dream slipping away upon waking, but Geralt hasn't lost it all just yet. He looks down at Jaskier.

"What are you?"

"I am your dearly beloved best friend."

"Jaskier," says Geralt.

He sits back in his seat with a sigh. "I had hoped you wouldn't remember."

"I remember." His eyes stay on Jaskier, and he waits.

"I'm not sure you have a word for what I am," Jaskier says in the end.

"You were here before the Conjunction," says Geralt, and Jaskier nods. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't sure how you'd react, at first," he shrugs, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Then it was too late to just come out with it. I didn't want you to think I'd betrayed you by keeping it from you."

Geralt reaches out, then, his hand finding Jaskier's and giving him the same gentle, reassuring squeeze Jaskier had given him while they were… wherever the hell they'd been. He doesn't know what possesses him to do so, and he's sure when he's fully cogent again he'll regret such a foolish gesture, but for now, there's something comforting in the warmth of Jaskier's hand, and in the soft smile that spreads across Jaskier's face at the touch.

"I don't think that," says Geralt.

Jaskier moves forward to settle himself on the sliver of mattress at Geralt's side, his face tucked close to Geralt's neck and a protective hand resting lightly on Geralt's bandaged stomach. His scent, always reminiscent of flowing streams and the forests in springtime, fills Geralt's senses. Geralt finds himself breathing deep.

"You're not allowed to die before I do," Jaskier says.

Geralt shifts to peer down at him as he considers Jaskier's words. It's a scenario he's tormented himself with before, the thought of watching Jaskier age and die, one too awful to think about yet he picks at it like a scab all the same. But that was before. Whatever Jaskier is now – whatever he has always been – has been here long before Geralt, and will surely be here long after him.

Geralt can only hope so. He doesn't know how he is supposed to live in a world that doesn't have Jaskier in it.

"Jaskier," Geralt starts, and he wants to tell him all of that, wants to thank him for everything he's ever done for Geralt in case Jaskier isn't there to save him when the next blade sinks through his skin, but the words catch in his throat. He's not sure Jaskier will want to hear it anyway; it'll sound too much like a goodbye.

Still, he needs Jaskier to know. He can't bear the thought of Jaskier drifting through the Continent in centuries to come, thinking he was never anything but a nuisance to Geralt.

Jaskier is looking up at him, still waiting for the end of Geralt's sentence. Instead of trying to find the words, Geralt leans forward and presses his lips to Jaskier's.

#geraskier #creature jaskier #eldritch jaskier #geralt x jaskier #geraskier fic #geraskiersource #the witcher fic #the witcher #geraskier alphabet #otp: fuck off bard #my writing

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