#lambert meta

[kenobihater]

i'm thinking hard about how every meaningful interaction the player has with lambert in the witcher 3 is with a man who is grieving. first is the loss of aiden, who lambert is defensive of and shares the bare minimum about during following the thread, basically just enough of his positives so he can ensure geralt helps him track down aiden's killers.

when we see him at kaer morhen before juicing up the phylactry at the circle of elements during the final trial, he's making booze, and later admits to drinking alone. he's not coping well with any of his grief, either regarding the loss of aiden or his more distant past, as is evident by the conversation about voltehre and later the conversation about his childhood.

in following the thread he's mourning aiden, in the final trial he's mourning both voltehre and his life pre-trials, and in blood on the battlefield, well... he's mourning the only real father-figure he's ever known, as is made obvious by his voicelines if keira isn't present and he doesn't feel the need to put on a brave façade.

lambert's entire diposition in game is shaped by the fact that he's actively mourning aiden and later vesemir, and that he's still bitter over both the death of voltehre and of his childhood innocence. he's in pain, and lonely, and resentful of the entire world! he's a grief-stricken man haunted by the weight of the past!! every meaningful conversation geralt has with him feels like traversing a minefield because he's bereaved!!!

#len's meta #lambert #lambert tw3 #lambert the witcher #witcher lambert #lambden #laiden #lambert meta #anyways. i wrote up the first paragraph to this months ago and just now got around to hammering out my full thoughts on the topic

[the-butch-of-blaviken]

ok, so. Long overdue Lambert post

I've been thinking about Lambert as a dad, or rather not exactly as a dad but responsible for a small child that primarily depends on him (as opposed to Ciri for whom he could be the fun uncle since Geralt was responsible for all the dad stuff)

I realize this may not be anyone's cup of tea, but what's fun about blorbos is you get to put them in situations they would never logically find themselves in and think hard about how that would work, right? So, why is it compelling to me personally:

as with most things, he can't avoid comparing himself to his brothers' respective experiences with fatherhood: Geralt as the ultimate dad of a princess/literal hero of a prophecy who literally travels across the world and an active war zone to rescue her, and Eskel as the brother who ignored his destiny for as long as he could until it came back to almost literally bite him in the ass

like i said before, he doesn't want anything to do with fatherhood; in fact, i believe he carefully avoids using the law of surprise to avoid finding himself in this very situation among other things. He doesn't believe in destiny (or at least, he doesn't believe in destiny having anything good in store for him) but after what happened to Geralt, who claimed he didn't believe in it either, you can't blame him for being paranoid

plus all of his available father figures range from shitty to extremely shitty, to the point where he's terrified that his very blood might be tainted and that he might be physically incapable of not reproducing what has been done to him

if he ends up caring for a child, it'd be in spite of himself; it would have to be an accident he would have no choice but to go along with, not primarily for the child's sake (that’ll come later) but mainly because he has no way out of it. So he has to be tricked into caring for the child (rubbing my little writer's hands together)

imagine the influence on his character development?? The healing process. The growth. This child embodies a sort of second chance by proxy: back when he was a kid, all of his choices were made for him, so he's going to make it so that this child can choose for themselves what they want (and, as a consequence, i believe he wouldn't tell anyone about them, especially not his brothers. He doesn't trust them not to get any ideas about feeding the child homegrown mushrooms like they did to Ciri)

also, i don't think he would consider himself to be the child's father, more like their caretaker or something equivalent. In fact, i believe being called "dad" is the best way of making him run away as fast as possible, being father is fundamentally associated to something negative in his mind. So he'd be there – he'd watch over the child and worry for them and teach them how to defend themselves, but he'd categorically object to being called anything close to "dad." (maybe it would also be an opportunity to establish a more horizontal relationship between him and his ward, as oppposed to the traditionally more vertical relationship between a parent and their child? Because he's so averse to authority, he'd probably hate representing that very notion in anyone's eyes, especially someone so vulnerable)

#idk what to make of this post tbh #i've been thinking about this for a while but i'm not sure if it's worth exploring through a fic. maybe when i'll have more time to write #if this somehow speaks to you and you have ideas about it pls pls pls i'd love to know #lambert #lambert meta #??? #my posts

[solcorvidae]

I've been thinking about how Lambert, Eskel, and Geralt all deal with the trials and how it shapes them into the people they would grow to become.

Lambert remembers his past. He is angry, upset, bitter, and vindictive. He's got this fire in him that is only stoked by the pain and suffering forced upon him. He remembers the boys who did not make it: the hell they all had to go through, and he has a complicated relationship with Vesemir that surrounds it. Lambert does questionable things that Geralt is bothered by in his grief and anger. Geralt calls him out for killing in cold blood, needlessly and mercilessly.

Lambert avoids Vesemir at Kaer Morhen and mocks him when he is not around. He may come off as childish and like an asshole, but Lambert knows what he feels. Lambert doesn't lash out because he can't control his emotions or because he doesn't understand the path of least resistance. He knows. He chooses to avoid conflict with Vesemir at Kaer Morhen by keeping out of his way. He knows he can't control his emotions effectively if he is face-to-face with him for too long. He knows, and he isn't stupid.

Lambert talks to Geralt about the trials and the injustice of it all. He probably looks up to Geralt, hoping his brother feels just as angry about it as he does. He went through the Trial of the Grasses twice for Christ's sake! Why is he not more angry? Why is he so apathetic?

And Geralt brushes him off time and time again. Such is life, is his attitude. We all went through it, he says. Geralt can't be upset because there is nothing he can feasibly do about it. He didn't choose to be a Witcher. He wouldn't have chosen this life. He would have some other job somewhere else, just like he told Regis. He can't change the past. He can't go back and fix something he never had control over in the first place. Besides, they can’t inflict the trials upon a new generation of kids, not anymore. It’s in the past now, so why dwell on it? What’s done is done and thank god no other kids have to suffer the way they did. It’s over. It’s time to move on.

Geralt doesn't enjoy fame. He tells Eskel this in To Bait a Forktail. Geralt is the famous twice-grassed White Wolf. He is The Witcher. The famed Geralt of Rivia. He has expectations piled upon him the size of mountains. He's got to be the perfect Witcher, he's got to be a loyal brother, a lover, and a best friend… Geralt had expectations put upon him that set him aside from the rest since he was a kid. He hates it. Underneath the banter and the wit, Geralt accepts that this is his life, but that doesn't mean he likes it. He tolerates it because it is his reality and nothing more. If he thinks about it for too long… maybe it will consume him.

"You remember her?" he asks Eskel about his mother.

Unlike Lambert, Geralt hardly knows what it means to live another life. He doesn't have that following him like it does with his brother. What little he remembers is not enough to erase the apathy drilled into him at such a young age. Maybe he has a more strict moral code than say, Lambert, (or if you want to bring in the other Witcher schools, most of the Cats and the caravan) but that doesn't make him the most ethical person on the Continent. How could you be? After all that he has endured, the things he was taught? Where do you draw the line? He kills monsters, but like in Velen, it's hard to see where the line's drawn in the sand.

Humans are monstrous too.

Eskel, however? Maybe he's jealous. He did everything right, why shouldn’t he be? He is superiorly skilled in magic, one hell of a good Witcher. He has a reputation for it. Maybe he's not as kind as your average person, but he gets the job done. He's got a more relaxed demeanour than his brothers which reveals itself in his reputation. He's reliable. He is damn good at what he does. So why does Geralt get all the attention? The fame? He clearly doesn't want it.

While Lambert got turned into a vindictive prick and Geralt became a quick-witted nihilist, Eskel? He's exactly who he should be. Why shouldn't he be praised for it like his brother? Why should he be forced to bend over backwards to accommodate people and keep up with his reputation? For what? His skills? Ha! He lives in the shadows of Geralt who's notably a good Witcher, but he's not quite as good as Eskel.

Eskel was beaten shaped into the man he is today because of the trials, his training, and everything else. Should he not get credited for that too? Why does someone who doesn't even want his fame get all the recognition? Genetic predisposition? Shouldn't his hard work be given more consideration and praise? Thank god Geralt survived the hell of being subjected to two rounds of mutagens rather than one, but why should that overshadow the efforts, the time, and the sacrifices that everyone else around him has made? Eskel is exactly the man that they intended him to be by the end of it all. He is an efficient hunter, he is outstanding with signs, and he works diligently for his reputation. He did everything right. He does everything right. Why is that not enough?

TL;DR: Lambert, Geralt and Eskel handle their traumas in different ways. Lambert gets vengeful, Geralt gets apathetic, and Eskel gets borderline jealous. (And it breaks my heart)

#this probably doesn't make as much sense as it does in my head but I tried to write it in the most coherent way that I could #this has been gnawing at me since last night I needed to get it out of my head because its eating me alive #the witcher #the witcher 3 #geralt of rivia #eskel #lambert #eskel witcher #lambert witcher #eskel tw3 #lambert tw3 #meta post #witcher meta #sol rambles #sol scribbles

[vesemirsexual]

insane to me how some people characterise lambert in tw3 as a simple prick or angry asshole when his on-going narrative theme is grief like.

first we have aiden. who lambert is clearly angry and grieving about, who we know was a rare close friend on the path and someone who he had an extremely high opinion of.

then we have his mother (+ by extension his childhood) and there’s very clear grief there arising from a child trying to protect a parent from domestic violence.

and then there’s voltehre. again, lamberts grief is the angry kind, but it’s clearly a significant memory and a significant loss for him.

and then there’s vesemir. and it’s easy to see on the surface how maybe you could think that lambert viewed him as nothing more than an abusive prick but the fact is that he immediately rebukes yennefer the second he doesn’t like her tone about the old man. he clearly says that vesemir could have his sword when he died and that it fits perfectly in his hand, and like i can only imagine how that conversation even came to be. lambert hates kaer morhen but still comes back; likewise, we know that vesemir has no problem telling people they’re not welcome at kaer morhen, and yet they fight and fight and they both still end up back there, and lambert seriously pisses him off and vesemir is the one who fucks off for a whole month. and it’s more apparent if keira isn’t present, but lambert is devastated at his funeral, the person most effected after ciri.

lambert is anger on the surface, and under all that is just grief after grief.

#lambert just repeatedly loses people of significant standing in his life #so I’m not surprised he acts like a bitch because that makes it a lot harder for people to get to that point #katie txt #meta #lambert #dry heaving at these thoughts tbh.

[ncfan-1]

Here, have some semi-disorganized thoughts, because the more I think about what’s implied about Lambert and Patricia’s relationship, the more I find myself side-eyeing… Lambert, actually.

(And to be clear, I consider Cindered Shadows and the information that arises from it questionably canon at best, but when it dovetails with what we already know from base 3H, it makes sense to include it. And when you’re talking about Patricia and Lambert’s relationship, you can’t really avoid Cindered Shadows, so here goes.)

First of all, as a disclaimer: I do believe that Lambert was genuinely infatuated with Patricia/Anselma. I’m not denying him that. It’s just… everything that comes after it that feels questionable. Because that doesn’t feel like why he married her, based on what comes next?

[That said, maybe don’t read if you have a particularly rosy view of Lambert. I don’t characterize him as a monster, not by any stretch, but like I said, I side-eye him hard.]

So you’ve got this banished former Imperial consort living in Kingdom territory. And she’s a woman of high rank (at least formerly, but her being the mother of one of the Emperor’s children is still going to be true, regardless of whether or not she is still regarded as one of his consorts), and upper-class Fódlan society as a whole is extremely heteronormative with all of the subordination of women that implies. So on the one hand: she needs to be kept according to her station, and that involves having her married so she can reside over a noble household once again, but the only man of high enough standing to marry her, a former consort of the Adrestian Emperor… is the widowed king. And on the other hand: she can’t be allowed to potentially run amok causing political strife in the Kingdom by trying to regain her old position (we don’t know precisely why Anselma was dismissed and exiled, but based on what we’ve seen of the Imperial nobility, it’s not unreasonable for Lambert and the Kingdom nobility to assume that she would be putting a lot of time and energy into trying to regain her former position, and it’s equally reasonable to assume that they’d want to stop her from doing that in Kingdom territory, since it could cause strife between the Kingdom and the Empire that they absolutely do not need), and the best way to keep her from doing that is to tie her down to a husband who can Control Her, but again, the only man of high enough standing to marry her, a former consort of the Adrestian Emperor… is the widowed king.

This does not feel like a spur-of-the-moment love match. It feels more like Patricia is equal parts charity case and quasi-political prisoner in Fhirdiad, with all of it smoothed over by having her marry Lambert, so that they can both avoid drawing ire from Imperial factions who wouldn’t want them sheltering Anselma in the Kingdom in a position of such high honor as being a part of the royal court (likely a large part of why she changed her name to Patricia in the first place, or perhaps why the decision was made for her that she’d be changing her name), and so they can avoid drawing the ire of Emperor Ionius, who by all accounts loved and favored her, by shutting her up in genteel imprisonment. Give it all a gloss of ‘new queen consort’ to appease the emperor, and give it a gloss of ‘her ties to her homeland have been heavily severed with this new marriage, to the extent that she’s even been stripped of her old name’ to appease those in the Empire who don’t want to see her come back. Patricia’s primary consolation is that her new husband is genuinely infatuated with her, and thus is likely to treat her well.

At least, that must be how it seems to her at first.

And I say all of this because some stuff that we learn about Lambert and Patricia’s marriage just does not make sense if you assume that this was a spur-of-the-moment love match?

First of all, Dimitri says outright in his and Hapi’s B support that “for all intents and purposes, [his] stepmother was completely cut off from the outside world. Suffice it to say few knew that [his] father had taken a second wife.” So first off… that doesn’t sound right for a normal marriage. At all. Even Dimitri acknowledges that the union between his father and stepmother caused a great deal of speculation; even Dimitri, who has a history of white-washing his past to make it all seem a lot rosier than it actually was, grasps that there was something not quite normal about this marriage. You would expect a queen to be engaged in charitable works across the Kingdom, you would expect her to leave Fhirdiad on pleasure trips, either with her husband or alone, but instead, it seems as though her movements were heavily curtailed.

Second, Dimitri states in his and Hapi’s A support that “although she was the queen consort, in truth, [his] father and stepmother were not even allowed the dignity of being alone,” further asserting that Cornelia constantly inserted herself between them. So you’re telling me that Lambert is so ineffectual that he can’t even ask, or use his authority as king to order, that Cornelia leave the room so he can be alone with his own wife? That doesn’t sound right for a man assertive enough to plan sweeping political reforms against the protests of a wide swath of his own nobility. What sounds a bit more like right is that Lambert doesn’t particularly care if he and Patricia are left alone together, and what suggests about the nature of their marriage is that Lambert is perhaps less her husband than he is her quasi-jailor.

Third, Dimitri will eventually admit that Patricia was fairly cold towards him. He states in his B support with Hapi that it was his stepmother who raised him, and Hapi notes that he shares many of her mannerisms. While it’s not fair of Patricia to be cold towards Dimitri, regardless of what the true nature of her relationship with Lambert may or may not be, if her marriage with Lambert was equal parts charity case and genteel imprisonment with a ‘queen consort’ coat of paint slapped on over it, I think it might explain her coldness. Patricia’s feelings towards both Lambert and Ionius are up in the air, but without a doubt, she loved Edelgard, her child. But not only has she been separated from her daughter for good and trapped in a gilded cage called “marriage” clear on the other side of the continent from her, she’s now had her quasi-jailor’s kid foisted upon her to raise, as well. Like I said, it wouldn’t be fair for Patricia to let her resentment regarding her position spill over onto Dimitri, but it’s still a pretty human reaction, and if things are as I think they are, then it unfortunately makes perfect sense that she has little to no interest in being a warm stepmother to Lambert’s son.

That brings us on to Edelgard’s time in Fhirdiad. We know that Lord Arundel, Patricia’s brother, abducted Edelgard and brought her to Fhirdiad during the Insurrection of the Seven, though the reasons for his abduction of his niece are murkier. Dimitri frames it in the Childhood Memories scene in ‘The Cause of Sorrow’ as Edelgard and her uncle being in exile together, and goes so far in his A support with Hapi as to state that Lord Arundel had sought asylum in the Kingdom. Edelgard herself frames it as an abduction, something that was done to her without her consent, let alone her father, the emperor’s, and again, though her uncle’s reasons for doing so are murky, I am inclined to think that Edelgard is in a better position than Dimitri to know if it was an abduction or not, so I am characterizing this as an abduction as well. Even if Lord Arundel was seeking asylum with his niece in tow, he did still kidnap her to do it, and we don’t know his exact reasons. They could be altruistic—Arundel trying to save Edelgard from being experimented on like her brothers and sisters—or he could have done it to seize an advantage over Ionius, as Edelgard was one of only a small handful of his children to have a Crest. We just don’t know.

We know from the Childhood Memories scene in ‘The Cause of Sorrow’, from Dimitri’s own lips, that he and his father visited Lord Arundel and Edelgard when they were living in Fhirdiad. But we know that Patricia didn’t find out that her brother and niece had been in Fhirdiad until after they were both long gone.

What?

Dimitri and Hapi’s A support frames Patricia’s predictably furious reaction as being all Cornelia’s fault. That Cornelia had planted the idea in her head that Lambert had deliberately withheld this knowledge from her, and that in reality, Lambert had been just as in the dark about Arundel and Edelgard’s true identities as Dimitri was. But I don’t buy that? Dimitri states that Arundel was seeking asylum in the Kingdom, and in order to be assured asylum, he would have needed to explain who he and Edelgard were, and spin some story to make this look less like an abduction. Edelgard is stated to strongly resemble her mother, as well; surely Lambert would have noticed.

And even if you believe that Arundel could have lied about who he and Edelgard were and gotten away with it, there’s still the fact that Dimitri found out that Edelgard was A) the girl he had known in Fhirdiad years ago, and B) his step-sister, before he entered the Academy, which would indicate that Lambert had known about it at the time. Again, Lambert is painted as being a very politically savvy man. At no point is he painted as being a dunce. So Lambert absolutely did know who they were, and he absolutely did conceal that information from Patricia. No tricks by Cornelia required! Likely all she had to do was voice aloud the thoughts already fulminating in Patricia’s own mind.

Dimitri dismisses the idea that he did this on purpose on the grounds that he can’t think of what his father would have had to gain from purposely concealing the knowledge from Patricia, but I can think of a few things. Dimitri doesn’t want to see it, because again, it contradicts the rosy picture he’s painted of his past.

The absolutely kindest explanation I can think of is that Lambert is perfectly aware that this is a political powder keg he has on his hands. Regardless of whatever story Arundel spins to him on why and Edelgard are in Fhirdiad, this is an abduction; it was done without the consent of Edelgard’s custodial parent, and thus he has a kidnapped Imperial princess in Fhirdiad. He has to be very careful about how he handles the situation—he could all too easily spark a diplomatic incident between the Kingdom and the Empire if he handles it wrong. It’s possible that he did not want to introduce Patricia to the powder keg out of the fear that she could be the spark that ignited it by understandably demanding that her daughter be given over into her custody.

But even this kindest explanation demonstrates that Lambert doesn’t consider Patricia an equal partner in their marriage. That’s probably not so unusual for noble marriages in Fódlan—again, upper-class Fódlan society is excruciatingly heteronormative, with all of the subordination of women that that implies—but he’s not even thinking about it in terms of introducing her into the situation to try and ferret out the truth of why Arundel and Edelgard are in Fhirdiad, not even thinking about the fact that Patricia’s brother and daughter might let something slip to her. Not only does he not consider her an equal partner, he doesn’t even consider her a useful tool.

And that’s the kindest explanation. Others include that he just straight-up never took her feelings into consideration, that he never stopped to consider her feelings on the matter for even a moment. Others include that he deliberately concealed it from her because he didn’t want Patricia to be reminded of her old life in the Empire, because he did not want her to reestablish her bonds with her old life. Whether it was because he didn’t want her causing political strife that could endanger the Kingdom, or because in his infatuation with her he simply didn’t want her to leave, that’s not clear. It could be some combination of the reasons I stated above. It could be something else altogether. It could be all of them at once, stitched together into some monstrous leviathan of the ways women are disregarded by their husbands in societies like these, and all of the suffering that derives from it.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I used to think that Patricia had to be extraordinarily stupid to still trust Cornelia enough to go to her for help after she saw what she was doing to Hapi and was cognizant enough to be horrified by it, but nowadays, I think it’s more emblematic of how desperate she was. She wanted to be reunited with her daughter, and if she wanted that, if she wanted to be Anselma again, then Cornelia was the only person she could turn to for help. She had no support network in Faerghus. Equal parts charity case and political prisoner, she had none of the normal recourse against mistreatment. She couldn’t look to her husband for help. He had already demonstrated that he had no interest in reuniting them. Their marriage was a farce, after all.

And no matter where she lived, Anselma was never more than a pawn on somebody else's gameboard.

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fe16 #Meta #Anselma von Arundel #Lambert Egitte Blaiddyd #hello to the absolute hellscape that is Fodlan #and the tragedies that can arise from not treating other people with care and respect

[0dde11eth]

#my polls #geralt #lambert #eskel #letho #aiden #coen #vesemir #papa vesemir #witcher potions #the witcher potions #black eyed geralt #witcher meta #witcher facts #witcher lore

[thekingofwinterblog]

How Cole Became Human - Dragon Age

So in the Dragon Age Universe, amongst the countless, countless amounts of Abominations, demons, and spirits that end up on the physical side of the Veil, there are only two known cases where the beings that crossed turned, not into abominations, or a physical form of their fade self, but into actual people, with motivations, dreams, desires, fears, and all that comes with being a human being.

Cole, a spirit of compassion.

And Harren, a desire Demon.

Both of these are very, very interesting for a whole host of reasons, and the question of why these two turned out the way they are, are many.

The fact that this is not limited to either spirits or demons is interesting on it's own, but exactly what it was that made Harren so unique is hard to say when we dont know anything about his past other than the fact he presumably was pulled across the veil by the desires of his current lover Wade withouth needing a body to inhabit, and it all developed from there.

However, we can make some educated guesses from looking at Cole's past, and pinpoint the moment he turned from a spirit into a person.

Now anyone who has played inquisition knows Cole as a troubled, but well meaning cinnamon roll, who deserves the world. Knowing how he is now, it's easy to imagine his past as a serial killer murdering mages who wanted to die as a completely well meaning, but ultimately, terribly misguided soul

The truth however is much, much murkier than the image cole unitentionally presents in inquistion.

Cole during his days thinking he was a ghost in the White Spire and not knowing what he was, was a far, far darker creature than one might assume.

Now the actual, underlying motivation that Cole presents is true, his main reason for killing the mages was him believing that they really did want to die, and that he could help them by doing so... but that is not how Cole in the moment thought of it.

It's just how he in hindsight looks back at all of it, and has analyzed his own actions and the reasons behind them.

In the moment though, Cole didnt know anything. he didnt know why he was doing any of it, not truly. He felt that he was "Real" in those moment, that it was something he had to do in order to not cease existing basically.

He was terrified of ceasing to be, not knowing what he was, but killed the mages because he felt he had to do it, withouth really knowing why. When Cole speaks later of now knowing it was wrong, he isnt just talking about the fact that he stupidly missed that there were other, better ways to help people, but also just how misguided his complete lack of understanding and ability to affect his own impulses were, and the catastrophic results that lack of self control and knowledge led toi.

He was not withouth kindness and more noble trait, but Cole in Asunder, is a far, far more sinister, dark, cowardly and frankly disturbing individual.

even after his character development, the Cole at the end of Asunder, when he is confronted by Lord Seeker Lambert, and forced to confront what he is, seems a far, far cry from the Cole of inquisition, as the mocking of Lambert breaks him, breaks the belief that there was ever actually a cole, that he was anything but a stupid spirit that had convinced himself he was a person.

Which leads us to the moment that Cole actually becomes a person, in the time period between his banishment by Lambert, and the epilogue of Asunder, where he confronts, and kills the unarmored and unarmed Lambert.

The young man leaned close, his expression one of deadly intent.

"There was a Cole," he whispered.

"You forgot him in that cell, and I heard his cries when no one else would. I went to him, and held his hand in the darkness until it was over. When the templars found him, they erased everything to hide their shame . . . and I was helpless to act."

Sorrow, and perhaps even regret, crossed the young man's face, but only for a moment.

"I'm not helpless any longer." The words sent a chill through Lambert's heart.

"What do you want from me?"

The young man smiled coldly.

"I want you to look into my eyes."

Cole's actions here lines up perfectly with the later confrontation with the man who murdered the original Cole, a seething, burning rage, and making the choice to murder that son of a bitch with extreme prejudice.

And yet despite doing something that is completely, totally against everything that compassion is, Cole does not become a Demon.

at all. Despite all traditional knowledge about spirits becoming demons telling us that Cole should have become a demon here, he doesnt, despite his own fears.

And the original plans for his personal quest also adds to this, because there was going to be a choice to let him murder the piece of shit that left Cole in that cell... and he would not become a demon as a result, despite Varric and Solas fears during his quest.

Why?

Because it is his choice to do all of it. Spirits change when their original purpose is twisted by the direct actions and feelings of an outside force, usually a host, or a summoner... but there is no such here, either when Cole murdered Lambert, or in his personal quest.

Now you have the option of having Cole backtrack, become a spirit again by siding with Solas limited understanding of the situation, but im not here to talk about that route.

Im here to talk about the other route, where you reaffirm the path Cole Chose to go down when he killed Lambert for all his many, many sins.

He wanted Lambert to die, and he went through with it, all on his own choice. and by doing so he completely changed his very nature. We dont know how Cole learned about the details of the original cole, but it was the discovery of that path, and the resulting actions he took from that path, where he completely rejected the nature of what he embodied, that Cole became a true person, and changed his nature down to his bones.

That was the key.

With this in mind, it's not hard to see how Harren went down the same road.

Harren's entire dynamic with Wade, is that he is the businessman of the relationship, he is the one that has to reign in the genuis of his boyfriend in order to keep their business running, so Wade doesnt have to go back to "Living on Gruel".

In other words, he had to make a personal choice of his own free will, to act the complete opposite of a desire demon, just like Cole had to.

And the moment he did that, he became an actual person, with all the contradictions that involves... just like Cole did.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age inquisition #dragon age awakening #cole #harren #wade #meta #spirits #demons #lord seeker lambert

[fangirleaconmigo]

Hey! I'm not sure if this is technically a fanon or canon ask, but a question that's been nagging me for ages is does Aiden show up in the books? I'm wondering if he's mostly made up of a few lines of dialogue we heard about him or if he actually shows up somewhere in a canon

Thanks and hope you have a good one!

Hi Nonny, Thank you for the ask!

I have been asked about Aiden before, so I’m going to take the liberty of expanding on your ask and doing a full character breakdown. I hope that’s ok.

Witcher Aiden Character Breakdown

I’ll answer the following questions (roughly)

Who is Aiden?

Is Aiden in the books?

What part of Aiden is canon and what is fanon?

Why does the fandom love him?

How do fic writers write him?

Why is Lambert x Aiden so popular?

Will Aiden be in the Netflix show?

Who is Aiden?

Aiden (deceased) was a cat witcher and a friend of Lambert’s. We learn about Aiden in a TW3 supporting quest called Following the Thread, where Lambert asks Geralt to help him avenge Aiden’s death.

Does Aiden appear in the books?

No.

When I google his name, there is a website that has a notation of ‘the witcher books’ next to Aiden’s name. However, I’ve read all the books twice and the Kaer Morhen chapters of Blood of Elves like ten times, and I have never seen any references to him. Until someone actually gives me a page number and quotation, I’m sticking with my answer.

So who created Aiden?

Aiden is technically a CDPR creation, meaning he is created by the games. However, he does not actually physically appear in the games, since he is already dead when the story begins.

So, any visual character design you see in fandom, is a fanartist creation. Any personality/characterization you read in a fic, is a fic writer creation.

Aiden occupies this liminal space between canon and fanon. Canon, but not completely. Fanon, but not strictly.

So then where the hell are people getting their characterizations of Aiden in fics?

I’m glad you asked. They are reverse engineering him.

How the fuck do you do that?

(I will now let you inside the twisted mind of a fic writer. But please please keep in mind that this is all 🚨 SUPER SUPER INDIVIDUAL AND PERSONAL AND SUBJECTIVE🚨 Other people who write Aiden might be like...fuck. That isn’t why I connect with him at all. Or WHAT THE FUCK I DO NOT DO THAT AT ALL. So I do not consider myself the expert here. This is just me sharing my own thing.)

Ok that being said, reverse engineering a character is so fucking fun.

You start with what you know, identify anything intriguing about it, and invent your own explanation for it.

For example, with Aiden, we know that Aiden is a cat witcher. According to book canon, (Season of Storms) cat witchers murder people and act as assassins. We learn that they are not allowed to winter in Kaer Morhen, and when Brehen (the cat witcher we meet in the books) complains about that, Geralt is like...you fucking know why that is.

Dandelion explains to a third party that cat witchers' mutations are “failed” , that they are “psychopaths and sadists”, and “aggressive, cruel, unpredictable, and impulsive.”

So, we know that they pass their winters hard, cold, and hungry, and that Geralt, who is no pacifist, and is perfectly willing to kill people in defense of self and others (and frankly, can be pretty flexible about that) thinks their methods are evil. They are notorious.

CDPR, the comics, and other games (rpg, gwent) have added to that canon, but I am no expert on those, so I’ll stick to what I know.

What we know already creates an intriguing picture. Keep this cat witcher stuff in mind when I say that in TW3, Lambert says that Aiden was the best man he ever knew. I would like to remind the dear readers that Lambert knows Geralt and Eskel, two of the best men on the continent! That’s a high bar, folks. A cat witcher is the best man Lambert has ever known. When Geralt mentions that cats take human contracts, Lambert says that Aiden did not take human contracts and did not murder humans.

So, as fic writers, we ask ourselves questions about Aiden and explain them ourselves. For me what I ask is:

What kind of person is raised by dog-eat-dog people who teaches him that it’s cool to kill both humans and other witchers for financial gain, and yet grows up to be a person who refuses to kill humans or other witchers?

What kind of person experiences a failed mutation, then lives in constant hardship against the elements, facing chronic cold and hunger, and instead of resenting the Kaer Morhen wolves for the warmth of their castle and the family support they enjoy, literally attaches himself to the grumpiest one and loves him for life? (The romance may be fanon, but the friendship is canon, and friendship is love. People like to forget that.) By comparison, Brehen fucking hates and resents the Kaer Morhen wolves. He calls them hypocrites and blames his suffering on their refusal to let him stay there. But Aiden clearly did not.

What kind of person grows up around people like Brehen, who were obviously at least somewhat willing to kill Aiden for a contract (Brehen attempts to kill Geralt for a contract in Season of Storms), always having to look out for himself, yet manage to turn out so good?

And

How would a person turn out if they had to buck their community, the only survival options offered to them, and every last one of the ‘values’ they were taught, just to be true to themselves?

I think even the little bit we have so far points to a person with a deep well of compassion and kindness but also a whole lot of grit and spine. Like, he had to rebel to be a decent human being.

Fic writers fucking love that shit. A little structure, but a lot of room for creativity. Best writing prompt ever.

But let me be clear THERE ARE NO RULES EVER!!! WRITE HIM HOWEVER YOU WANT!!!!

Why do they love him then, if they mostly made him up?

You just answered your own question. It’s the freedom to craft your own lovingly wrought narrative about not belonging in the community where life has placed you, about struggling to break out of it, and about being true to yourself. I mean go back and read that sentence again and tell me that shit isn’t RIFE for queer narratives. RIFE I tell you. It is not a surprise to me that this is very popular with queer writers. (Ie, most fic writers, tbh)

Yes, but a lot of people just write him as a pairing for Lambert. They aren’t writing long character studies.

Yes, but even a PWP has character work, even a PWP has personalities and I’d argue with Aiden they all do by necessity since we don’t have his personality in canon. And JUST having him interact with Lambert tells us a whole lot about his character.

So when we write Lambert x Aiden we ask ourselves...

What kind of person can get past Lambert’s spikiness? His defenses?

What kind of person can get a famously loyal Lambert to invite tension between himself and Geralt or Eskel, who have past traumas with cat witchers?

What kind of person can inspire that kind of trust in a slow-to-trust Lambert?

What kind of person can impress the not-easily-impressed Lambert?

Basically this cat motherfucker strolled up to the hardest case, the most sarcastic, defensive, pissy wolf witcher, and won his literal undying devotion.

Who can do that???? And how??

It’s fun to imagine. It compels me. I’m compelled. And we all know that the spikiest character is the mushiest inside, and that’s exactly what fic writers love. We wanna crack open that egg and study the yolk.

It also creates the beginning of a personality all on its own.

For example, (again this will be different for everyone, this is just what I came up with) it would be difficult to write a spiky Aiden. Lambert is already spiky. Two spiky closed off people are difficult to get together because SOMEONE has to reach out first.

It would be difficult to write an Aiden who is easily intimidated or cowed. You have to be strong to deal with Lambert.

It would also be difficult to write an Aiden who is quick to anger. Lambert is sarcastic, so if you put him with someone who had thin skin or got pissed off easily, then you’re just writing them fighting all the time. I mean, you can! But most people want to get to the good stuff.

So you often end up with an Aiden who is not intimidated by Lambert AT ALL. There is often confidence there. Comfort in his own skin.(he’s had to develop that to break away from his community as it is, so that fits well anyway). You usually have an Aiden who is perceptive. Who swaggers up to Lambert and immediately sees how soft he is inside, then instinctively has the patience and flexibility to stick around long enough to prove himself.

You usually end up with an Aiden who is easy going and affectionate but also stubborn as fuck with a spine of steel.

You end up with something like that. At least I do. And a lot of other fic writers do.

So again, you’re reverse engineering. It is the most fun writing exercise ever.

So, why is this ship (Lambert and Aiden) so popular? Why would a character who is essentially an OC, be such a popular pairing with Lambert?

Well, ok. Three things.

One, you answered part of your own question. People who love Lambert get to lovingly craft the exact person they want to inflict upon him.

BUT

ALSO

Two. The revenge quest for a lost love just begs for fic to be written. It gets down on its knees and begs.

The quest Following the Thread, even though it is about a friendship, contains multiples INCREDIBLY popular romance tropes.

Two people from opposing sides of a conflict falling in love. Think sharks and jets. Think Capulets and Montagues. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, there are inherent tension and unjust external forces pulling them apart, creating space for a love so strong, they both go against their respective communities to be together. Half of the Lambert/Aiden fics are “Aiden goes to Kaer Morhen and challenges the other wolf witchers ideas about cats (also triggering their trauma and bringing up their bad memories of being betrayed by cats)”.

Tragic death/fixing a tragic death. This is a HUGELY popular romance trope. The other half of Lambert x Aiden fics are about Lambert either grieving Aiden’s death, or overcoming it somehow. (Ghost Aiden, curse lifted Aiden, crawls back from hell Aiden)

Avenging a lost love. This is very very romantic. Aiden is already dead in TW3. He can’t be touched or impressed by the fact that Lambert is avenging him. Lambert just loves him so much he NEEDS to in order to go on with his life. A quest to avenge a lost love is a super popular trope.

And three, it just fits perfectly for Lambert to have a fellow witcher as a love interest, who understands instinctively what he’s gone through, so it doesn’t require him to be super expressive of his pain, but NOT a wolf witcher, who may be connected to his own trauma.

Though it doesn’t always have to be about Lambert’s issues. The one I’ve written kind of centers around Aiden’s trauma with breaking away from his community and calls a bit more for Lambert to nurture him. And of course I’m not the only one who has approached it that way.

I did do a rec thread once for medium-rare witcher pairs and I have some Lambert x Aiden recs on there.

But let me tell you some of the absolute best writers in the fandom write them. So, just go in the tag and mosey around.

Will Aiden appear in The Witcher Netflix series?

It is highly unlikely, though technically not impossible.

So, whenever you adapt an existing property, you have to pay the original creator of that property. Like with Star Wars, the movies came first. SW was created by the filmmaker Lucas. So if you want to do anything Star Wars, you run him his money.

The witcher universe was created by the witcher book author. They began as short stories. So, the author owns the IP. He sells permission (usually limited by time, region, language etc) for the witcher universe to be adapted into other formats. He sold CDPR the rights to adapt it into a video game. He sold Netflix exclusive rights to make it into a show.

So Netflix has already paid the author.

So, say they want to use something that CDPR created new for the games.

They have to pay them too.

But, wait, you say. The show already includes game elements!

Yes, but they are VERY VAGUE elements so that they do not get a letter from CDPR’s attorneys with an invoice. CDPR does not own jokes about trolls. They do not own witchers sitting in bathtubs. They do not own handlebar mustaches on witcher mentors. (I used these examples in another post, but I can’t think of new ones lol)

So, they could have a character named Aiden. CDPR doesn’t own the name Aiden. But the more things they added to that character (cat witcher, Lambert friend) the more likely they are to get that letter from CDPR.

I can think of zero reasons they would do that for a character they don’t need. Kaer Morhen only appears in one book. If the show follows the book saga plot, it will never return there. So Lambert (unless they drastically change the books) will not appear anymore except via flashbacks or memories. Nothing bad has happened to him, the plot just leaves Kaer Morhen behind.

So they don’t need to pay to use a CDPR character that will have zero bearing on the plot.

Now, if they just pull a whole different plot out of their asses and want to have Lambert there and then want to give Lambert a friend, then hey. Maybe. I just don’t see why they would.

Ok, I think that’s all I have to say about Aiden!! If you’ve read to the end, hey, *Points at you* you’re a nerd too.

Feel free to flail with me about Lambert or Aiden. Or anything else! Add to it! Share why you love him and tell people I got it all wrong 😆 whatever.

#the witcher #witcher aiden #lambert #lambert x aiden #Aiden #lambden #laiden #meta #character analysis

[nerdyelvenpolitologist]

Can women become witchers?

While in books we don't meet any female witchers we also don't find any reason of why women can't be witchers. At least not in just a process of becoming one.

First thing is that in books Ciri calls herself “wiedźminka” (female form of wiedźmin, witcher) and noone thinks twice about it. It’s important to mention that in Polish every noun has gender. And discusion about female forms is really intense. 

Second thing is that when Geralt brings Ciri to Kaer Morhen it’s obvious for everyone that they COULD make witcher out of her. That’s even what Triss thinks at the very begginging. 

It’s important to mention that in books witchers are still able to create new ones. They still have all the potions, still know recepies. It’s just that most of the witchers that knew how to do it were killed and wizards and sorceresses didn’t really wanna help them. So it was obvious that if there is a child in Kaer Morhen it means that the child will become a witcher. After all it’s what Geralt says:

See? Of course it is mentioned that Ciri was the first girl in Kaer Morhen. But it wasn’t the only witcher’s keep that ever existed. And as it’s important to say that while Continent is not based on Poland, the society thinks the same as it does in reall world. That women (even if we proof million times that we are just as able to fight and kill as men are) are weaker and shouldn’t fight and they should give birth and take care of home and children. So it would be a great reason why we don’t meet female witchers. Witchers were monster killers. Strong and emotionless. Covered in scars. Doesn’t feel much girly like, does it? 

Here Triss mentions how the process of becoming a witcher means changing whole metabolism and hormons. She was scared that what they gave Ciri would change how she looks, especially her secondary sexual characteristics and ability to get pregnant. And Triss is a powerful sorceress and can’t have children herself because of that. So how would society react if there greedy witchers would turn delicate girls into monster slayers? Also how men would reaact if they had to ask women for help. 

With that in minds let’s go back to Kaer Morhen. The witchers didn’t really know how Ciri, as a girl, was different than boys but did train her. Do you think they would do it, and even give her infamouse mushrooms to eat if there never was a female witcher before?

That is propably the best part of whole saga. Triss is the one that tell them that as a girl Ciri has a period. Them, as a men that were rised by other men and naver had longer realtonship with women that actually bleed every month. And their reactions weren’t like “oh gods, it’s a girls, we can’t do this to her she’s WOMAN”. No, it were “gods, we’re idiots. of course she can’t train when she’s on her period”.  

(btw I love how Sapkowski described that girls are taught to be ashamed of having periods. and that they can cry when they get first period. that shit is scary!)

Also it was never mentioned that only boys were trained. It always was children. 

Here it’s even highlined that the child that survived was male. And it’s a Child Surprise. Not Son Surprise. So I think that it’s save to assume that someoone could become a witcher no matter their gender. But they would just have to remamber that they HAVE TO treat girls in other way. 

My theory is that most popular Trials were based on what works for men. On male hormons, male bodies. And as trials were dangerouse it’s easy to assume that girls had higher death rate if whole proceduere was dedicated for men. Honestly, it’s a problem with modern medicine because it’s designed for male patiens. 

A little off canon the School of Cat is mentioned as one that trained female witchers. And it makes total sense! Trials were a little different for every school. And Cats were trained as fast, agile. Perfect as hitmans. Of course it sounds like something that would works for women. In my theory they could create witcher version of Black Widows! And in my head it makes total sense. What do you think?

And of course I didn’t come up with this whole thing because I’m thinking about writing a story with my female witcher OC... No, not at all.

#the witcher #witcher #the witcher netflix #geralt of rivia #cirilla fiona elen riannon #ciri #geralt #witcher meta #witcher books #andrzej sapkowski #triss merigold #lambert #vesemir #yennefer of vengerberg

[lassieposting]

Okay so that line with Jaskier and Lambert at the end of 2x08. Jaskier jokes, "Look at us, just a big old happy family, right?" and Lambert rather sharply retorts, "No," and limps past him with Ciri.

That seemed really sharp at first, and I thought it was just the writers and their thing where they handle Jask like nobody actually likes him despite him being one of the most likable characters, but then I was rewatching the ep and it occurred to me.

Lambert's just lost like, four family members.

We see Voleth!Ciri kill two Witchers, and then another two (three?) die in the final battle with the basilisks. Like, of course Lambert wouldn't be receptive to "happy family" comments. Some of his family are right there on the floor with their faces missing or their heads cut off. More are dead in their beds upstairs. Jaskier is Geralt's friend of 20 years, and the other Witchers have probably heard a lot about him from Geralt, but they've only known each other in person for a matter of days. A virtual stranger is no replacement for the family you just lost, and to Lambert it probably seemed like a really tasteless, tone-deaf comment to make, even though Jask didn't mean to wound.

So like. Understandable reaction, actually, yeah

#the witcher #the witcher meta #lambert #netflix witcher #maybe everyone else noticed this immediately and im just autistic but yeah

[dingleshartbeaufoy]

I know I shitpost about them a lot but henri and august make me so sad actually. Serious visceral anguish. Can you imagine fighting in a war and being trapped in a stinky bunker and it’s maybe a little bit okay because you get to ignore your own atrocities, and your worst fear is death, and then you learn that there are far greater things to fear than dying. And you watch your closest friend, whom youre bonded to by shed blood of soldiers, have his humanity stolen from him and become a false priest of a false god. And no matter if you escape and live, no matter if you kill him, no matter if he kills you, you can never reconcile. There’s no vengeance, no honor. Your friend has not died, but rather his existence has been stamped out as if he was never truly there

#amnesia game #amnesia the bunker #henri clement #augustin lambert #thegt make me scream #I love them. #ugh #meta

[kenobihater]

i think part of the reason why so many casual players hate lambert or complain about his supposed attitude is bc he doesn't act like either a "nice" trauma survivor, or an "unbothered" trauma survivor. his trauma has claws and teeth, he wrestles with it openly rather than behind closed doors, and it makes people uncomfortable. he's angry. he's bitter. he ISN'T over it, and he isn't afraid to bring that up. people like trauma survivors to fit into nice, neat, polite little boxes. if they aren't "nice" and don't get over it quickly, well by god they should at least box it up and act "unbothered" (all of these r generalizations ofc, but ones i find people are most comfortable with. you can be a "nice" or "unbothered" trauma survivor and still struggle, but you do it out of sight typically). lambert doesn't play by these rules at all. he brings up his trauma, he brings up his anger and frustration and memories, and he acts like an angry, traumatized man. he isn't polite, he doesn't give a rat's ass about placating anyone or shifting blame, and that makes people uncomfortable. he went through similar things to geralt, though we never see geralt act like this, same with eskel and vesemir. the three other wolves have either suppressed or dealt with their trauma to the extent that they can sleep at night. lambert doesn't act like a man who is at peace with himself and his past, and this is incongruent with the gruff, unbothered, macho reactions to unspeakable trauma that geralt, eskel, and vesemir have. idk, i just find it interesting and incredibly maddening that the wolf witcher who is the most emotionally open about his feelings regarding the trauma he was put through is the least liked among casual players!

#lambert #witcher lambert #tw3 #the witcher 3 #the witcher 3 wild hunt #tw3 wild hunt #len's meta #i've had a couple of beers and i'm a bit ticked off abt this if you can tell lmao #len speaks #lambert meta

[meta-squash]

A review of Querelle de Roberval by Kevin Lambert

I picked up Querelle de Roberval at work and decided to read it with absolutely zero expectations or knowledge of its contents, only a deep love for Genet’s work. It is, it seems, meant to be an homage or at least inspired by Genet’s novel Querelle de Brest. I spent the time it took me to read the book completely uncertain whether I liked it or not, and after having finished the novel and mulled it over for the rest of the day, I think I have to conclude that I didn’t like it.

It is well written; Lambert’s prose is stylish, sharp, and flows well. I am not Canadian and therefore don’t know the nuances of specifically Quebecois politics or social issues, but I really struggled to pin down the political message of this book, and it was clearly gunning for something. The ironic, fourth-wall breaking chapter at the latter half of the book set the stakes for the rest of the book too high; the scene in which the neighborhood Greek chorus mourns over Querelle’s body does not feel as heightened as it was obviously meant to feel, because the fourth wall chapter cuts down any faith the reader may have in its glory or passion.

Stylistically it felt like two separate novels that someone had attempted to twist together into one -- the realism of the strike, and the poetic fantasy of Querelle’s world and that of the other queer boys. Unfortunately, either the attempt at combining them was not strong enough, or the lyrical alienation of the queer world from the straight working class world was not deliberate enough.

Aside from the two main characters, Querelle and Jezabel, the rest of the cast felt undercooked; some were not fleshed out thoroughly enough, and some should have remained more like two-dimensional side characters but were given only a little bit extra characterization and therefore felt strange and incomplete.

And unfortunately I couldn’t help but compare Lambert’s work to Genet’s original, and it falls far short of the beauty of Querelle de Brest, or Genet’s work in general.

Part of the fascination of Genet’s work is how often violence or “perversion” (sexual or otherwise) is not an act of revenge or anger, but one of love or reverence, and more importantly one of transcendence. Aside from the descriptions of Querelle with his lovers and Jezabel’s final act in the pool, this symbolism and emotional transformation did not occur. The violence was just violence, something more akin to torture porn than something loving, transcendent, or symbolic. Murder itself - the actual taking of a life - as an extension of the self and therefore an act of complete liberation of the self is not the point of Lambert’s work like it is in Genet’s. Instead, it is the violence itself, the causing of pain that he seems to focus on. In Genet’s work (particularly Funeral Rites), consumption of another is not an act of revenge or hatred as it is in this work, but one of reverence and love. Acts of violence such as sacrifice, murder, and betrayal take on a transcendent, romantic symbolism because they are acts in which the self is destroyed and transformed into something else. Corruption, violation, violence, perversion, are rarely about the outside world directly. Rather, they are ways in which the self becomes something more, confirms itself to be a living thing or an empty thing or a thing which acts out of love, submission, or dominance. Rarely are acts of violence things Genet’s characters do solely for themselves; they are ways in which two characters are eternally entwined, which is what makes his violent or twisted characters so romantic.

All this is something that is consistent throughout Genet’s work and blatant in both his direct prose and his symbolism. Much of the violence in Lambert’s work lacks that philosophical thoughtfulness, and the political passion that would have smoothed that over does not seem fully thought out.

Unlike Genet, whose feelings towards authority have a conscious duality and whose works are unmistakably working-class, with the questionable morals of its characters being portrayed as a positive aspect, Lambert seems more intent on portraying the strikers as reprehensible in their actions, in that they are merely violent rather than transcendent in some way. This frames their actions then as either simply brutish or ultimately futile, rather than an act or event which either allows them to come alive for the first time or to change their self into something else. It also means that the characters whose morals are more “old-fashioned” like Fauteux or Bernard do not have the same dark, rounded-out intent and shadowy depths like that of Mario in Querelle de Brest, and instead are simply shallow and unlikable due to sexism etc.

In Genet’s works, violence always, always means something symbolically, and its meaning is usually expanded upon through descriptions of the character’s internal monologue or reaction or transformation. But much of the violence in this book was simply vengeful or retaliatory (the coffee, the molotov cocktails) and the moments during and after the fight with the baseball bats did not dig deep enough into any symbolism to make it feel like anything more than a violent, vengeful midnight rumble at a park. The closest thing was perhaps Jezabel’s vision in the grass of the little children healing her wounds and the neighborhood sleepwalkers singing a Greek chorus mourning for Querelle, but even that did not quite dig deep enough into the the tender, sensitive bits of Jezabel’s emotional transformation.

Querelle, in this case, was not a vehicle by which the novel’s characters as well as the reader are made to ponder relationships between people who mirror each other or expose hitherto unknown passions or weaknesses; instead, he was simply a vehicle for violence that is hardly thought out, and the brief paragraph referencing the sexual insecurities and incestuous perversions of the fathers was not enough to change that. Similarly, the sex scenes in the novel could have been the most Genet-esque thing about Lambert's text, but it supplants the transcendent and self-defining or self-immolating nature of strange or unsavoury sex in Genet's works with simple brutality. The "second" boy of the three unnamed teenagers nearly meets the brief, as he is described as having love within him that the other two must dig out, but Lambert only allows this theme a single sentence, then returns to grotesque and visceral sex without the layers of symbolism and subconscious conflict that gives Genet's views on sex that mystical, philosophical quality.

Within Genet’s work, his voice not as the narrator but as the literal writer Jean Genet is consistently inserted, so that throughout all of his novels he inserts himself and his own thoughts and experiences into the narrative, breaking the fourth wall to describe a memory or emotion of his past that connects through layers of symbolism and feeling to the narrative. The single chapter in which Lambert breaks the fourth wall and lets his voice through does no such thing, and is introduced so late in the novel that it simply pulls the reader out of the narrative entirely, and it is a struggle to get back into it.

No matter how meandering or erratic the narrative of Genet’s work, it always seems extremely self-contained, as though Genet has tight control over every piece of the story and his choices to digress to a personal memory or focus on a different character are deliberate. The self-contained nature of Genet gives the reader the sense that he is writing for himself first, and for an audience second. Lambert’s work, while interesting, can’t decide if it wants to be a kitchen sink drama or magical realist, and therefore its rambling nature seems less self-contained and less controlled.

I think the major issues I had with this book were its ambiguous political stance, its uncooked characters, and its rather bland use of violence. Compared to Genet’s deeply personal, extremely strong and passionate symbolism and emphasis on emotional and mental transformation, this novel felt shallow and disconnected, and without any firmly established positions, opinions, or symbols. I think if an author writes a novel and deliberately mimics the title and main character of a different, more famous novel, they should have a clear and solid reason why they have chosen to draw such a distinct and direct line, and some consciousness of how their work will be compared to the other by readers. This book seemed to lack that clear reason or that consciousness.

#querelle de roberval #kevin lambert #misc meta #querelle #jean genet #book review

[lyfeward]

this obliquely came up on another blog but the idea that there are spirits who want to steal your face and name is very much a thing in northwestern Orlais. it plays into the culture of masks and sobriquets. the kicker is we not only see spirits body share with or possess people but we see Envy take on someone's shape and move in the world at the same time as them. what was that Envy demon but Lambet's doppelganger?

#we can't say evil doppelganger because Lambert is already evil #there is more to go into here because even in the real world doppelgangers and related concepts aren't always bad #it's not always something trying to steal your life #sometimes it's like an omen / a warning. you see yourself doing something #or someone else sees / hears you and if heeded that steers you / them away from danger #so I would say that when you're nosing around in northwestern Orlais #this concept definitely exists but isn't always something to be feared #META / HC: WORLD.

[teaveetamer]

Cap: *writes a blatantly sexist, racist, homophobic fic that is immensely popular and influential in the fandom and that many people have explicitly said made them feel uncomfortable when reading it*

Raxis: he's completely innocent everyone who says he ever did anything wrong are just hysterical liars with victim complexes

Moonlitboar: *says that they wanted Lambert to be more morally ambiguous and said they thought Sitri was happy in untagged posts that literally maybe a dozen people max ever saw*

Raxis: THEY DESERVED TO GET CANCELED THEY FUCKED AROUND AMD FOUND OUT THEY’RE AN ASSHOLE but i never did anything to them but i know who did but i won't tell anyone who that is BUT I'M COMPLETELY UNINVOLVED i just know exactly who is involved in this TOTALLY JUSTIFIED C A N C E L A T I O N (and totally not harassment because harassment is bad but cancelation to the point of harassment is fine)

LITERALLY what was the game plan here. His own logic makes it sound like he's actually completely down with Cap getting "canceled" AND he sounds like a blatant liar. Why couldn't he just shut his mouth for once

From the very beginning, no one on Tumblr has done anything that would break his personal definition of "normal" fandom participation. We're "harassing" Cap for talking about his fic and meta posts, but if you bring up Raxy's aggressive disregard for the block button, and how he disregards people directly asking him to leave them alone, he will be the FIRST to say "you put it on the internet so you have no right to be upset about me criticizing your dumbass takes".

He will stomp his feet and throw a tantrum if you say anything even remotely critical of Cap's fic's actual racist, sexist, and homophobic undertones, but Moonlit had one milquetoast opinion about Sitri and Lambert and they "deserve" a brutal cancellation. By his logic Cap should have been cancelled about a thousand times over by now; I'm giving him one cancellation for every use of "girls" to refer to grown women.

He will consistently justify his mistreatment of people with "but someone bullied Cap first" even if the person he's literally harassing has had nothing to do with Cap ever, but if you bring up what he demonstrably did to Moonlitboar it's "how dare you, you shouldn't 'mistreat' me for this thing I demonstrably did and even if I did do it then it wasn't my fault because they deserved it :/"

The truth of the matter is that Raxy doesn't give a shit. His "rules" for engagement are literally just "I should be allowed to react however I want whenever my feelings are hurt, and you should only be allowed to react in a way that doesn't hurt my feelings." Except this man is quite possibly the most fragile human being I have ever encountered and everything hurts his feelings. He genuinely thinks saying "I think Sitri lived a good life" is equivalent in hurtfulness to "I think it's okay to make genocide 'jokes' on your posts". Because the Sitri thing hurt his poor feelings, but well if someone tells me it's funny to remind me that my family died in the holocaust it's not his feelings getting hurt, so who gives a shit, just don't make him look too bad and he doesn't care. I wish I were kidding but that was LITERALLY his primary concern in that situation.

Not "hey talking about how genocide is cool is fucked up" or "hey maybe stop telling the woman who just told you that her family was impacted by the Holocaust that genocide is really funny and something to joke about"

Nope, it's "shut up you're making us look bad, and look now you woke Nilsh up! Don't you know I worked so hard to harass him into leaving social media!"

Like be for fucking real dude, you aren't slick. I can sum up everything you need to know about this guy's attitude in two images:

His logic looks like a mess of spaghetti because it is. Because he works backward from a conclusion ("I should be allowed to do whatever I want and no one should be allowed to do anything I don't like") and he inserts justifications as he goes, with no regard for whether or not it actually makes sense. He went from "Moonlit deserved it because they had bad takes" to "Moonlit was actually harassing me" to "I didn't actually do it anyway" to "I know exactly who did it but I won't say but it wasn't that bad" to now, apparently, "there's a conspiracy against me". He just relies on no one looking closely enough at him to notice the clear pattern. If someone does suss it out he tries to harass them into shutting up about him or he tries to delete evidence of his past logic and behavior (all the better if the person he's harassing deletes everything too, because then he can just make shit up).

The thing that really gets me is like, just how clearly unable to function he is without someone he absolutely hates to bounce off of. Does he even make original posts, or does he just constantly whine about other people's opinions? Every post I've ever seen from him about 3H, even the ones that aren't reblogs or don't have screenshots included, are like 99% "someone had an opinion I didn't agree with! Allow me to debunk it!" posts. The other 1% are recycled talking points from other people's metas, which he writes like he's got a 5,000 word paper due tomorrow that he hasn't even started and he's trying to see how much "slightly reword the wikipedia entry" he can get away with.

And not even speaking just about Raxy, but this is what pisses me off so bad about certain people in fandom. They feel empowered to harass and bully the genuinely awesome, creative people who actually make things. Those people leave, and then they have the audacity to sit there and whine about how the fandom is dead, no one is making anything, everyone left for greener pastures. They suck the life out of vibrant communities and leave nothing but a hollowed out husk. It happened with a ton of fan artists and authors in 3H, including some I'm friends with, who just had to get the fuck out because of the damage it was causing their mental health. And before he says it, no. Saying "Cap's (a white man) fic has some kinda racist and uncomfy undertones I wish he'd take some criticism to heart and correct that" is not the same thing as stalking someone and sending death threats because they have a different opinion about your favorite character. Holy fuck.

Like hey wanna know why no one wants to talk about 3H anymore? Because of this shit. Because saying "I think Lambert doing Morally Complex things is Morally Complex and therefore interesting" is the kind of opinion that can get you harassed into leaving the fandom entirely.

[0dde11eth]

I wonder what Lamberts intrusive thoughts are?

Or jaskiers? Or heck even Aiden?

Seriously they are so damn chaotic already.

But everyone has that little voice that makes even the person go "whoa! Too far, what the heck is wrong with me???"

What does that voice whisper to them, in the most innocent moments? That split second before they come back to themselves? Or In the dark of night when the darkness is around you, and within?

***

(Eskels intrusive thoughts sounds suspiciously like Lambert talking regularly to him)

#my nonsense #jaskier #kaer morons #another day in kaer morhen #lambert #eskel #aiden #witcher meta