#c: vereena

[hanzajesthanza]

a grain of truth fans wake up !! lihtar studio tribute just dropped!!

[harusuki]

TIMESTAMP ROULETTE the witcher season 2 episode 1 - a grain of truth

[hanzajesthanza]

the remastered version for the illustrated alamut editions is also lovely. colucci changed the setting and lighting to be his hut near fen carn…

“The interior of the cabin was dark and filled with heavy, intoxicating smells from bundles of herbs and spices hanging on the walls. The only furniture was a bed, also covered in herbs, and a crooked table, covered with countless glass, earthenware and porcelain bottles. The scant light that allowed them to see it all came from a squat, hourglass-like pot-bellied stove. The stove was wrapped around with a web of glowing tubes, bent into arcs and spirals. Under one of these was a wooden bowl, which was catching clear liquid falling from the tube.”

Gordeev wouldn't have done this to us. He'd have made Geralt look like a roblox but he wouldn't ruin the fabric of the plot 😔 willing to forgive him for his Regis design in exchange for a lesser evil

[claranidala]

Full picture under the cut, just to be save c:

Not gonna tag it as N5Fuu

@introversiontherapy you wanted vereena, here u get vereena <3

[gayregis]

swingxilly replied to your post “should i pretend like the netflix adaptation never came out and...”

Personally, Id love to hear your thoughts about vampires!

oh you are so kind

my main issue with cdpr is that regis’ backstory in the books was intended to be yet another metaphor for how lack of guidance for youth leads to violence and cruelty. in addition to how addiction interacts with this. i think one of the best things about the vampires of the witcher are that they are not inherently evil. 

the majority of depictions of vampires are something like that they have a secret vampire society that they all belong to, with a lot of hierarchy and structure, that they must drink blood to stave off a wretched animalistic bloodlust or starvation...

in the witcher, the majority of vampires recognize the holy days of the full moon and drink only then. some don’t drink at all. 

but the important part that we learn about and which is relevant to the plot, is that young vampires in the witcher are a bunch of disorganized frat boys and sorority girls. this is the part which ensues conflict and thus a story.

attacks from these vampires are part of what caused the witcher caste to be created in the first place. but it’s not just as simple as “monsters attack a settlement.” 

the vampires are... humanized, for lack of a better term, in the witcher series. even vereena, who is introduced incredibly early on and at a point when the vampire lore wasn’t exactly finalized, is humanized in a grain of truth, particularly towards the end of the story when it is revealed that she and nivellan actually felt true love for one another. in regis’s backstory, his peers are humanized as we learn that drinking serves a primarily social and secondarily spiritual purpose.

as regis describes his backstory, it humorously sounds exactly like a human alcoholic’s story. because it is. it’s a metaphor. sapkowski uses the metaphor to explore the dangers and tragedies of real-life addiction. because humans don’t get to regrow their fucking heads. being a vampire really has nothing to do with it. the only reasons regis is a vampire in the first place (in my interpretation) is so that he (1) may liberally perform feats of deus ex machina to save or assist the company (2) pose a conflict to geralt and help geralt develop his character more (3) be someone who has learned from his mistakes. in a situation which would have been too late for humans to learn, it wasn’t too late for him, and thus he’s allowed this redemption.

cdpr just completely ignores the fact that vampires were meant to be a metaphorical way to describe and critique the human condition... instead they fuckin go all out painting vampires as true monsters just for you to slice your silver sword through. dettlaff is painted as a monster overwhelmingly and there’s a much higher chance of killing him than letting him go. they lost the entire point of the vampires, of the narrative that they were used to present. 

in addition, they added in incredibly fucked-up shit like vampires systematically torturing humans and “drinking from children b/c their blood tastes better” when literally these are both against canon: they discuss khagmar in blood & wine committing such acts of bloodlust that the other vampires all teamed up to torture his guts because the humans were gainin’ on them... in the books, regis did very much of the same (imbibing entire villages, etc) and no one came for his ass... he may have been part of the reason that witchers were created, but i think the vampires cared very little about what the humans were doing. in addition in lady of the lake regis makes some comments that allow us to infer that healthy adult blood is the best-tasting. i hate that i have to argue this, but cdpr started it by saying vampires would drink from children and babies, okay!

other offenses that are minor but i should list them anyways include:

[population and rarity] in canon, in terms of population, there were only about 1,200 higher vampires at the time of the conjunction of the spheres, and since they don’t breed like rabbits (or like the d’hoine, as the elves might say) and have excessively long lifespans (like the elves), there’s no real reason to suggest that this number has gone up. BUT in blood & wine, you get attacked by HOW many bruxae and alpors in toussaint? in the books, geralt doesn’t recognize regis as a vampire for weeks, because of how rare higher vampires are.

[powers] there’s some fuckery in sapkowski’s work about when vampires can use their powers. by baptism of fire, he refined it so that vampires can only “fly” / transform into bats on the full moon. also, why do regis and dettlaff disappear into puffs of smoke??? there is no smoke or fog involved. regis disappears quite literally into thin air in the books, undetectable and invisible. it’s part of the charm. in addition, i was sorely disappointed that we don’t see any vampires mind control anyone or put anyone to sleep, because it was really cool when vereena and regis did that in the books.

[design] the wolverine claws were a fucking mistake. also vampire teeth are not just All Sharp Teeth, regis and vereena both have regular teeth except for their giant murderous fangs. ALSO what is that final form for dettlaff? vereena and regis were just giant black bats! there’s nothing more you need to do! it’s a bat! not whatever they designed for him...

[social interactions] this whole “pack mentality” thing... it sounds like they took it directly from a really bad A/B/O fic

tl;dr: in the words of master dandelion poet and troubadour: “i take it you know what a metaphor is?”

[improbablecarny]

Okay so here’s my Netflix Witcher Season 2 Predictions & Speculations

Don’t place any bets on these these. I’m rambling and asking questions more than answering them. But that’s the fun part, anyway.

Putting these behind a cut because of spoiler potential and because I don’t want to subject your eyes to my rambling any more than necessary

What we know:

Season 2 will have a more linear timeline

Eight episodes, again

It will cover content from Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, The Last Wish and maybe Sword of Destiny?

There are four major threads to the plot of the books, here.

Who is Rience? Who is he working for?

What is going on with the Brotherhood?

What's Nilfgaard up to and how are the other kingdoms feeling about that whole thing?

What is Ciri’s deal and how does she fit into all of the above?

What the S2 opener will be, I’m not sure, but I have two ideas, with caveats:

Yen saves Jaskier from Rience. It’s a strong scene and sets up a lot of the season’s intrigue right away - the issue is that it skips over the aftermath of Sodden Hill, and I feel like we’re going to spend a bit more time with Yen before she gets back to the point where she’s stabbing dudes and saving bards.

Geralt visits Codringher and Fenn. I know, that scene is jumping WAY ahead, and by this point in the books Geralt has already encountered Rience -- however, I think it may work to establish C&F earlier, and have Geralt immediately employing them to spread misinfo about Ciri’s “death”. I think we could still set up Rience a little here -- ask if the name means anything to him, it doesn’t, they don’t know much either but they’ve Heard Rumours, etc. Also honestly I just REALLY love the atmosphere of that scene and think it would be a very eye-catching, moody opener.

In fact, both of these could conceivably happen in the same episode. The tricky part for me is not knowing how much of a timeskip they’ll add between seasons and how they’re going to handle Yen’s reappearance. Is she going to wake up in an infirmary somewhere and get an immediate exposition dump from Tissaia? Is she going to spend some time wandering through an interdimensional hell zone? Are we going to see that all in the present or will it be done through flashback?

How Season 2 will end, though, I have a much better sense of: all four major plotlines converge when it’s revealed that Vilgefortz is pulling the strings and Aretuza goes bananas in a strikingly obvious Season Finale sort of way. We get a lovely cliffhanger where Vilgefortz kicks Geralt’s ass before Triss saves him by shoving him through a portal, Ciri kicks Cahir’s ass and jumps through a shittier portal, Yen disappears again, and Jaskier is forced to leave on his own, again. I love pain and being in it! Of course the finer details there are all subject to change but the big picture climax is that Vilgefortz is naughty and oops, war.

So that’s the bread, where’s the rest of the sandwich?

With news that Nivellen and Vereena have been cast, we know we’re getting an adaptation A Grain of Truth from The Last Wish. I suspect Geralt and Ciri will be stumbling upon that spooky mansion on the way to Kaer Morhen, but that’s about as far as I can think on that one. But will any of the other shorts pop up? 

A Shard of Ice and Sword of Destiny have been essentially nullified by choices made by the show so far, so I think they’re safely out of the game (though A Shard of Ice sets up the Wild Hunt so presumably that will still need to be worked in somewhere)

I would LOVE to see Eternal Flame adapted because it is my exact sense of humour, and A Little Sacrifice has a great mood and freaky fish people. Both of them would be very interesting places to deal with Geralt and Jaskier’s spat -- a conflict not present in the books, but its presence in the show casts some of the events of the book in an interesting light. The primary issue I’m having is trying to figure out how to get them to fit into the timeline/trajectory of the ongoing plot (and my secondary issue is that the stuff with Essa was weird as hell, though I think it could be smoothed over).

Speaking of Jaskier, I’m quite interested in where they’re going to take his character, since the books (up to this point) didn’t really give him much of an arc, but Lauren Hissrich has noted that we’ll see more of his serious side and his struggle with what he really wants. To me, that sounds suggestive of giving him more of a role in the espionage story, and through that, better establishing his fear and guilt over his perceived inability to adequately help Geralt and Ciri without putting them in jeopardy, all while still dealing with their falling out. He’s loyal, but he’s hurt, and he’s in a precarious position that he doesn’t really know how to handle. 

The introduction of the falling out sets this storyline up into three nice beats. The first one was in the infamous episode 6, where Geralt tells him to hit the road, breaking hearts around the world. Jumping into the books, the second beat would be during the mage mash, where Geralt once again demands that Jaskier leaves -- this time, though, for his own safety. And then we get the third beat, in Brokilon forest (hopeful button for the end of S2 or moody opener to S3? Both work imo), when Geralt tries to get Jaskier to leave Brokilon, and Jaskier puts his foot down and says no. That seems like a place to aim for, and once again, make everyone cry.

The aforementioned shorts would be a great place to let that arc marinate, though the exact details are still something I’m mulling over. (Honestly I really just want big city shapeshifter shenanigans because LISTEN... listen. It’s good) More importantly, though... what kinda music is he gonna bring us next season?

Yen’s plotline is running through muddier waters for me on account of the books rarely dipping into her perspective, but she’ll no doubt be involved in trying to suss out what’s going on with the mages. She allegedly has a scene with Francesca somewhere, and Istredd and Stregobor are returning (despite being absent at this point in the books) so presumably they will also cause problems. There are a lot of different directions they can go with her here, as I touched on briefly earlier wrt the fallout from Sodden Hill, but a lot of it might have to be spun wholecloth in a way I’m not so sure I can make any truly educated assumptions about. How is Geralt going to find out she’s still alive? How is he going to re-initiate contact with her? We’ll surely get some ripe emotional conflict as her, Triss, Sabrina and Tissaia deal with the conspiracy in very different ways. Too many viable answers and none that I’m going to place any bets on but am still, of course, excited for.

Cahir is another complete wildcard for me. I haven’t seen enough of him in the books thus far to make super accurate predictions but “gets horsejacked and ass-kicked by Ciri and then yelled at by Geralt until he faints” is quite a ways away from “slaughters an entire tavern in a fit of paranoid rage” (I get the impression Show!Cahir is also much older than his book counterpart). I can’t imagine it’d make much sense in the long run for them to have actually combined he and Rience’s characters, but I almost wonder if that’s what’s going on. Presumably, Fringilla will play a part in whatever he’s up to.

The Temple is in an odd place. No mention or setup of it so far so I wonder if it’s been excised entirely for streamlining purposes. Ciri goes from studying the blade in Kaer Morhen to studying magic in Aretuza without the complication of a third location (also for magic study) in between?

Yarpen’s return more or less also confirms that the subplot with the dummy cargo from Blood of Elves will occur in some form or another, likely as a means of establishing the Squirrels.

And here’s some incomplete and assorted tentpole book scenes (that I haven’t already addressed) that we’ll likely get in some form:

Several Ciri training montages (insert Jaskier cover of Eye of the Tiger here)

Ciri parent trapping Geralt and Yennefer

Geralt vs the river monster vs Rience’s dudes

Geralt and Philippa vs Rience and more of his dudes

Basically any of the points where Ciri goes into a trance, plus the incident with the wyvern

Introductions for Emhyr, Dijkstra, and Philippa

It goes without saying but a lot of forethought has been put into the Netflix adaptation, despite some fanboy bellyaching. There were many points where, reading the books, I found myself reacting emotionally based on things that had only been set up in the show -- from Ciri and Yen’s relationship and their approach to magic, to Geralt and Jaskier’s reconciliation, to Vilgefortz’s turn, most of the changes made by the show are really there to further reinforce events from the books. And boy, are there events to be had.

In conclusion,

[hanzajesthanza]

to evoke dreams… hideous dreams… monstrous dreams… to haunt nightmares… to enslave their mind…

to put one into a deep sleep, where they just fall where they stood…

to hypnotize, throw a spell over one, in which they may intercept thoughts and suggestions…

and to simply take absolute control over another, multiple—

vampires in the witcher can hypnotize people and send them dreams and drive them insane and this even happened like right in front of our eyes. maybe even twice. i feel like we don’t talk about this enough 🙊

[hanzajesthanza]

i love how fonopolis represented vereena’s vampiric telepathic speech in the audiodrama. the voice ‘reverbrating as if underwater’ adds so much to it, since vampires in the witcher have dominion over the mind through spell. 

it isn’t physical speech, her lips do not move, geralt hears her voice in his head. through telepathy, she communicates her pure will - and in this case, it is pure murderous intent towards geralt - “i’ll kill you. i’ll kill you. i’ll kill you,” reverbrating inside his mind.

but what’s more is the calm, stoic, and exceedingly confident (almost arrogant!) manner in which she ‘speaks’. the calmness, the slowness in her voice contrasts with the visual - a hateful dark-eyed glare, bared white fangs, and horrible screaming which brings him to his knees.

[hanzajesthanza]

character opinion: vereena babey!!!

"they are so cool looking": long, matted black hair, a small smile that curves up and up, when she runs, like a deer, through the forest down the hill, unhindered by the brush despite her white dress… sitting on the back of the dolphin fountain… ethereal and terrifying! plus the fact that the people she killed looked like they had been dragged through the forest by their necks, that is a great mental image

"didn't get enough screen time": i want to see the horrifying dreams nivellen had under her influence. and i want to see more effects of her presence in the forest. i want to see more of the suffering she causes… eerie, unexplained things

"they've never done anything wrong in their life" + "they are a horrible person": i simply think she was divine justice to nivellen for what he did. he, so to speak, put a girl under his power, so she, a girl, puts him under her power. it's a taste of nivellen's own medicine, his past that he hasn't atoned for coming to haunt him. because he enjoyed his curse, and used it to take advantage of more girls… so vereena's presence in his life is justice. evil finds evil!

though considering that she is a representation of a controlling, manipulative partner… and nivellen and vereena are an inversion of geralt and yennefer, if they were really what people mispercieve them to be (a brutish monster and a mind-controlling monster) i have to admit that vereena is not a very good person for trying to enslave nivellen's mind and control the forest. but it was pretty epic of her…

"they are like a blorbo to me": i love to meme about her

send me character opinion bingo now that i'm off hiatus (bingo post)

[hanzajesthanza]

it’s sad that the games (… and season of storms 😑) had geralt carry two swords on his back instead of just one, because

1) witchers are already seen as strange for the fact that they carry their sword on their back. everyone has a sword, but few carry it on their back. forgive me if i’m wrong but i think this makes the setting feel more realistic, as swords are usually carried at the belt in real life, and only modern media’s heroes carry swords on their back (think of the practicality — it’s easy to draw from your hip, difficult to draw from your back — unless you’re a witcher who has trained since childhood and has superhuman reflexes and agility)

2) it’s a great source of dramatic tension when geralt goes to grab his silver sword off of roach. or when he walks into a scene already prepared and having brought out his silver sword… it tells the audience, this is a very specific and very dangerous foe. he has a special weapon that lives in a special case to kill special enemies. this isn’t gonna be your average fight. this is gonna be something big. this visual communication with the audience through character preparation is so powerful

[hanzajesthanza]

THIS IS SO SEXY

[gayregis]

@sodarush replied to: post

thank you though bc this made me think about regis’s Powers and im going to rate them all right now and talk abt how he feels abt them.

flying — not so good at it, as discussed. probably the one part of his life that is still messy and done without prior thought. a reminder of the earlier days but without any violence, so it is like a fun activity that reminds him of when he was young and stupid as well as being kind of relaxing. so he does try to go out on full moons and fly around

dramatic entrances/exits — so fucking skilled. i think canon events really speak for this one i dont even need to interpret. does not really realize what he is like because it is just of a subconscious nature. geralt even notes that he had “no inclination for theatrical gestures” but despite this regis is like. disappearing and shit which leads me to my next point

the invisibility act  — honestly i do not have a big idea of what this one actually is and neither did cdpr. they say he “just vanishes” in the books which might insinuate that he is still there yet just invisible, but right after the first time he does this in baptism of fire, the company talks amongst themselves as if he is not there anymore, and the second time he does it in lady of the lake, he refers to it as flying, so i am inclined to think that it is him literally dematerializing. but does this mean it is restricted to only on a full moon, like being a bat is? (basically the working headcanon i have for the vampires right now is that their “true forms” are this dematerialized form but they adopted physical forms during the development of mimicry and now it’s something they can only really access on a full moon.)  i like how cdpr animated the bruxae in b&w so i’d like to think it’s like that. also i like to headcanon that when he is alone (like living alone in his cottage) he would just do this whenever because it;s easier to get around, it’s quicker and more comfortable when you get used to navigation.

combat — scared to do it, but QUITE good at it once his inhibitions are down or he feels strongly about protecting another. he just goes on the offensive and moves inhumanly quickly and it’s crazy epic. “with an incredibly long and fast leap” or smth or maybe the quote is he leapt like a leopard or smth idk. but its cool. i dont think he loves this necessarily but since violence is a party to vampires i think its kind of fun sometimes but he’s not gonna actively seek these kinds of situations out.

hypnotism / “the vampire’s spell” as geralt puts it  — quite good actually. i have a headcanon that as vampires get older they get more powers and more powerful in general... that’s why geralt was almost evenly matched with vereena (but still got his ass kicked) b/c she was a younger vampire... like maybe 40 or 50. sorry, back to the topic —) since they get more powers/improve their existing powers as they go, regis obtained the power of hypnotism about like maybe 30 years ago give or take (he did not have it when he was younger). so he’s still mastering it. but he’s quite good at it, in regards to the short period of time that he’s had it. and he mesmerizes multiple people at a time (i think 3 at the most... 3 guards in vissegerd’s camp, 3 guards at stygga’s gate...)

hypnotism is quite a difficult skill to work with for vampires at times because it requires empathy towards the target which is usually a human, so you have to understand their fears and dreams and everything. the closer you get to how they are actually feeling, the stronger the spell has the potential to be. but he’s quite empathetic especially towards humans so it works better for him / he took easier to it than most. but sometimes he has difficulty severing the empathetic link so they start to read his mind and shit. the empathetic link really is a two-way street and if you can’t control it it can fuck with both on opposite sides of the connection. you can easily drive people insane on accident, which, oops.

impermeability to extreme temperatures — honestly this one is more of a “status effect” rather than an active power to exploit but i just wanted to  say that when the hansa gets pizza he can eat the pizza immediately after it’s served while everyone else has to wait and angouleme tries to follow this example and burns her lips but keeps chewing. everyone is like. angouleme. please . and she takes another bite

also sry for publishing this prematurely i hit “post” instead of “save draft”