#it’s so fucking funny they make it a point that they don’t come from nobility but

[puredoesnotmeankind]

My Capitalist Girlfriend… None of you get them like I do…..

[vigilskeep]

Harker Harker Harker what is Alistair and Kier's relationship like? Like, "Hawke's warden friend" is hilarious when it's Loghain because we're all aware how Kier feels about Ser Betrays-a-Lot (not particularly broken up about his death, understandably peeved about Ostagar, working together out of necessity, etc) but ultimately they both want what's best for everywhere that isn't Orlais and both have generally grumpy demeanors (and soft spots for specific blondes). And that's delightful! We love grouchy bastards in their get-along-disaster

But like.

Warden Alistair and Kier are bound to have some spicy dialogues simply on the "I hate Templars/the Chantry" and "my best beloved is a sketchy mage that the Chantry would want burnt at the stake if they could catch them" fronts. Bls tell us about that working relationship

Love your worldstates and your OCs they make me deeply unhinged ❤️❤️❤️

one of the things abt keir i find personally most entertaining, and that i was not actually even responsible for, but just kind of happened, is that he’s... a theirin apologist LMAO. bc like, i played him in a worldstate where alistair is on the throne, king alistair shows up, and it’s like oh fuck wait this guy is the king. keir is a fereldan loyalist and when the king of ferelden appeared i was like no yeah this is the actual king of keir’s homeland and he really believes in that as something he owes loyalty to. now we don’t have time to unpack all of that

of course if alistair’s here as the warden representative in this slightly different worldstate, it’s a different setup. keir’s not so far gone that he thinks of alistair as the true king or anything if he’s not crowned, keir’s, again, a fereldan loyalist, so if the landsmeet says anora’s the queen she’s the queen. (though he wouldn’t be quite as loyal to her, i think, because of the association with her father’s crimes.) but he would still feel a kind of respect owed to warden alistair as king maric’s son and king cailan’s brother which would be a hugely funny and interesting dynamic to play with for me, especially because this is the worldstate where alistair has most successfully distanced himself from that. that respect doesn’t necessarily stop keir being as gruff with him as he is everyone else—that’s just how he talks, and this is ferelden, where nobility get fealty not necessarily deference—but it would for sure register especially bc keir is typically so antagonistic with grey warden leadership

i don’t think the templar thing is toooo much of a barrier in either scenario because, regardless of whether alistair ever counts as one in the first place, in these two worldstates keir meets him as either a) a king actively pushing for the eradication of the circle of magi (once again, cannot express enough how crazy this is) or b) the loving long-term partner of an infamous maleficar, so it’s like... we’re obviously past that point. but it might come up. i would say alistair’s far far more likely to object to keir’s criticism of the grey wardens than his criticisms of the templars

[fweet-prince]

If you have time: I would love to know about the importance of Osric's scene

OKAY this has been in my ask box since April because I have Thoughts And Opinions but currently I’m out of my ADHD meds and procrastinating important tasks, which the best time for Infodumping

So my Don’t Cut The Osric Scene agenda is twofold: 1) it’s the closest we get to seeing how Hamlet and his relationship with Horatio might have been before Hamlet Sr.’s death, and 2) it says a lot about how Hamlet sees class dynamics and how Horatio responds to that, and it’s the only part of the play before “flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” where Horatio acts like Hamlet’s friend and not his servant. (Which makes it a sub-point to my Acknowledge Class Dynamics Re: Horatio agenda, but that’s for another post.)

Point the first: we get the impression from how people talk about Hamlet that before his father’s death he was clever and funny and just, like, someone nice to spend time with, right? And the Osric scene is the only part of the play where we get to actually see that. Like yes he’s being an asshole to Osric, but Horatio plays along with it and makes a few jabs himself. The only other time we see Horatio teasing is right after the play (“half a share” and “you might have rhymed,” Horatio my beloved), which is also the only time we see Hamlet anywhere close to just having fun for a moment. It’s just such this nice little peek amidst all the fucked-up shit of act 5 to remind the audience that these two are friends and once upon a time they acted like it. It’s a beat of levity that really serves the emotional flow of the story, because there’s only so long you can maintain Sad And Horrified continuously, and it makes Horatio’s response to Hamlet’s death hit so much harder contrasted against this hint of genuine joy the two of them get.

Point the second: Horatio Does Not “My Lord” Hamlet In This Scene! Right when Osric shows up Horatio is in proper regular-ass dude amongst nobility form and calls Hamlet “my lord” the first time he’s addressed, and then Hamlet’s like “oh this guy sucks actually” and starts fucking with Osric and then Horatio does not “my lord” him again (though he still uses “you” and there’s one “sir” which I read as sarcastic), whereas the first thing Osric says after that exchange is “Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure,” etc. Like Horatio was “my lord”-ing as befits his social status, but Osric is sucking up hard and Hamlet and Horatio are roasting him for it. (One of these days I’m gonna do a “my lord”-s per line comparison between Osric and Horatio.) I think it doesn’t come across very clearly to modern audiences, since we tend to perceive early modern English in general as Polite and Cultured but just. the level of cheek Horatio has towards Osric in this scene is so delightful I adore him.

Point the second, cont.: This one’s more on my Acknowledge Class Dynamics Re: Horatio agenda than my Don’t Cut The Osric Scene agenda, but!! This is the only time in the play we see Hamlet encouraging Horatio to be improper in a way that doesn’t directly flatter Horatio, and I think it says a lot that Horatio is so willing to do so! Like there’s a running thread of Hamlet mentioning that he loves Horatio as a person irrespective of class differences and Horatio being like “cool I’m still not gonna thou the prince of Denmark though” (until he does with Hamlet on his deathbed), but the second Hamlet’s like “help me be rude to this other guy who also outranks you” Horatio’s all in. And Hamlet’s disdain of Osric for having to interact with him just because he’s rich is another one in the “Hamlet thinks he’s not classist because he has a commoner friend” category along with telling Horatio to his face he’s too poor to be worth flattering (true, but rude) and saying Rosencrantz and Guildenstern shouldn’t have gotten involved above their station also to the face of his very involved friend who is decidedly outranked by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

In conclusion: the Osric scene is an essential part of the pacing and tonal balance of act 5, very impactful on the characterization of Hamlet, Horatio, and their relationship, and also it’s just really fucking funny

[bakugouisabitch]

do you think malik goes through periods where he's very fun and bubbly, but then like a switch he's very quiet and wants distance?

GOD YES YES THIS is exactly how I imagine him omg it makes so much sense.

First of all, YES 👏 Let 👏 Malik 👏 Be 👏 Bubbly 👏 And 👏 Loud 👏 2k21 because he DESERVES IT. He should always be happy and loud and it shouldn‘t bother Anyone

.

Okay that being said, I hc him to have a lot of trust issues, so, to get to experience his “real self” always takes a lot of time and “opening up”.

He’s not shy or an introvert, he just kind of doesn’t trust anyone except himself (and his siblings - most of all Rishid) and has been through so much shit that he keeps thinking any form of friendly approach from someone is all just a tactic to get to his vulnerable sides. (this funny fanart kind of gets my point across). And that’s exactly why he is like that too. When talking with strangers, he would go as far as being extremely polite and cheesy that you almost can’t recognise him anymore. But he’s doing it all to warm up to people and get to their weaker spots, just in case he’s going to use it against them. (see: his whole fake personality Namu-act that wasn’t even necessary for his plan to enter the Battle City finale...)

To get to Malik’s real self i HC requires a lot of digging and trust - which can take a lot of time. He also seems to be quite conflicted over what he really wants, because after all that time spent analysing and manipulating people just to understand their weak spots he’s left with nothing but a constant state of being alert and ready to use it against them. And when the moment never comes - because as hard as it is to swallow down for him, some people might have genuinely just nice intentions - he realises he wasted another opportunity for making new friends and ends up being full of guilt and regret and probably a big self loathing and once again alone. Then forms the question what do you really want? to make friends or enemies? And he’s not sure he knows the answer anyway. Shit, malik’s whole character design strikes me as being conflicted since he’s a whole mixture of traditional and modern af. He seems to be quite attached to his ancient roots and the nobility of his bloodline but he also seems to want to re-invent himself into that motorcycle-driving kid who said fuck destiny i create my own. But the way he talks and puts valor into his ancient beliefs (+ his father’s earrings) clearly shows he’s far too attached to it to let it go (this leads also to the whole deal of being literally born and raised to Serve and also his whole daddy issues, but that’s another page completely).

Like you said, there are moments where he goes completely quiet and wants distance because i can see him reconsidering every step he took. As confident and self-assured as he might appear, and the end it always seems like his biggest enemy is his own self (or his other self... he might get pretty quiet and dissociates also because he’s probably conversing with his alter in his head. But his alter is also another whole deal completely.)

Just like in Kaiba, I see a constant need to prove himself to be better than anyone in everything: His dressing up as the Pharaoh and saying he has the right for the throne, his modern style and extravagant motorcycle/boat, his emphasis on making the enemies remember his name... 

(see:

it’s all Trauma babey ✨

He seems to just live in a world where conflict prevails over everything. Every moment and every human interaction is regarded with caution and “how to get the upper hand in this” - because that’s All He’s Known His Entire Life. With the Millennium Rod he also got the power to literally read into humans’ minds (in the manga it’s all explained even better). Seeing the desperation and the desire for his wife in Pandora, the homicidal tendencies and dark past of the mime boy he uses... these were all elements he studied and gathered in his collection of “humans just want power over you”, which just increased his trust issues. Also, his tendency to punish his ghouls when they fail clearly reflects a sense of education where you get punished if you don’t succeed and plus being a capricorn this tends to make a perfectionist out of him (and it’s once again something that was ebbed into his brain as a child thanks to his father). So he strikes me as the type who is never satisfied with the end result of something because it could always be Better.

Anyway, trauma and fears aside (and he has a lot of them) he sparks me to be a very loud and extrovert boy and he would probably be shining brighter than anyone if it wasn’t for all the shit he’s been through. He is very intelligent and a fast learner (I hc him to know fluid arabic, japanese and english) and he’s a good observer and very rational. He reacts with his brain first before using his instincts, but he seems to be very driven by his emotions (since they are the reason he does literally everything). He’s ambitious and cunning but with a soft, soft heart like,, I love how the whole deal of Malik in the manga is that he literally Couldn’t bring himself to gain the full power of the Rod and kill Yugi because he’s so soft at heart. No matter how evil and controlloing he tries to be at the end he just Can’t. It was his alter who did it, who took his place in his most vulnerable moment because he literally Couldn’t take it. He would have died.

“His father filled him with pain and sadness... until all he wanted was to die... So in order to survive, in order to keep going, he had to create another self...”

His alter keeps calling this weakness but it basically shows that he’s just good. He’s good at heart and he needs light in his life to survive. (The whole deal of light and shadows that is made in battle city which also includes Rishid is just so beautiful in the manga - i totally rec reading the battle city arc to you to get malik better). He’s soft at heart and this is why I can see him being a loud and bubbly person once he‘s 100% sure there are no bad intentions behind someone. Because he would be so confident and very diva-ish in his attitude of “I deserve the best and the best only”, despite having so many fears he’s battling against daily. Once he loves and trusts someone - and if that someone makes him feel his best - he would cling to them almost desperately this is how I hc him also in my fics and he would be so happy and loud about it, because it’s like FINALLY taking a Break from that “mental state” of alert and control he Has To keep up to Prove to be good. He’s finally his real self.

anyway i could talk abt this boy for hours like i could write an essay over everything regarding him because he’s one of the most complex and rich characters i’ve ever known and *bites fist* I JUST LOVE HIM AND HE DESERVES TO BE HELD SO BAD.

[shutteredislands]

REYLO MODERN AU FIC RECS

Hi!! I spent my entire winter break reading reylo fics and I feel like I’ve found some gems! I’m boring and don’t like angst, so most of these are pretty fluffy, however, always read the tags before reading. Anyways, happy reading!

Already Home -  College, Roommates, A/B/O, Soulmates AU - Complete - Rated E - 79k

“Oh stop being all Alpha-y.” She flexes her foot, rolling her ankle as if to prove a point, and he doesn’t miss the wince that crosses her expression. “You aren’t my Alpha, and you definitely aren't my soulmate,” she mutters.

He can’t help but let out a dry laugh. “Thank god for small mercies.”

Okay so this is a trope fest but it was so good! I’m not gonna explain the plot in depth because I think going in blind is best for this!

Baby, It's Just Biology - Professor/Student, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 113k

For Rey Jackson, trying to finish your degree in Biomedical Science at Harvard is difficult enough when you're one of the few Omegas on campus.

It's made even more difficult when your Professor is the one to trigger your heat. You can't help it, it's just your biology.

An Alpha Omega love story.

This is the perfect balance of angst, fluff and pure smut. This one Is a lot angstier than anything else on this list, but you can see every stage of this relationship and I loved it so much! Please read the tags on this one!

I’ve got you (under my skin) - Nanny/Single Parent AU - On Hiatus - Rated E - 81k

“Hi, I’m Rey. I’m here for the—”

“Nanny,” Ben blurts out dazedly, still trying to remember how to form coherent thoughts. “You’re the nanny.”

Her smile hitches up a little wider. “Well, I might be.”

Suddenly, Ben thinks he might be in for a whole new world of problems.

Because Rey Johnson is still most likely the only thing standing between him and disaster, that much hasn’t changed, not by a long shot.

And Ben can’t seem to stop staring at her mouth.

In which Ben hires Rey to watch his son... but he can’t seem to stop watching her.

Okay so I almost never read WIPs, but this one was left off in a pretty good place so don’t worry about cliffhangers or anything. I am a sucker for single dad!Ben so expect more of these. I loved this fic so much and get ready for a SMUTFEST.

Light My Fire - Rivals to Lovers, College, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 20k

When rivals Ben and Rey break into a professor's office together, it comes out that Rey might not be the Beta she thinks she is.

I’ve never been the biggest reader of enemies to lovers, until this. This was so so so good! I loved their banter so much, and this is another smutfest lol.

Peacock - Fake Dating, Enemies to Lovers, Neighbors AU - Complete - Rated E - 72k

Thanks to a series of misunderstandings, failed attempts at flirting, and loud Katy Perry music, Ben grows to hate his new neighbor.

Proposing to her wasn't the best solution to his problems.

This is, hands down, one of the funniest fics I have ever read. I cried actual tears because of how funny this is. Slowish burn, but their banter will keep you engaged the whole time. I love this so much!!

An Unexpected Vacation - Scientist, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 62k 

“You don’t care that someone, that people will watch you fuck?” He looks two seconds away from puking. “Like multiple, multiple people will be able to describe your vagina. They’ll probably analyze it in a boardroom. Someone will feel proud about a shitty PowerPoint full of annotated pictures. They will use words like ‘arousal fluid’ and consult charts and these things will never not be digitally saved. That doesn’t bother you?”

“Are you suggesting my vagina is unworthy of analysis?”

--

In which Rey attempts to bolster her bank account by volunteering to fuck an Alpha in a scientific study. Plans go pear-shaped when she accidentally triggers scientist!Ben’s first Rut.

This was a really funny smutfest and I loved that. I loved Rey and Ben so much, and Ben was the perfect “I hate everyone but you” boyfriend! I love this!

She Doesn’t Normally Bite - Single Parent/Teacher AU - WIP - Rated E - 37k

Ben Solo is a single dad to 6-year old Ellis. Her teacher isn't the old-cat lady that he expects and naturally, sparks fly when they meet. Rey helps show Ben that he is allowed to be happy and the romance is DELICIOUS. There will be the happy ending we all deserve.

Both Ben and Rey have a lot to navigate, and of course - things are never straight forward.

Tw: Bens wife died when their daughter was born - whilst it is mentioned periodically, it does not form a significant part of the story. There'll also be warnings in the notes for the particular chapters it'll be mentioned in.

THIS THE ONLY WIP I WILLL EVER READ REY AND BEN ARE SO FREAKING CUTE AND ELLIS IS SUCH A CUTE KID AHHHHHHH! That is all.

Down an Inch, Up an Inch - A/B/O, Soulmates, Gym Rats AU - Complete - Rated E - 60k

Omega instructor Rey has always been the master of her domain at Rebel Belle Barre and wouldn't dream of dating an Alpha.

When her new neighbors at Supremacy Bootcamp start ruining her classes with their terrible music, she storms over to give them a piece of her mind. She challenges the beefy ex-Marine owner Ben Solo to a plank-off and the loser has to take the other's class. When they spark an unusual connection, can Rey stay away for long?

Has she bitten off more than she can chew with the gentle giant Alpha with the warm, sad eyes?

SMUT FREAKING FESTTTTT. Okay but I loved these two so much, even though I am opposed to working out in any shape or form! I love the non-traditional soulmate part, and I really loved Rey in this. 

Tea for Two - Enemies to Lovers, University Setting AU - Complete - Rated E - 67k 

'"This is a tea house, you know." The plummy, ultra-posh voice startled Rey Kenobi from her day-dreaming, almost spilling the scalding hot coffee over her chest.'

Rey, an American former hacker, turned cyber security expert, has been commissioned by Oxford University to protect their systems from hackers. Unfortunately, she has to work closely with Professor Ben Solo, Merton Professor of English Literature who also happens to be Lord Ben Solo, member of the English peerage. And an unmitigated snob.

She drinks coffee. He drinks tea. He only reads classic literature. She reads Marvel comics. He is nobility. She is a nobody.

Things should go swimmingly, shouldn't it?

SO. MUCH. UNRESOLVED. SEXUAL. TENSION. I loved the slow burn aspect because I sat in bed because I was waiting for them to bone for so long. And after they bone its a smut and fluff-fest I loved this so much!

And They Were Roommates - Roommates, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 49k

“This isn’t going to work.” He points a finger between the two of them. “This arrangement.”

Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t put any specifications on who could apply.”

“Yeah…” He rubs the back of his neck then, the action making it look longer, making her wonder what it might feel like under her fingers. “You have to know that this isn’t a good idea.”

She knows what he means, she does—but she’s so tired of being brushed aside for her designation that she challenges him anyway. “And why not?”

His eyes bore into hers, his expression blank as he says, “Because I can tell how much scent-block you put on—and I can still smell you.”

In which Rey’s new roommate turns out to be a lot more than she bargained for.

EVEN. MORE. UNRESOLVED. SEXUAL. TENSION. Like these two would be eating cereal and I would be chanting, “bone! bone! bone!” the whole time. I loved these two, and the family aspect of this one was so good.

Imprints - A/B/O, Boss/Employee AU - Complete - Rated E - 74k

“I was happy you’ll be working with someone you know. He’ll take good care of you.”

Take good care of you.

The words send a shiver down her spine, sparking memories that flood her with embarrassment. She feels a strange itch just below her ear, her gland giving a phantom pulse as if her body remembers the incident even still.

Suddenly her triumph fades into dread, the idea of working here leaving a hollow pit in her stomach. Poe is still talking, but she doesn’t hear most of it. Her mind is firmly trapped in the vivid memories of six years ago— in a moment she wishes she could forget.

By the time she hangs up the phone— she isn’t sure anymore if she can do this.

Okay so this is pretty popular so I wont say too much, but it lives up to the hype. Smutfest, fluff and angst rolled into one beautiful fic! 

Bespoke - Enemies to Lovers, Boss/Employee (?) AU - Complete - Rated E - 38k 

When new stylist Rey Jackson receives a request to dress the hottest (and most unfashionable) new actor in Hollywood, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.

Mentally AND physically.

Because Ben Solo is freaking massive.

THIS WAS SO HOT OMG! Smutfest but also super cute. Another “I hate everyone but you” version of Ben I fell in love with. Loved this!

Incognito - Coworkers AU - Complete - Rated E - 30k

“Somehow Rey’s coworkers find out about her Daddy kink. They all kink shame her for it, except her coworker Ben. He has something else in mind.”

This was so funny! Ben and Rey were so cute, and I love Finn and Rose in this too! This was great!

A Home For Christmas - Single Parent, Sugar Daddy AU - Complete - Rated E - 109k

Rey is a struggling single mother who needs to do right by her daughter, even if it means she needs to steal. Ben is sad and lonely, recently divorced for the second time. When Rey's daughter picks him to help her find her mom, their paths cross and their Christmas becomes a little more bright.

This was so freaking cute OMG!! I know I say that a lot, but this was so adorable! I loved Ben and Rey so much, but Nova was obviously the star of the show. I cannot recommend this enough!

Unsuppressed - Office, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 49k

Rey had only ever encountered two Alphas in her entire life that had been unsuppressed. And now this third one that stunk up the entire building. Not that it stunk, his scent. In fact, it was the most delicious thing Rey had ever smelled. ///////////////////////////////////// Ben Solo closed his eyes as he rode down the elevator from the 40th floor to the lobby, trying not to reach up to his glands to scratch them. Somehow, it felt like he always caught the elevator that was dripping in the Omega’s scent. The one that wandered around the building without any suppressants. The one that smelled better than any Omega he had ever smelled before.

STRAIGHT FLUFF AND SMUT OMFG!!! I loved this so freaking much! This was whatever the opposite of unresolved sexual tension and slow burn. Like Ben and Rey tried to make this a slow burn but they could not keep their hands off of each other. I loved this!

Sunshine and Gunpowder - Hitman, Surprise Parents AU - Complete - Rated E - 48k

She’s a teacher who would do anything to protect her student. He’s a glorified hitman with a heart of black gold.

Together, they make up odd halves of a beautiful whole.

THIS WAS SO CUTE!! Like, yes, I know Ben is a hitman, but when I tell you he was the softest hit man I have ever read, Temiri was so cute in this! I loved Ben and Rey, and their UST made me love them even more. Han and Leia are also hilarious in this! 

It Takes a Village - A/B/O, Surprise Parents AU - Complete - Rated E - 40k 

Who knew that all it would take for Rey Johnson to interact with her enigmatic Alpha neighbor without wanting to melt into a puddle of hormones was a baby being abandoned at her doorstep?

Not her. That was for sure.

THIS IS THE CUTEST ONE YET! I REREAD THIS QUITE OFTEN! LIKE AHHHHHHH SO FREAKING FLUFFY! NOT EVEN A WHISPER OF ANGST AND A LOT OF SMUT I LOVED THIS SO FREAKING MUCH AHHHH! AND THE EPILOGUE MADE ME CRY!

Sensual Storytime - Office AU - Complete - Rated E - 23k

When Rey Johnson starts a new job, her initially antagonistic relationship with Ben Solo from IT turns into friendship... and maybe something more.

Little does she know he also moonlights as Kylo Ren, the creator of her favorite audio erotica. One day at the office, worlds collide, and she realizes the sweater vest-wearing nerd of her dreams is also the tattooed fantasy man she listens to while getting off every night...

THIS IS MY FAVORITE REYLO FIC EVER. I RECOMMEND THIS TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T EVEN LIKE STAR WARS! THIS IS COWORKER BANTER LIKE NO OTHER. AND THE SMUT ? UNPARALLELED. READ THIS NOW!

That is all I have time for right now, but I’ll make another list later if anyone would like that! Please take care of yourself and have a great day! 

[kanohivolitakk]

Since its 3Hs anniversary some really cool things I like about the game that aren’t talked about enough because the fandom is too busy arguing who is right and who is wrong

The worldbuilding just. 3H has honestly one of my favorite fictional settings. Its just both expansive but also genuinely interesting. I have spent HOURS thinking about the world and made so many ocs its not even funny. I love thinking about the setting of the game so much.

I LOVE the puzzle like way the game explains its world and story. Like I know some people don’t like it because it makes the game a bit too convoluted but personally? I LOVE 3Hs way of not telling everything but rather giving hints and clues the player has to piece themselves. It makes the games world feel more interactive and feels so satisfying. Then again I enjoy that kind of approach to worldbuilding

In general I love 3hs fragmented story and the way how the story is placed in many different fragments. It is geniunely rewarding to replay the game from another storypath and notice the foreshadowing Would’ve the story been probably better had it been just one storypath? Honestly yes. But 3h is ambitious and one of the ways it is is with its fragmented story structure.

The structure of White Clouds is criminally underrated honestly and gets way more hate than it deserves. I love how the first few chapters set up the world of Fodlan and show injustices/conflicts of the world with chapters like the chapter where you face off Lonato for instance. Then the next few chapters are spend in deepening the mysteries such as the conspiracy against the church and the mystery regarding TWSITD. Then Jeralt dies and the last few chapters are spent as “beginning of the End” so to speak, as things clears to the intense climax.

On related note I LOVE how the game handles perspective and how the lords are the respective ways we view the story. I know so many people say “WHite Clouds is same on all paths” but I do feel that’s kinda the point. The story is the same but there are differences that come from the way each of the lords is strongly characterized and has different values, worldviews. The subtle changes on what are focused on in each route also foreshadow what will be focused on each route, which I think is super cool.

Even beyond the lords and routes the game does explore the idea of perspective well. I do think 3h has this very “everyone is the hero of their own story” type of approach to perspective and it shows it well. Each character believes they’re in the right and you can get this view that they view themselves as right. Even Agarthans who are the designated villains have this sense they think they’re in right and that the Nabateans were evil.

The way how games routes being divided into having a different focus is very cool. I love how AM is a smaller scale personal tragedy, how CF is a battle of ideals and how VW explores the world and reveals deeper mysteries. I also love how all of these are related to the lords ideals and worldviews: Dimitri is the most conflicted of the lords so he gets the most characterfocused story focused on . Edelgard is the most ideologically driven so her path focuses on her ideals and battle of wills against Rhea. Claude is the one who is the most freespirited and wants to know the truth so his route focuses on revealing the mysteries.

Also the way the houses characters reflect their respective routes storyline and central themes: Black Eagles are nobles that have conflicting relationships with nobility reflecting Edelgards goal, Blue Lions are all united with the trauma of Tragedy of Duscur, and Golden Deer are a house of misfits who give this “ragtag group who will save the universe with POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and this cool gun I found” vibes which fit the route PERFECTLY

I LOVE how the game plays with and subverts a lot of Fire Emblem tropes. While it does play some tropes straight (dad death and evil cult manipulating behind the scenes) it does do a lot to break from series conventions and playing with ideas to make a more ambitious story. The way it either subverts expectations (The evil emperor being female well intended extremist, Rhea being the Gharnef/Medeus instead of the Nyna archetype she’s presented as), twists familiar tropes to their natural extreme (Dimitris arc is basically the natural extreme end of stereotypical FE lord) and other similar things make the game feeling so planned out, like the writers understood FE stories and wanted to make something that challenges FE while still feeling like it.

The way how every major player acts as foil/pararell to another player is so GOOD. Every faction leader can be compared to the other somehow and that just makes the game SOOOO fun to analyze, trying to find all the similarities and differences and pararells is so rewarding.

A more specific example on this is how i love how the game plays with the idea of holy/sacred weapons. While normally these weapons are artifacts from goddess that defeat dragons, here the holy weapons are bones made from dragons and just???? HOW METAL IS THAT????????? It’s just such a neat way to subvert the idea of sacred weapons. Rather than being blessed creations of the goddess, they are weapons of destruction made by the villains.

I ADORE THE GAMES science fiction elements. I know people say they feel out of place but personally, they make the game memorable for me. I still remember the first time I saw that scene with nukes. I especially love the heavy implication that Sothis isn’t a goddess but rather a powerful alien. It makes her character much more interesting

I know a lot of people don’t like Agarthans but can I just say their backstory being “forced to hide after their land got conquered and desiring it back” making them a dark mirror not just 3h lords/Rhea but FE lords as whole is SO FUCKING METAL. This is what I mean with 3H writers knowing their tropes like back of their hand.

I love how in Part 1 sometimes you’d talk to two characters in Monastery at once instead of just one. It’s something I miss in part 2 honestly.

I love the small sidequests such as the fishing tourney and White Heron cup and wish Part 1 had more of them, it would’ve made the school part feel more alive.

I LOVE how some missions (esp paralogues) have subgoals that you can clear to get better rewards. I wish the game had been more clear with them or even made them main goals of maps sometimes.

I LOVE THE WAY Paralogues act as small gaiden stories that show more of the games world and characters. Its a neat way to let the sidecharacters shine and reveal some neat secrets of the games world and story.

The gameplay loop is honetly fun and satisfying. It is rewarding and while it gets tiring towards the end overall its a good gameplay loop.

I ADORE the aesthetic of Shambhala. Its just so sleek and sinister. The cyrillic letters spelling different words is so cool. Shambhala is my favorite map in the game and the aesthetic is a big reason why.

The games soundtrack is so good!!!!!!!!!!  But not only that I LOVE the way its electro elements subtly hint of Agarthans being in control behind the scenes. This is especially cool in Road to Dominion where the electro parts are barely noticeable yet present. but other tracks have subtle electro vibes as well.  The other way the games music tells the story (such as use of leitmotifs or how the monastery music changes once Jeralt dies) is great as well.

I love how 3h can be read as an allegory for reformation era and reneissance. Its such an interesting way to read the games events and compare it to a real historical periods there’s quite a bit of f

In general I ADORE the cultural references of the game. There’s surprisingly lot of way the games world is based on real life and the details are just *chefs kiss*

THE GAME IS DENSE WITH THEMATIC IDEAS. Besides the perspective the game tackles ideas of how trauma can affect a persons psyche and worldview  (as well how a persons trauma affects the way they interact with the world which in turn can affect the world as well), grief, societal values, historical revisiniosm and so much more. The game tackles SO MANY topics in an interesting manner, it is thematically just as dense as it is storywise as well.

I also love how the games thematic parts work in harmony with the story rather than one overshadowing with the other. Its super refreshing honestly where a games themes and story are both rich and I don’t have to pick one over the other.

Lastly I ADORE the games central message (or at least what I see as the central message anyway): The world’s fucked up and most people want to fix it, but what they deem fixing differs and because of that they go into conflict or outright war rather than trying to find a common ground. Everyone wants a better world but no one can agree what a better world truly means  so they fight over it. It was a theme that not only resonates with my personal values but also hit me REALLY hard when I first played it as it’s a theme that I found incredibly relevant and reflective of our own world during the time I played the game for the first time.

So yeah. I made this post since there’s SO MUCH neat things about the game, its gameplay and story that sadly get swept under the rug in favor of either arguing  which lord was right/wrong or complaining how the game is an unfinished, rushed and overambitious mess. Is 3h perfect? Hell no. But it’s a game that I hold near and dear to my heart and does genuinely SO MANY THINGS RIGHT, I’m sad no one talks about the genuine strengths the game has anymore, instead just complaining.

I’m not even joking when I say that 3h should be up there as heralded as one of the best, most ambitious and complex JRPGs alongside Xenogears, the first Xenoblade game, Suikoden and Trails series as whole along other such games. Its a shame the games reputation is less like those games and more like Persona 5s where everyone focuses more on its flaws and the fans being annoying than the fact the game does geniunely A LOT right. It’s just that good, ambitious game I love so much.

[tibby]

definitive ranking of all of the trr gang’s parents:

godfrey: sucks for a lot of reasons but he committed the worst crime imaginable: being from england. 0/10.

king kyle maclachlan: yeah yeah his name is constantine but looking like kyle maclachlan is his only redeeming quality so. lame, royal, didn’t care about his kids, slutshamed mc, died the cringe and fail death of being crushed by falling rubble. 0.5/10.

regina: is this old bat still alive? genuine question. 1/10.

lorelai lee: fuck you for how you treat(ed) hana. 1.5/10.

mc’s mystery parents: either dead or just don’t care that their daughter moved to a foreign country, got married, had several attempts made on her life, had a kid, became a duchess and possibly a queen, had a movie made about her, and obtained several fancy hats. if it’s the latter then they have the potential to be the funniest characters of all time but if it’s the former that’s just boring. 2/10.

barthelemy beaumont: as a person with morals and a bertrand stannie, i give him a 0/10. however, as a lover of chaos and comedy, i have to give credit where credit is due and award a full 10/10. he committed regicide, pretended to be in a coma for two decades so he could do evil schemes instead of raising his kids, bankrupted his family on said schemes and then claimed it was because he kept trying miracle cures, decided to come back onto the scene by crashing his son’s rehearsal dinner and announcing that he was cured, blackmailed and kidnapped various royals so he could obtain custody of mc’s child, and his weakness is crows. say what you will about the guy but he’s committed to the bit. overall i think that’s like, a 2.5 or something.

emmeline ebrim: was fun until it turned out she was part of the evil cult and therefore everything she did in the past few books made her fake as hell. still a milf though. 3/10.

lionel nevrakis: shitty dad and can’t even do a successful coup, but i respect the feminism of taking his wife’s name. also i really like his scar. 3.5/10.

milf adelaide: objectively too high in this ranking given that she gave madeleine about fifty complexes and betrayed you several times, but she was the first milf in the series and she’ll always have a special place in my heart for that. nothing like an older woman who just wants to party. 3.8/10.

camellia nevrakis: shitty mother but sexy as hell and hated king kyle maclachlan. credit where credit is due. 4/10.

xinghai lee: the whole “unconditionally supporting his wife” thing would be nice if it was for anything other than allowing her to mistreat hana. 4.2/10.

landon ebrim: absolutely useless in every situation and kind of two faced but he doesn’t seem to be actively evil. mostly he’s just dumber than a sack of bricks. a solid 5/10.

annabelle beaumont: dead and hasn’t appeared in any flashback scenes so it’s hard to know, but maxwell used to be a mama’s boy which is good enough for me. 5.5/10.

bianca walker: much like her daughter, she’s really fucking boring, but she seems nice enough and apparently makes good coffee. also i know that she had “”fallen out of favour”” and it was their choice to stay in cordonia but ditching her children in a foreign country not long after their dad died is kind of a low blow. however it’s also pretty funny. 6/10.

hakim theron: loses points for being friends with king kyle maclachlan for years and not supporting ezekiel’s vet dreams, but overall a nice man who cares about his kids. also one of the few parents in this series who hasn’t tried to ruin mc’s life. 7/10.

drake’s dead dad: all the flashback scenes suggest that jackson was a cool guy, even if i don’t support his choice in career. bonus points for his untimely death kicking off the comedy of errors that is drake’s life. nice ass, sorry you died protecting nobility. 8/10.

queen eleanor: we only get her in flashbacks but she has yet to disappoint. cared for her son but also his ragtag group of besties, something her cringefail husband couldn’t do. will be heartbroken if we find out that she was up to evil shenanigans in the royal finale. kind of shitty that it took a bunch of idiots stumbling onto things for someone to solve her murder but cordonia isn’t known for being competent. the secret daughter thing was kind of wild and i sort of hope we never get any context for it. hope she found a better spouse in the afterlife. 9/10.

joelle theron: loves her children equally, loyal to mc and everyone in the cordonian crew, doesn’t appear to be part of any secret groups and didn’t play a role in any fail coups, cares more about art than she does boring royal stuff, total milf. would hang up one of her paintings on my wall. 10/10.

[wolf-and-bard]

Proper Procedures for Wooing Witches

for @littoraly-art because you are amazing and I already said this, but I hope you have an awesome birthday <3

Pairing: Yennefer/Jaskier

Word Count: ~2.2k

Rating: T, some explicit language

„My darling Yennefer,“ Jaskier calls out as he swoops into his Oxenfurt apartment with a flat carton wedged under his arm. It already nicked the lavender mesh overlay of his newest doublet, but for once, he absolutely cannot be bothered by that. It’s too nice of a day. “Hello?” He kicks off his shoes.

High noon’s just gone by and Jaskier doesn’t expect Yen to be up yet – which means she will hex his ass if he wakes her. His giddiness outweighs his fears though, heart warming, as he takes in the cluttered entryway. Several pairs of shoes are strewn about, his and hers mixing on the ground. Yen’s all look like they could double as a lethal weapon and are some variation of black and white (though one pair is tinged brown from blood that crusts the bottom, he doesn’t want to know). It’s awfully domestic, a product of the temporary living situation they are in.

When Yen requested to use his rooms for a week or so, she explicitly asked for Jaskier not to be there, but, well, he is weak, he wants her, he couldn’t have stayed away if he tried. Yen’s been snippy from the moment he welcomed her with open arms and the prospect of sharing a bedroom, snippy to the point of grumpiness. That’s fair, Jaskier supposes. It’s also fair that she slips out at the most random times of day, coming back only when Jaskier’s gone to the academy for lectures or the pub for drinks with his colleagues. All fair and good. He catches her about once a day which is more than he can say for most of the year. Fair, yes. Nice, even though Yen is rarely, if at all, impressed with his affection for her. A bard can dream.

“Yenny,” he shouts again and whistles to himself as he slides through to the main room. To his surprise, she lounges at his dinner table by the window, one hand curled around a steaming mug, the other holding up one of his most beloved poetry collections (not only because he wrote several of the entries). Her hair falls in rich raven curls that cover her chest, barely concealed by the sheer black dressing gown she wears. It’s the only thing she wears, Jaskier notices, gulping heavily. Yen doesn’t look up from her reading, her lips are pursed and her tone clipped as she replies.

“For every time you call me that, bard, your balls will grow the tiniest fraction until, one day, they will explode, never to grow back.”

Jaskier considers it. Directs his attention downward. They do feel a bit strange, don’t they? But that’s only because he’s thinking about them. Right.

“I shall not be fooled,” Jaskier says, grinning. “But if you so insist, ‘beloved’ will do just as well. I brought you a gift.” Brushing past his dusty bookshelves and cluttered desk, he struts towards the table and drops the carton on it. It lands with a thud and swirls up more dust – how is it this dusty already, Jaskier could swear he cleaned the place, like, last month?

Yen licks her finger to turn the page which makes Jaskier laugh out loud. He rounds the table to glance over her shoulder, but immediately has to retch. There, catching Yen’s precise attention, is Valdo’s vomit-inducing sonnet about his first time taking a tumble with what Jaskier assumes was a professional. It has to be, no self-respecting person would bed the man free of his coin. Jaskier makes a mental note to spread another rumour about Valdo and various sexual diseases, then plucks the book from her hands and lets it drop to the table. She sighs softly under her breath and allows him to put a hand on her shoulder. Is that… does she lean into him? The tiniest bit? Oh, dear.

“That better not be a dress,” Yen says, reaching out. Her fingertips trace the edge of the carton as if she’s in deep debate on whether to pop it open. This is a game they’ve been playing excessively, him bringing her gifts, her making a show of whether to accept them or not. On the few occasions that Yen invites him for a drink or gives the acoustic properties of his lute a small magical boost, Jaskier fails to reciprocate her cool attitude. He’s too in love to feign indifference and it’s not like she would believe him either.

“If we’re using dress in terms of the precise cut it implies then no, no dress,” he replies, thumb rubbing her skin through the slippery material of the gown mostly to work through the tightness in his throat. It hurts sometimes because this farce makes him think she doesn’t want him. Hell, most things Yen does are aimed at making him think she doesn’t want him. But then there are fractions of admittance like this, like when her gravity shifts towards him or he finds her in his rooms, barely dressed, that make him think there might be more there. Jaskier simply has to practice patience.

“Julian, do I seem like a woman easily impressed with shallow gifts of clothes? In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a very particular style.”

“Oh, I noticed. Trust me, Yenny, you are very much one of a kind,” he replies, mesmerized by her fingers dancing on the cardboard. She loses no time in jabbing back.

“And yet you revert to common courting techniques? That’s pathetic and you know it.”

“Bold of you to assume I am courting you.”

“Bold of you to claim you are not. If I remember correctly, the last time Geralt was with us you got drunk off your ass and asked him for his permission to woo me. Which was sweet but not at all his place to allow. Then you continued to exert yourself into my life on every possible occasion with flowers and picnics and awful love songs. How else am I going to interpret all this?” Yen asks, craning her neck to look up at him from under dark lashes. Gods, she is gorgeous.

“Touché. But do not think I would waste the efforts of my best tailor on just anyone. This is advanced courting, dear.”

“I fail to see its distinguishing qualities.”

“The difference is that these clothes are hardly a gift and more a means to an end.” Jaskier winks which has her eyes narrow, fall back to the carton.

“You want to take me somewhere” Yen asks and, of course, she untangles his intentions immediately.

“Not just somewhere. My cousin’s forwarded me an invitation to a ball put on by some countryside nobleman or other. His work keeps him in Kerack so I’m to go in his stead. That is to say, I’d hoped you would go dancing with me.”

Yen looks up once more and Jaskier starts a little. He will never get used to the vibrance of her violet eyes, how they see through him. Once, she said it took no effort at all to pick at his thoughts, that she always feels as though he’s screaming them right at her. So, he does.

Please, he thinks, mouth twitching into a soft smile. Please, just this once. It would mean the world to me.

Yen huffs a small laugh and shakes her head, then draws the box towards her. Inside, she finds a slim-cut blouse made from the finest black cotton in the city, complete with white lace trim down the front and flaring out at the cuffs and collar. With it, Jaskier had the tailor make a white corset belt and a pair of deep black pants that have applications of the same lace. It would look precarious, almost edgy, on anyone else, but on Yen… the thought alone makes Jaskier’s chest tighten with adoration.

“Jules, this is beautiful,” Yen murmurs as her fingers trace the line of the seams on the blouse. Jaskier puts his other hand to her shoulder and holds on for dear life as his ear twitches. Was that? Did she just? Oh, how he itches to make a quip about the nickname. Because it’s funny, yes, but it also gives him palpitations. He feels like a lovesick puppy trying to befriend a wild cat. Which also means that any violation of trust can ruin what they have. It’s just so fucking precious, this whole affair, and if he were on the outside of it, he would squeal in delight and write a whole novel about it. He still might.

“I’m glad you like it. And it will look absolutely stunning on you. You will look stunning in it. Ah, not implying that you don’t usually look stunning. What I am saying is, the other attendees will be stunned.”

“You’re ridiculous… and stupid too. Are you certain you want to take me to the ball? I’m not exactly popular with the local nobility.”

“Quite the tragedy,” Jaskier says and because he feels daring, he bends down and kisses the top of her head. Then, he saunters over to the stove, pours himself a mug of tea and takes the seat next to her. “And yes, I am certain. In fact, there is nothing I’d love more. Let the people talk.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Yen says on another sigh. “Not about what they say or think or do.”

“Which is part of what makes you so damn sexy.”

Yen rolls her eyes and folds the clothes back into the carton.

“These are lovely, but I will not wear them to the dance,” Yen says. Which means she will go with him at least. It’s not enough, Jaskier is dying to see her wear what he picked out, dying to show the world that such a brilliant woman would choose to spend the evening with him. Most of all, he wants to make her happy. “Trust me on this. You have a reputation to worry about and bringing me along already risks that. Bringing me along in that can and will mess with your career.”

“Trust me, when I say that it won’t matter. I’m already famous and folk love to gossip about famous people. Probably more than they love my songs. I could imagine worse truths to be spread about me. Besides, didn’t you just say you don’t care what people think about you? Why then would you worry about what people think about me?”

"Well I never," she says, but her lips soften into a smile and her hand rises to fiddle with her pendant. Jaskier gently pries it off and brings her knuckles to his lips.

"I don't care either," he whispers. "I just want to go dancing with you."

"I'll portal to my rooms in Kaedwen and get one of my old dresses.” Her face is all smiles, but an edge has stolen into her voice which makes her sound forlorn, sad even, and her eyes flicker over to the folded clothes in the box. Jaskier’s throat tightens.

"Why are you so stubborn? It’s obvious you want to wear them. You don’t need to start giving a fuck now.”

"I'm trying to do something for you here, Julian. I don't usually go out of my way to attend stuck-up parties with peacocks such as yourself."

“Please,” Jaskier says. He still holds her hands in both of his and because he has no shame, and because this really does mean the world to him, he sinks off his chair and onto his knees before her legs. Yen’s eyes widen a fraction. “For me.”

-----

They dance. Oh, how they dance. Jaskier always considered himself a great dancer, he has music in his veins and has flirted and whirled his way through every ball room and banquet hall on the Continent, and it’s clear that Yen is no stranger to this art either. They are exuberant, relentless, they laugh and pirouette and demand their ground, much to the detriment of those with lesser skills. The lack of a dress doesn’t subtract from their flair, if anything, it allows for a broader range of motion

"The only way we could draw more eyes is if we'd brought Geralt along,” Yen giggles. Fuck. She’s so carefree it brings tears to Jaskier’s eyes.

"Gods no," he laughs. "He would ruin all the fun with his growling and brooding. If you're looking for more attention however..."

"Jules-"

Jaskier twirls her and, in that motion, catches her around the waist and dips her low, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips which are parted on a yelp. Before he can tug her up again, her hands come forward to cup his face and she presses into him, grins into the kiss.

“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” she whispers.

“Admit it,” Jaskier drawls as he brings her back upright and they fall into an easy basic waltz, closer to each other than the dance strictly necessitates. “You love me.”

“That is awfully presumptuous of you.” But she laughs, and kisses his cheek, and Jaskier thinks that maybe one day, she will. “Don’t bet on it, bard.”  

[kisugay]

Me and some others joke about hating Byakuya (because it’s just plain funny to do so), but the actual serious criticism of him is deeper. It basically boils down to the fact that he just isn’t very well-written and it ends up harming his likability a lot. Well, at least for some of us fans who can’t bring ourselves to like Byakuya or the way he was written in canon.

I mean, all of us know what Kubo was going for, turning Byakuya from one of the main antagonists of the Soul Society arc into an ally of the main characters using a sympathetic angle. However, Kubo’s attempt at giving Byakuya a redemption arc wasn’t very successful and was clearly very rushed—Byakuya basically went from “I will not look at my sister for 40 years straight and now I will let my sister die” to “I will do anything for my sister” in a heartbeat. And it honestly just isn’t a very believable character change at all. If we had been allowed to see some more interaction between Byakuya and Rukia—perhaps Rukia not immediately forgiving him and seeing more of Rukia and Byakuya working through their feelings towards each other, slowly rebuilding their brother and sister relationship—Byakuya would be a better-written character.

Another criticism is that Byakuya ends up stealing a lot of the spotlight when it comes to Rukia’s achievements, and that this is in fact one of his main roles as a character post-SS arc so it’s a bad look. Post SS-arc, we see Rukia constantly seeking the approval of her brother, and so it’s almost like the narrative is saying that in order for Rukia to be worthy and her accomplishments to be valued it must have the stamp of approval by a man, and moreover that Rukia as a character believes this. Which is just a really fucking weird thing considering he hurt her so badly? A lot of the emotional power of her fights and accomplishments, like her fight with Aaroniero or As Nodt or her captaincy or her marriage, gets a bit marred because of Byakuya’s constant “I will be here for the nod of approval” presence. Even with such a great female character and awesome character moments, Kubo’s misogynistic writing still shows through by making what Rukia has done all about a man and that man’s approval.

Beyond Byakuya’s personal interactions there’s the criticism of him being obscenely rich and not doing anything of value with his vast wealth, which is not a quality that is admired by many fans these days considering the opinions many of us have about capitalism and those who hoard wealth. However, this criticism isn’t specific to Byakuya, as there are lots of other obscenely rich characters or ones who come from nobility. So it’s really more of a huge narrative problem that causes characters like Byakuya to look irredeemable in the eyes of some fans. There are systemic economic and political issues within the Bleach universe that are naturally brought up because of the way Kubo created those worlds, i.e. having poverty-stricken areas alongside a few small groups who hold all power and wealth in the afterlife. But these important systemic economic and political issues that would help shape how characters would interact with each other are swept under the rug, and it becomes a problem when talking about wealthy characters like Byakuya who we don’t see put their wealth towards good things.

In the Bleach universe, Byakuya is a rich man that tends to be admired or respected by almost everyone rather than reviled by average/poor folk for his obscene wealth. We don’t see any of the characters who have a background of poverty hate his guts for his wealth he does nothing good with, not even those like Renji who interact with Byakuya all the time and would clearly be traumatized and radicalized by the insane gap of wealth. So while this Rich Boy Trait does not affect the way other characters think of Byakuya in canon, it’s something that rubs some fans (especially those who are staunchly anti-capitalist) the wrong way.

After all, it’s kinda hard to enjoy a character that is representative of everything you stand against as a real person. And this is especially true when it’s not acknowledged in the narrative that he sucks hard since he’s framed as cool and heroic the majority of the story, even to the point that the narrative bends backwards to ensure that he is a liked and respected character in his universe even when he does not deserve it. And it makes fans like me not want to like him, but to instead make fun of him. Because yeah, he is a rich boy asshole, and sometimes those types of characters can indeed be fun! But Byakuya is not particularly endearing or well-written.

[narcisocacoplex]

Ascendance of a Bookworm and the Multiversal Marketplace of Ideas

Something that fucking stuns me about contemporary isekai as a genre is the way that it handles cultural transmission from one world to another. There’s a very consistent formula (as with all things in standard-issue isekai), and it all hinges on this fascinating system for deciding what gets to filter in from Earth through the protagonist and what is handily discarded when it would become an obstruction.

Consumer goods and services penetrate through the protagonist into the fantasy setting most easily. The single most consistent thing that isekai heroes reinvent in their otherworlds is cuisine. Almost universally contemporary Earth cooking, whether it’s Japanese, Chinese, or Italian (it is very rarely anything else), outperforms anything the locals produce, if only out of sheer novelty.

This sort of thing often forms the basis for the isekai protagonist’s horizontal monopoly—I’ve lost track of how many of these books I’ve read where an overwhelming portion of the plot is dedicated to the hero managing human and material resources as their multiple intersecting businesses proliferate like a cancer across the setting. It turns out that more than being a world savior, isekai readers fantasize most about being an entrepreneur living for the grind—albeit freed from the trouble of having to come up with your own ideas, as you can just re-hash the achievements of thousands of years of human endeavor instead and take the credit. Call it the McFly approach.

What’s peculiar is that less tangible and/or economically exploitable things don’t penetrate or are actively stripped away in the transition from life on Earth to life in the fantasy world. The most obvious point that comes to mind has to do with basic political and ethical conceits like the right to the most basic forms of self-determination. Isekai protagonists are indescribably quick to roll over for and get cozy with flavors of aristocracy and totalitarian power that the global public has been consistently taught not to trust.

Consider, for example, Ascendance of a Bookworm. I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve seen argue that Bookworm’s one of the standout isekai titles, and I can see why: it’s extremely committed to realizing an in-depth fantasy setting that’s not neatly explained with Dragon Quest allusions; the protagonist has an interesting array of flaws and limitations; in spite of the level of power on which the characters operate, it consistently creates convincing scenes of tension and peril in multiple dimensions; and the story is driven by a legitimate interest in something larger than the narratives the author has already consumed. This much is all great.

But the thing that strikes me about Ascendance of a Bookworm—the thing that keeps me from liking it at all—is that all of this craft and effort is sunk into a narrative about how there is no escape from serfdom. Myne starts at the absolute bottom rung of society, and through a conjunction of hideous self-neglect, total accident, cosmological convergence, and internecine political infighting, arrives at a position of frighteningly far-reaching authority. As Rozemyne, the archduke’s adopted daughter, she makes decisions every damn page about how her vast entourage will spend their lives in service to her agendas. Huge swathes of these books are just characters talking about how they’re going to move around various subordinates and, critically, which subordinates can be put in positions where lives won’t be at risk because of a failure to communicate across inviolable class boundaries.

While Rozemyne frequently shoots herself in the foot because she still takes as a given from time to time that people deserve to be treated like human beings and not disposable chattel, it’s never really up for consideration whether any of the societal structures that create this profound alienation should, perhaps, be changed.

And it’s not like dramatic social change isn’t a subject the story explores! Rozemyne’s whole objective in this story is to establish a thriving printing industry and universal literacy so she can go back to the standard of living she was used to as a Japanese bibliophile. She’s radically altering the cultural and industrial landscape of this other reality; it’s just that she’s not interested in changing the parts where, if you’re an aristocrat, people will act weird if you don’t murder peasants that look at you funny.

It ends up feeling kind of sinister, like the narrative is trying to convince you in slow, small steps that hey, maybe the problem here really is with Rozemyne not being willing to walk all over people as much as she could given the latitude afforded her (it’s worth noting that in many regards it’s the only latitude she’s got; the nobility are just as bound by bizarre, self-destructive social contracts as every other social class—it’s just that they can take it out on the people beneath them), and she’s already buying orphans in bulk from the church to staff her printing operation.

This is not helped by the most persistent fantasy elements of the setting. “Mana” in Bookworm is, on its face, a fantastical gloss made to legitimize the divine right of kings and the great chain of being. People have limited but varying capacity for mana, which is both trainable and heritable; the people bred for high mana capacity rule the country because their expanded mana reserves let them pump blessings into the surrounding environment, improving crop yields. Literally every noble is a miniature Fisher King, and when nobles withdraw their support from whatever fiefdom’s getting shafted, it withers and the people who live there suffer. This may be cruel, Rozemyne opines, but It Must Be Done to remind people how order is kept, however much she may not like it. Human survival in this setting hinges on the nobility’s generosity with their mana, and if there’s another option, it’s not really up for consideration.

I think periodically about how, as dense and thoroughly realized as this setting is, there’s really only one “nation” that I’ve seen so far in this series. There are rival fiefdoms, internal struggles, and cultural variations from region to region, but nobody’s really “foreign.” Everyone speaks the same language and follows the same broad set of customs. I wonder, when these thoughts come to me, how someone from a different nation in the same world might think of the culture represented in Ascendance of a Bookworm, and the thing I keep circling back to is “oh, those are the people who can’t do without owning other people.”

Part of the thematic messaging of this series, however inadvertent it may be, is how quickly a contemporary Japanese person adjusts to these expectations, even if they might make an effort to be as lenient as possible in most cases.

But pasta and hardbound books—those our hero will fight tooth and nail to introduce to this world.

[ekebolou]

I haven’t forgotten the wordbuilding stuff.  I got distracted by planning the Academy grounds.

It’s funny because I started off with all the ideas about strategic design, and comparison and addition to the previous structures (let’s face it, they copied the Palace tower - it’s copying - actually it’s puerile dick-measuring, but that’s still copying).  And then I started thinking about who is actually building it, and how long it would take to build.

Because the foundations of the idea of the Academy are laid out by Keadar-Ainjir himself.  And he definitely builds the Academy Tower (diiiiiiiiick-measuring).  But he doesn’t live that long.  He’s pretty young when he initiates the rebellion (older than Nika and Cole during the war, so less late-twenties and more early thirties, but since paths to advancement would be very different back then, that would be young for the position he takes on), but it takes a long time to come to fruition, and the coup at the Palace is several years after the war starts, and then he’s got to, you know, establish a whole new system of governance.  And deal with when they find out the royal family was not eradicated. and then there’s more rebellions (because of course there are).  Wulsh starts to get uppity.  Adineh starts meddling.  It takes a long time to get stable.  He dies maybe in his sixties.  Maybe it’ll be early seventies, but probably not. 

And the Academy is a major engineering project.  It’s built out of the same basalt the Palace is (only more, and better, because penises need to be compared).  It’s not that easy to mine.  A lot of stone will have to come from somewhere else just because you already have city built over where the original mines were.  Those are the places (out in the Ards and Namera) the tend to rebel, too, and being looped into a massive engineering project doesn’t help make ‘em NOT ornery. 

He focuses on the wall, and the Tower.  He’s a smart guy, but he’s not a builder. And he’s distracted.  He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the palace, but he knows it can’t be a seat of new governance, and then it turns out a royal baby lived (Adineh and the nobility both frown on baby-killing, post-coup anyway) and any idea of maybe trying to tear down or convert goes out the window because he can stash the nobility there and not spend any more money on them, and he’s now got a real excuse for a whole new center of power for the military.  So he builds the tower and the starts (and mostly finishes the wall. 

His lieutenant takes over after him and really has enough to be getting on with making sure nothing gets fucked up once Keadar-Ainjir is dead.  It’s really remarkable.  He does some sketches, defends the principles of the place as written down by his predecessor, but mostly lets whoever cares most keep developing the Academy.  The first classes are tiny - maybe 20-30 kids - and the grounds are fucking huge.  Because I’m phenomenally bad at picturing spaces, the rather arbitrary picture I drew is sectioned off to something like 800 acres.  Good-ol’ K-A walled off 800 acres (remember - some of this is existent city walls that he added to, so he didn’t build the whole circumference wall) and built a fucking enormous tower in the middle and died.

Originally, I was concerned with what an actual experienced military tactician would decide for how the grounds were planned, and then I realized it’s going to be the work of decades.  Plans will be found, lost, discarded.  Different visions will intervene.  Resource scarcity will have a say.  The things that Keadar-Ainjir can gift to the physical presence of the place are limited, but important, and probably would’ve faded without his lieutenant being so adamant about them, if nothing else.  That thing, as per the grounds, is not defensibility, but the idea of self-containment.  Now, this isn’t like a castle is self-contained, obviously, because the major food supply for the Academy comes from way far from the grounds, as discussed in earlier ramblings.  He builds a wall, he builds a tower - he sets a boundary, and gives it a center.  Everything needed to go from boundary to center - from periphery to seat of power - is within the walls.

The result being a kind of stupidly designed campus. They plop the first building down right next to the Tower, some 80 years after K-A dies, and it’s kind of all-purpose - dorms, classrooms, storage, library, spaces for combat practice, etc.  But this is dumb, and the outgrowth of temporary buildings as class sizes starts to go really points up how dumb this is, because the Tower is supposed to be special, but they can’t move the whole building because labor costs money, so sort of... semi-wall the rest of the space around the tower, then start plopping buildings around the original building, and at one point they wall off what was a nice arch-lined walkway which becomes the famous seldom-used hall of alcoves by the kitchens (because damn me, I did establish some places in previous writings I want to keep). 

And they toss up some dorms, but one of the reasons to build on the other hill back in palace-building days (other than the fact that it was slightly taller) is that this hill has an awkward slope, and is actually quite narrow where it levels out, so they either have to level the ground, build off-level or into the hillside, or just put shit where the ground is already level.  They generally opt for the latter. 

And now I like it.  I’ve drawn it out a few different ways, but I like it - because it’s  messy.  There’s an idea behind where everything is, but it’s a very big idea and anything less wouldn’t get expressed properly.  And at this point - the Academy Dayz stories - they’re still behind, because they’ll always be behind, and the class sizes have required the building of extra dorms for the First and Second Year classes that are wattle-and-daub and shitty wood and bricks, pushed all the way up against the walls, and the Southwest gate is stupidly built, because the city started to creep around the Academy walls and they didn’t want that, so the destroyed a bit but couldn’t destroy it all (because people live there), so they just built a new wall and now there’s a double gate - like, two gates, fifty feet apart and it’s super inefficient.  And there’s all this shitty detritus up by the Northgate, which is actually brick and nice and an extension of the street outside but it’s awkward because it violates the sacred boundary between City and Academy, so cadets are strictly forbidden from going over there even though it’s right near the Second Year dorms.  It’s like Hogsmeade, only instead of magical candy and butterbeer you’ll just catch an asswhooping if you go in there without permission (but who wants to, because ugh, townies, amirite)

I still don’t know where the showers are.

[happikattwuzheere]

the one where gansey befriends a deer: the au

hey remember that time ronan dreamed up a deer that was described with language suspiciously similar to how adam’s described, because i sure do!!! anyway

OK.

ok. so. this au’s actually evolved a lot since its initial already-pretty-fleshed-out inception one sleepless night, so me talking about it’s gonna be more than one post, but here’s the first one well actually the second technically yesterday’s warmup doodles were also from this au but i didnt talk about it at all so

and I’m gonna start with more or less the same pitch I gave to a couple people on discord

SO. starting out: it’s standard fantasy times, vaguely medieval but no specific time period because I don’t care enough to be digging into that quite frankly, but it is somewhere in England where this is happening. Story starts with just Gansey, Ronan, and Noah. Fey are very real and known entities and there’s been a conflict in England between the fey and humans, if not in the whole country then at least in the lands that the Ganseys are the lords of but probably the whole island tbh, and Gansey’s not inherited the lands yet but he’s going to and wants to maybe find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It’s not open warfare by any means but it’s been a big problem. 

To the effect of solving that, he heads to some little village that I haven’t named but it’s right next to a known fey forest called Cabeswater. This village has avoided being stomped by the local fey because, despite witches not being particularly liked by the nobility of the time, there’s a big old coven (the psychics of Fox Way, essentially) situated right by this village that’s kept things in check. Gansey’s made his excuses to his parents about why he’s officially going there but really he wants to talk to the witches and get a better grasp of the conflict from the people actually dealing with it.  He and Ronan set out from home together, pick up Noah along the way--who is not a ghost in this AU, he’s a fey who owes Gansey a life debt, that’s a whole other post and THIS post is mostly about gansey and adam--but anyway they get to this village and NOBODY gives gansey the time of day. 

the witches don’t let him into their house because they don’t like the nobility right back thanks and the next time he tries to visit Cabeswater won’t even let him get to the coven’s dwelling, the one witch’s daughter who regularly stops by the village for supplies and to check if anyone needs anything has a big argument with him the first time he talks to her so that’s going nowhere, and, well, the villagers are polite, but they clearly don’t take him seriously. He’s just the lordling playing at things and potentially meddling in their business to them.

So he starts hanging out just barely within Cabeswater, even though he knows that’s not wise, because he finds this perfect spot by a stream, and he’ll sit out there and think and work on the journal he keeps of all his thoughts and plans, and one day while he’s there has a straight up Disney princess experience when a deer stops by the stream and seems incredibly unafraid of him. he cherishes the experience but accepts that it probably won’t happen again.

and then it does. several times. gansey’s losing his mind. this deer??? apparently likes listening to him info dump?? it’s very therapeutic and also very magical and he’s amazed 

a few times in, he names the deer “Pryderi” after a character from a welsh legend, because “such a handsome creature deserves a princely name,” [[muffled blue laughing and whispering “princely” in the distance]], and he tells ronan and noah about this experience but ronan doesn’t believe him at ALL. 

one time after gansey’s particularly upset at how bad his attempts at getting along with the villagers, Pryderi actually lets Gansey touch him for the first time and gansey cannot shut up about it to ronan who’s finally like “i think you’re bullshitting me about this deer thing. im coming with you next time” and gansey’s like “well he’s a deer he might not show up if a stranger’s around and he doesn’t come every time i go down there anyway” and ronan’s like “this sounds like a lot of excuses, dick, you’re not making me believe you any more with this” and gansey’s like “>8\” 

but pryderi does show up, and gansey is delighted, and ronan stares really hard at him and then goes 

and gansey’s like what? nooo. but ronan keeps arguing it for the duration of the visit and the deer actually starts to look annoyed and at the end ganseys like ok maybe but i doubt it. and then hes like “well since you are a fey apparently (/sarcasm) i ought to say farewell with respect” and bows very mockingly and then the deer makes direct eye contact with ronan and bows back and gansey loses his shit

gansey continues meeting up with pryderi but even while his infodumping still happens it does so now with the knowledge that He Does Actually Understand What Im Saying, he may be a fey but he seems like a friendly one and hey that’s way more than gansey thought he would get out here, and also this deer is his friend now thanks, 

he, ronan, and noah (who’s amused by Pryderi but keeps his main thoughts to himself for now) make some excursions into cabeswater, but the thing is noah’s not really native to england, he’s from the european mainland, again i’ll get to it in another post sometime, but. he can sort of help navigate cabeswater but not all THAT well so they get lost a couple times, and every time it does happen pryderi shows up and helps guide them out. there’s some very funny moments of a very jealous ronan getting into weird conflict w/ a very smug deer 

anyWAY one day there’s like a festival, everyone’s drunk because its the middle ages and there’s not really a drinking age, gansey’s making another effort to make friends with anyone, and this one guy about his own age is like “ok look here i’ll teach you the folk dance everyone’s doing ok?” and gansey spends the night dancing w/ a handsome stranger, yes he will recognize the irony in the morning, but for now it goes. well badly because they’re both drunk but it’s fun, and then the guy says “ah, fuck it, i’ll finish teaching you next time we see each other” and gansey’s like “thats a little forward but ok!” and the guy (adam. its adam) panics and leaves while gansey’s back is turned and gansey doesn’t remember that last snippet of conversation the next day nor can he quite recall the stranger’s face. ronan does, because he was watching and not sure which of the two he was jealous of, but neither of them has any idea who the guy actually was. 

and then like, 3 days later, gansey falls asleep at the spot he usually hangs out in in cabeswater and wakes up in the early evening just in time to hear people yelling and for Pryderi to burst into view with an arrow in his flank. he collapses in a bush. gansey snaps into “protect friend” mode and gets the hunters off his trail by being all “oh a strange buck? i saw it pass that way over there friend!” and then when they’re gone he comes back and is all “alright pryderi they’re gone, let me just--” except pryderi’s not a deer anymore. it’s a boy. 

(Adam. its adam. the deer is adam.) 

gansey takes him home, gets the arrow out, noah’s like “i mean he’s not a fey, i dont know what turning into a deer is about but if he were fey the iron in that arrow would already have him dead. he might be partially fey but so little that he’s human in the ways that really matter”, over the next couple days they figure out that pryderi is in fact from the village and is a young man named adam parrish who’s been labelled a changeling and is assumed dead since he was yknow shot, gansey decides for now its probably best to keep him that way, but adam’s not getting better--apparently even having had the arrow in him as briefly as he did has poisoned him, he’s desperately ill and on the third day is finally like “get persephone” so gansey tries again (he’s tried several times over these days, they’d worked out that to have survived this long he must have someone else with a small degree of fey blood teaching him the ropes and the most likely suspects are the witches, but he’s hoping adam specifically asking him to will grant him permission enough to go in) and runs into a very frantic blue en route who as soon as he makes it clear he’s got adam is like “move your ass over on that horse im climbing on too” 

they get persephone, who turns into a fox rather than a deer, she saves adam, everythings cool except adam’s pissy now because he cant go back to the village and he has to give up on the attempts he had in the works to get out of town by working his way out and he takes it out on gansey who doesnt deserve it because this friendship is a mess, he’ll feel bad and take it back eventually but thats yet more posts ANYWAY YEAH theres our starting point 

(also worth noting: due to cabeswater being Right There,  p much everyone in this village actually has a small degree of fey blood, adam just won the genetic lottery) 

tl;dr adam’s a fey-blooded witch’s apprentice and he’s been the deer the whole time and thats the start of this au ty for coming to this ramble 

[g3n3515]

A thought about the Seven Liberal Arts

(Or, I gush about science and what that means for Dandelion/Jaskier for too long)

So we know that overall Dandelion’s iterations from the games, books and whatnot have gone to Oxenfurt University to study the Liberals Arts. I thought upon seeing Dandelion’s diploma in-game and reading this, that I already knew what that was, but after reflecting on it I realized I didn’t actually know anything about them!  So if some of you didn’t know like me, the Seven Liberal Arts are  grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.

And like, how freaking interesting. Sure, by the time Dandelion and his other adaptations were around I’d imagine Geometry, math and astronomy were not quite what they are today, but if I recall they were still considered pretty advanced subjects!

Algorithms were already invented by the Arabic people, as well as cryptography and algebra (though not as refined as it is right now due to the development of calculus and such other things). 

If Dandelion would learn them I think would depend, I don’t actually know if these reached Europe at the time (or if the circumstances of The Witcher universe might affect the creation of such things) but for some reason I’d like to think Dandelion would have learned cypher. 

  Pythagoras’s theorem were also been around for a long while and even on itself it’s one hell of a powerful tool (SO much of calculus/advanced geometry just comes from that one freaking equation it’s insane!!). Hell, someone measured the earth with great accuracy in the 3rd century BCE using only math! 

On more present discoveries, the Fibonacci sequence would have just been discovered in the 1200s. Does Dandelion learn of it, does he have an opinion?

But onto astronomy: what did we actually know at the time? A lot, actually, considering the modern telescope wasn’t invented by Galileo yet ! The earth had been found round for quite a while by now. Similarly they also knew the solar system was in a heliocentric model, but it was not used because the church wasn’t into it (something about the earth being in the center idk why they really cared man. some speculate it’s also because a lot of stuff was forgotten after the era of Hellenism, I kind of think it’s a mix of both.) Though considering the church doesn’t exist on the Continent and the Church of the Eternal Fire (who I’d argue are the in-world equivalent) don’t count me as the type to have enough power or have those kinds of value, I’d like to think they would not care about astronomy, and hence the heliocentric system wasn’t banned. All I’m amounting to is that I’d be curious to hear what Dandelion thinks the solar system looks like!

there was also a lot known about the planet’s movements (Retrogrades were well known), constellation, sky maps what have you at the time. Not to mention, everyone had been spooked by SN1054 (The Supernova that led to the Crab Nebula). Hearing the Continent’s reaction to some fuck-off “star” that was brighter than Venus showing up in the sky one spring evening would be pretty funny I bet. 

So since I do like the netflix rendition that would be quite funny to explore too. As someone who was thought some of the things listed above to a post-secondary level, I can assure you that no matter how dumb Jaskier acts he could still be well versed in everything mentioned above. There is this thing which I like to call Dumbass University Syndrome, which describes someone who can do whatever is necessary for the academic level pretty decently but besides that? Head completely empty. Dumb of Ass. (I’d like to point out I’m not calling out anyone here, as I myself have Dumbass University Syndrome)

On another note, Astronomy and such other subjects were actually oftentimes restricted to something only for high society and nobility. So on another very funny note, Witchers, who themselves are not nobles get disturbed by astronomy facts, specifically the ones you don’t notice unless you pay a lot of attention. 

So, in totality, imagine Jaskier who will walk in potential danger but somehow he’s also one hell of a clever cookie. Like, once he and Geralt were being threatened of having no coin at all. Jaskier had just scratched his chin, gone to write something down in his journal, came back and given Geralt a peice of paper with numbers scribbled on it. He told him: “Here. you follow that line. You don’t spend above that number. I follow this one.”

Follow the next week and it’s like they never even had a problem at all. Though it’s not the first time Jaskier had sat down with his travel book to write something and came up with a clever idea for once.

Geralt had came upon a pretty large ammount of herbs he needed. The Witcher is a pretty organized man but just organizing everything to stash them correctly was going to take all evening and he knew it.

In came Jaskier, who sat down with his booklet for maybe a few minutes, then sat next to Geralt and told him: “Make groups of two, side by side then combine the groups and sort them in alphabetical orders. like this. then you can organize by kinds”

It didn’t take an hour to organize the herbs.

There was also the time in which Geralt had ripped his shirt. The strip of linen he had was not long enough to repair it, until Jaskier took one look at the strip of fabric, scribbled something in his journal and showed it to Geralt. He’d drawn a rectangle tilted to ressemble a diamond shape. “What if you sew it on like that?”

it was long enough.

After a while Geralt decides to sneak a peek in Jaskier’s journal just to realize he literally can’t read anything in there because it’s all cypher (to ward off potential rivals from stealing his ideas).

Sometimes while they camp outside Jaskier will something look at the sky quietly. Then he’ll raise his hand and start comparing things to his fingers?? What was the bard doing?? He’ll note things down from time to time as well and it takes an ambarassing ammount of time for the Witcher to realize Jaskier’s observing the stars 

Sometimes when they meet after the winter he’d also talk about his opinion on the most recent solar system diagrams he read about in Oxenfurt. Geralt kind of hates it because if he was going to learn that the moon changed sizes or perhaps sometimes moved closer to them, he didn’t want to learn it from Jaskier.

Jaskier: So I told that man that that Geocentric system of his was completely moronic because How in the hell does it explain why Venus retrogrades? like what, are we just supposed to assume she likes going backwards every now and again??

Geralt, internally: What the Fuck, Venus goes backwards???

Jaskier: And what about Mercury? does he just follow Venus around for a bakward walk? And that buffoon has the galls to call himself an astronomer!

Geralt, sweating profusely: What the FUCK- 

Some day he meets Vesemir too.

Vesemir: So you know Astronomy! All right, then, heard of spring of 1054? What was up with that big glowing star that just showed up then disappeared?

Jaskier: Oh that one? we don’t actually-

Vesemir: What do you mean, you don’t know? A star dissapears maybe seventy years ago and you still don’t know why??

 lambert, who was just passing by: A STAR DISSAPEARED?

Jaksier: Yeah don’t worry about it it happens from time to times, though I’d never seen it, personally-

Vesemir: IT HAPPENED MORE THAN ONCE?!

Geralt, disturbed: wait THEY CAN JUST DO THAT-

But then the very next minute the bard burns himself because of cauldron vapor because “it’s water, water can’t burn me!”. Geralt wonders, while he’s treating the bard’s burns, how the hell someone with so much academic knowledge could be so stupid.

[iamtaran]

Dialogue Prompt 30

SO I’m a dingus and answered @partyhardwoohoo’s dialogue prompt (30: “You don’t see me.”) privately bc the button is the bigger of the two and I! Am! Easily! Swayed! By! Button! Size! Anyway, thanks so much again for the prompt and, uh, sorry for the fic now living in your inbox!  *

“You don’t see me,” Jaskier pants from behind his chair. 

And, really, of all the ways Geralt had foreseen this night turning out, this was not outside the realm of possibility. Rather than say anything, Geralt picks up his goblet and, sighing heavily, drains it.

He hadn’t known Jaskier would be at this celebration. Scratching that, he hadn’t even known Jaskier was in this kingdom. Last they had parted in some muddy marsh in Redania, Jaskier had been awaited in Cidaris to perform in some political wedding between two major noble houses. At the time, the last glimpse Geralt had caught of him had been: huddled in his cloak, made small from the last chill day of spring; caked in mud up to his knee-high boots, yet rosy cheeked and grinning with victory as he waved the witcher on with the parting farewell, “‘Til summer, then! I’ll just catch on with that caravan coming over the horizon. Looks like they’re very well to do-- exactly the type to enjoy a traveling bard’s charm and warmth on such a drab trek, don’t you think?” And then, when Geralt was nearly out of (human) earshot, he had called, “Don’t let anything get its claws into you whilst I’m not there, Wolf!”

In a month and a half, Jaskier seems to have come into some good fortune (the fine, soft linen of his flatteringly draped trousers, the kidskin of his soft boots) only to immediately lose it again. The last bit, of course, is only supposition. Based on the fact that he crouches behind Geralt’s seat, sleeveless tunic completely unbuttoned over his airy organza chemise where it gapes open at the collar. 

Geralt had caught only a glance of his flushed face, but he knows what his friend looks like when he’s been at the drink. He also knows from their time together exactly how recent debauchery shows on his skin and neck. He doesn’t need to turn and look to see it for himself. He can smell it. Instead, he reaches for the pitcher of wine.

“Jaskier,” he sighs. It is all he says.

Jaskier, of course, takes immediate offense.

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” he hisses from the shadows. Geralt hums, refilling his goblet. The wine isn’t bad-- not to a witcher used to the road.

“Or anyone?” he rumbles. Jaskier scoffs behind his ear. The main doors open; a harried guard and a fluttering servant stride up the middle of the hall between the two tables, headed for their host.

“Is there no respect for the choices of a grown man or woman in this backward kingdom?” he complains. “You’d think I’d killed someone by the way they carry on.”

“Jaskier,” he growls. Jaskier huffs an overblown sigh. 

“How am I to know who is engaged and who is not if they won’t tell me? Really, Geralt.”

The seneschal at Geralt’s elbow sends him a condoling look and passes the bread. Geralt happily takes another roll with thanks. This baron keeps the best baker in the state, and he is never one to turn away such a luxury. The road has only ever lined his gut with venison and crispbread, and recently the road has been long and his purse light. Even so, he is even more thankful that his other neighbor has yet to take any notice of their whispered conversation.

A hand snakes into view for just a moment. Petulantly, Geralt jerks the roll away and nudges it back with his elbow.

“And besides,” Jaskier continues, apparently unbothered by the fracas growing in volume at the front of the hall. He is lucky indeed that Geralt had been positioned in somewhat obscurity to the back of the hall. He doubts he would have been able to hide half as effectively where they any nearer to the windows and candles closer to the nobility. “It’s not a love match. No one has exchanged anything like a vow or even a half-hearted promise at this point.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt scolds. Fingers pinch his side.

“Not a word.”

“I thought traveling bards were meant to keep up on such news,” Geralt says into his food, which is many words. Jaskier exacts revenge by stealing the pickled cucumber from his plate. His hand retreats back behind his seat.

“News, yes,” Jaskier huffs. “Gossip, as well. But only a fool believes it.”

“I believe,” Geralt murmurs, “that you are about to face a cadre of very unhappy kinsmen if you continue to linger here.” Jaskier makes an agreeing sort of noise as he crunches his stolen goods. “Why haven’t you ridden for the border yet? Or left the castle, even, you dolt.”

“Lost my horse in a bet,” Jaskier grouses. Geralt snorts and pretends it was to spit into his napkin when it draws attention. The woman across from him glares her disapproval briefly. “Not a word, I said!” Jaskier hisses. “I was actually quite attached to- ah--”

“Marigold,” Geralt supplies. 

“-yes, Marigold.”

“Triss would curse you if she knew.”

Jaskier sniffs. “It was a tribute, meant only in the highest respect.”

“Was it respect when you bet her on-”

“-a case of Toussaint red.”

“-on a case of wine?”

“Let me take Roach,” Jaskier says rather than answer. Teeth-deep in a bite of roast lamb, Geralt frowns. 

“No.”

“Oh, come on, please,” Jaskier wheedles. For a man hiding from very unhappy kinsmen to his latest lover, he is quite chatty. Geralt remembers his flushed cheeks and reconsiders, ah, yes. Must have been wine. I thought he lost the bet? “It will just be until I’m outside the kingdom borders. I’ll take the highway and stop in the first clearing so you’ll know exactly where to find me. I’ll even oil your tack as compensation for what would otherwise be an unselfish show of friendship and trust.”

“No.”

“Geralt,” he begins. Geralt doesn’t get to hear what other argument he has up his sleeve, however. The seneschal picking at his salad on Geralt’s left clears his throat delicately. 

Immediately, he realizes what is wrong: the noise from the front of the hall has ceased. From the corner of his eye, he becomes aware of a half dozen armed guards led by two men he recognizes at the baron’s oldest sons striding down the length of the hall. 

Jaskier must notice, too. Rather than turn tail and make for the door-- or even, knowing him as Geralt does, standing to talk his way out of whatever trouble he has drawn-- rather than doing either of those, he crouches further, hisses at Geralt, “Move your thigh,” and with a shove to his side wriggles under the table. 

“Don’t!” Geralt whispers, too late.

It is a tight squeeze. The table is long but not terribly wide, and seated on both sides with every member of the household staff. Geralt hears Jaskier mutter a curse to himself and nearly jumps when two hands land on his thighs, pressing them apart to make room for Jaskier to squeeze between. The seneschal clears his throat once more, radiating judgement. Geralt resists the urge to clamp a hand over his eyes, barely. As if it would make the current situation disappear. 

The company of guards and sons moves past and out of the hall. 

“Don’t get excited,” Jaskier whispers, and pats him far enough up his leg that Geralt does jump. Jaskier chuckles. “Merciful goddess, that was close.”

“And what,” Geralt grinds out, “do you plan to do down there?”

The scandalized seneschal coughs into his fist. Roughly, Geralt grabs the pitcher of wine nearly out of the questing hand of the Housekeeper across of him and slams it down at the seneschal’s elbow. The seneschal, steadfastly ignoring him as he unashamedly eavesdrops, jumps like a man prodded.

“For your throat,” Geralt glowers. 

It is, admittedly, an effective glower. He watches just long enough to see the pale-faced man nod quickly and fumbling pour himself a glass that goes more on his plate than in his cup, then returns to his predicament. 

“Well, funny you should ask,” Jaskier hums, unawares, “because, you see, um, I haven’t quite, well, planned past this point-” 

Geralt really does lower his eyes into his hand. All he can do is prop that elbow on the table and hope he merely looks tired to any who should glance his way. Tired, and not like he is having a conversation with the man crouched between his legs.

“Jaskier,” Geralt growls at his lap as quietly as he can. “If you pull me into this fucking farce you’ve orchestrated before I’ve even been fucking paid for this job that took me two fucking weeks-”

“I haven’t!” Jaskier whispers back fiercely.

Geralt pins him with a look. “If it looks like they are going to find you here, I will drag you out from under there, march you to the Baron’s table, and offer to thrash your bare arse like a snot-nosed brat myself. I’ll do it in front of the whole fucking court if it means I will still get paid. Do you understand me?”

Wide eyed, Jaskier opens his mouth to protest. They are interrupted by one of the sons returning. Geralt doesn’t even hear him come up, so focused is he, until the man speaks.

“Sir Witcher?”

Jaskier shifts against his legs. Almost before he is aware of it, Geralt buries his hand in his hair and makes a hard fist. Jaskier, mid way to crawling-- back out, or away-- freezes. Casually, Geralt turns to face the second oldest son whilst his free hand reaches for his goblet with not a care in the world.

“Trouble, my lord?” He grunts, and takes a sip of wine. Jaskier’s boots shuffle under the table. Geralt tightens his hold and pins him to his leg. Jaskier stills, breathing sharply against his thigh where his cheek is pressed.

The son smiles grimly. “Purely human in nature, serah. Please don’t let me interrupt your dinner beyond the necessary.” 

A distracting hand wraps around his ankle. Geralt distinctly does not twitch.

“My thanks,” Geralt says dryly.

“My father has asked that I offer you room for the night, should you require.”

“Your father is uncommonly generous to offer,” Geralt notes. He can feel Jaskier’s rabbiting heartbeat thrumming where his knee has pressed into his chest. “No, I require nothing but the agreed upon price. I have a room booked at the inn for another night yet.”

The lordling smiles. “Very well. I’m afraid I can’t see you to our steward myself at the moment. But I will have my father informed to expect you in the antechamber after the meal has ended. He will see to your payment.”

It is unspeakably rude that he has not risen, Geralt knows. He also knows that he can get away with it. Witchers have always held a strange position in society. Outside of its rules and structures. It is a pleasant surprise, however, when rather than being offended as is his born right, the young lord merely offers his hand like a lowbornsman and with a short farewell leaves to catch up with his guard.

Under the table, Jaskier pants out an insult against his trouser leg. Geralt smirks and holds him there just long enough to make his point. It’s when Jaskier’s hands start fumbling up his legs looking for weaknesses and one finds the back of a knee that he lets go and goes back to his meal. Jaskier pinches him anyway and tells him exactly what he thinks.

“Neither of us know my father, and such a configuration seems unlikely,” Geralt replies mildly.

“Even more likely to be true, then,” Jaskier shoots back, craning his head as if to peer around Geralt’s chair for any other visitors.

From this angle, Geralt can see what he hadn’t before. A handful of deep maroon suck-marks spot the side of his neck and just behind the hinge of his jaw. His lips are still red from kissing whatever noble he should not have. (Judging by the stubble burn on his neck, it was the future husband.) He smells like wine, and sex, and cedar and bergamot perfume. His hair is mussed where Geralt had grabbed him. He doesn’t know what it had looked like before. He knows what it looks like now, however.

Suddenly, supremely aware of what the assumption will be if they are discovered, Geralt straightens. A passing servant pauses, takes up an empty plate to his left, and moves on without noticing anything amiss. Jaskier’s sigh of relief skitters hot and far too close across leather. It raises all the hair along Geralt’s arms. He freezes.

“In my belt purse,” he blurts. Blue eyes flash up at him. He tries to keep his face still and fails. He lifts his cup to hide it. “I still have a room at the local inn for the next two nights. Take the key from my purse and go there. And don’t get caught, or I’ll say you stole it.”

“And Roach?”

Geralt gives him a flat look. “Leaving on horseback is conspicuous. Or have you forgotten you’re sneaking out a fugitive?”

Jaskier pouts. “Point made,” he says, before ducking back enough to give himself room to work. Geralt tears his eyes away to look about the room nonchalantly. It is only the wood of the table creaking under his grip that makes him realize how tense he has become. Breathing in and out deeply, he forces himself to relax. 

Fingers grope at his belt for an excruciatingly long moment. Geralt takes up his forgotten roll and rips a bite off with perhaps too much gusto. 

“Got it,” Jaskier whispers. He leans forward just enough to wink up at Geralt one last time, grinning impishly. “Well, this has certainly been one of the more interesting nights I’ve spent on my knees-”

“Leave,” Geralt groans, and really does curl a defeated hand over his eyes as he feels Jaskier wriggle out from under the table. He doesn’t even watch him go. 

Only after he is sure he’s gone does Geralt slide a coin to the seneschal.

“This stays between us.”

[conceptstage]

Branded

AO3

Sometimes Beau thinks her Mark is the only reason that her parents kept her when she was born. Marks were rare and highly coveted, particularly among those looking to climb the social ladder. Having a child with a Soulmate Mark meant that you got to parade them around to all the nobility and elites whose children also had Marks and, even if they weren’t a match, there were many connections and business deals to be made. She may have been a disappointment in literally every other regard but she had mark so maybe that could make up for it a little bit.

From the time she could walk she was dressed up in fine dresses and her mother would invite all manner of nobility and social elite to their house to compare their children’s Marks.

Her mother would make her stand in front of a room full of strangers and pull down the front of her dress to show off the deep, blood red Mark stamped on her collarbone. Beau had seen a lot of Marks over the years and she always thought that hers was the prettiest. There were dark boxy ones, all hard lines and straight edges, there were bright white ones made of overlapping circles, but she had the only red one that she’d ever seen. It was big, bigger than it really should have been honestly, shaped vaguely like a heart if you squinted at it but it was mostly free flowing lines that twirled and curled over each other.

She knew, subconsciously maybe, that they were looking for a Mark that matched hers but no one ever told her what it meant. No one ever told her who this matching Mark would be to her. She didn’t know that she had a soulmate somewhere in the world until she was eight and read it in a storybook.

“Mommy,” she called, banging on the door to her mother’s room. “Mommy!”

There was a groan from the other side and the door opened a moment later. “What,” her mother asked, looking put out. “What is it, Darling, Mommy’s busy.”

Beau held up the book and waved it around until her mother sighed and took it from her hand. “Is it true? I have a soulmate?”

Her mother chuckled and gave her a kind smile, bending down to look her in the eye. “Is that what this is about? Of course you have a soulmate, that’s what all these parties have been about, we’re trying to find him for you. Then, when you’re older, you can get married to him and live happily ever after. Who knows, maybe he’s a prince, maybe he’s heir to a vast wealth. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

Beau thought about that for a moment frowned. “But what if my soulmate isn’t either of those things? What if he’s poor? What if he’s not even human, Mommy?”

Her mother gave her that look that Beau knew meant she thought that Beau was kidding. “Then we’ll find you another suitable husband, Darling. Don’t worry.”

Beau felt rage start to fill her. “What? No, Mommy, no! I don’t want a suitable husband, I want my soulmate!”

Her mother sighed and moved to stand, calling down the hall. “Eugenia, could you come gather Beauregard? She’s throwing another tantram!” She shut the door.

-

Beau was fourteen when she made up her mind. She was in her room, staring out the window as the carriages arrived through the gate. It would be less than an hour now until she was expected downstairs to greet their guests. The fourth party of the year and her mother was running out of Marked suitors. Before long she’d be giving up on finding a Match and would be trying to sell Beau off to the highest bidder with a suitable son.

Beau looked over her shoulder at the fireplace across the room and the iron poker that was sitting in the fire and turning bright with heat. She took a deep breath and pushed off the wall, walking towards the fireplace. She picked up the wooden end of the poker and it was softly warm against her palm but she could feel the heat pouring off the pointed end. She took a deep breath and looked down at the Mark on her collarbone again. For the last time.

“I belong to me,” she whispered, running the tips of her fingers over it. “I’ll find you, with or without this thing,” she promised the woman on the other side of the Mark, because she had known for at least the last year that the person waiting for her was going to be a woman. “I’ll find you but to do that I need to be free of this. I belong to me. I belong to-”

She pressed the flat of the hot end of the poker to the Mark before she could talk herself out of it. She knew that she screamed because a few weeks later, one of the shopkeepers in town said he had heard her from his house, but she didn’t remember screaming.

Her mother spent the next several months trying to find a cleric or doctor or witch who could heal the Mark. The clerics healed the burn as best they could. She spent all of those first few days with their family priest of Erathis and he would dump as much healing magic as he could into her. By the time he was done, the deep burn looked like it was a decade old but it was still a burn scar. The Mark that had once been there had become an unrecognizable red blob on her skin.

When the priest told her parents that the Mark would never go back to the way it had been and that they would never be able to prove a viable Match with it, Beau smiled. That was the first time her father hit her.

-

She was pretty sure that that had been the breaking point, for both her and for her father. She’d dropped everything that they had tried to force her to be and rebelled with everything she had. And her father responded in kind, installing new and tougher measures to keep her in line. He hired a couple mages to come in and cast spell after spell around her room to keep her trapped inside after dark but it had only taken her one afternoon to figure out a way around them. He tried buying an amulet that would track her movements but she just lead the man he’d hired to drag her back home on a wild goose chase around the entire town all night.

She was pretty sure that he used her stealing of the wine as an excuse. He’d been planning this for a long time and all he needed was a reason.

There was a cleric in the carriage when they pushed her inside and shut the door. He was a kindly older man in blue robes, similar to those that the monks who’d dragged her here had been wearing but a different style for a different profession.

“Welcome, Sister,” he said. “I know it’s confusing now but everything will be better once we get to the Reserve. Come, let me heal your bruises.” Beau didn’t move but she also didn’t stop him when he reached over to touch her face. “They got you good on the cheek here. Does it hurt?”

Beau shrugged. “It wasn’t the monks who did that one.”

Understanding dawned on his face but he set about healing the worst of her wounds. When he finished he gave her a reassuring smile. “You’ve had a lonely life, child. But I hope you’ll find a home at Cobalt. Maybe even a family”

Beau sighed. “No offence, buddy, but I’ve had a family and I ain’t too fucking impressed. I’m my own home now. I don’t need anyone else and I sure as fuck don’t need Cobalt.”

He gently moved away the collar of her cotton shirt to heal a bruise that disappeared underneath but paused when he saw the top of her burn scar. He looked up to meet her eyes and she didn’t stop him when he started pulling it down little by little until he could see almost half of the scar. He hummed thoughtfully and let the shirt go so that it bounced back to cover it once more. “But maybe we will need you. Did you do that yourself?”

Beau nodded and rubbed her scar through the shirt. Sometimes she dreamed of the woman with her Match. She’d be beautiful and kind and loving and funny and free as the wind. But then she’d remember that she had no proof. She’d burned her only proof away. Would her Match believe her? Would she be able to look at the burned remains of Beau’s Mark and imagine that it used to look like her own? Or would she send her away and keep waiting for a Matching Mark that would never come? Maybe her Match would believe her but would be angry that she’d taken their destiny into her own hands and burned it away. Maybe she’d find her and lose her all in one day. She hoped her soulmate would be able to understand. She had to believe that there was at least one person out in the world who would understand.

“I belong to me. My life is mine and no one else’s.”

She’d said it partially to remind herself but he smiled at her anyway. “Yes, child, it certainly is. And I, for one, cannot wait to see what you do with it.”

[realcleverissues]

HEY, WHAT’S IN YOUR PANTS!?!

So I’m probably really late to the game in realizing this, but on the bus home today I was listening to a report about this right winger who is against using preferred pronouns. (Which, btw, is just horribly inconsiderate, at best.) But it got me wondering about something else:

Why does English gender things at all - including people?

“She said” - What does this tell us? It’s a person talking. But also - it’s a female. Is that usually important? There’s no equivalent of this for other things. For instance, our language doesn’t differentiate based on hair color. “Blondie said” or “Brunette said”, for instance. Keep in mind that this system would not hint toward sex at all. If you read, “Alex said that blonde’s going to chill at Danny’s house while Brunette’s parents are on vacation” - you don’t know anything about their sex, but you do have some oddly declared information about their hair color. (If you had trouble reading it, just swap hair color for he or she.)

So why do we do this for sex?

(And imagine if the only two hair color options were blonde or brunette. If you were a redhead, for instance, you’d be shoe-horned into one of those two categories, even if you didn’t quite fit. How absurd would that be?! And yet... the world.)

So why is including sex so important that it practically defines people in our language? Why is that when we’re constructing sentences, we need to know someone’s sex? Perhaps that’s where some people’s frustration with young’uns who don’t respect gender roles and styles comes from: “Excuse me, I want to talk about you but I need to know what’s in your pants so I can construct my sentences as usual.” That’s pretty fucked up. Why do you need to know what’s in my pants? Why is that important?!

Now, this is probably a good moment to point out that we might as well refer to people by their gender instead of their sex. For one, that’s pretty much what happens most of the time anyways - unless people are going around doing actual pant checks. For another, its considerate of the person you’re discussing. (Some might say, “But that’s not a ‘real’ wo/man”. These people are missing the point: Make the terms wo/man gendered instead of sexed as well.)

But really, this goes even beyond that. Why should sex or gender define us in language? I mentioned that we don’t have differentiating terms based on hair, but we could pick a thousand other potential traits that we don’t use, like height, or weight, or personality type, etc. So why sex?

I’m no linguist, but I suspect it may have to do with two things. I’ll get back to one in a bit, but for now, consider this: Status. Women’s status throughout history has ranged from property to what is only recently approaching full equality. I’d note that in many other languages there’s an additional “identifier” used in sentences: Class. Now, I don’t just mean using polite language here. Saying “Mr.” and “please” and all that. There are different words for things like he and she depending on the status of that person.

Also, when I was thinking of alternative examples for how to differentiate people, I thought it’d be funny to put this into perspective for many guys, by suggesting “what if you were referred to by your dick size or virginity status”  - though I soon realized that we’d all end up lying that we have humongous penosaurs (plural of penis, look it up) and lost our virginity in 5th grade. But anyways, I realized that in ancient hebrew, they actually did have separate words for whether a girl was a virgin or not. (almah = girl, unknown virginity; besulah = girl, virgin). Imagine if language was all built around that? “Alex said that virgin’s going to chill at Danny’s house while non-virgin’s parents are on vacation”. Anyways, that’d be pretty fucked up. Why should someone’s virginity status be used to define them in language?! I think what these have in common is status. Women as second class citizens; higher class people having their own terms of nobility, as it were, and young people (mostly women) whose personal lives were the business of elders. Not really inspiring stuff, to say the least. 

Now I want to jump to the second reason for gender differentiation in english: sexual attraction. Aside from social status, the mingling of people of opposite genders has typically held certain considerations that other same-sex gatherings did not. In other words, it provided a lot more information about a *potential* dynamic between the two people. Now, while I’m usually in favor of more information, that’s still a weird way to build the language, even more-so since it’s only a potential dynamic (I guess the language doesn’t believe in platonic relationships at all). But also, as the range of sexual preferences we recognize has widened, it becomes clear that any potential sexual tension could exist in all sorts of scenarios, and that sex (or gender) doesn’t determine that. In other words, you can’t just assume that sexual tension is a rational explanation for why we should gender people in language.

So yeah, that was my epiphany on the ride home today.