#oh this is very very silly

[limerental]

ficletvember 2024 - day 13

Geralt must keep Roche out of danger in Kaedweni army camp after he's magically transformed into a yappy little dog.

The little dog is maybe ten pounds wet with stubby legs and wiry hair, the sort kept on farms to sniff out rodents. The flicker of magical light has hardly faded before it begins to yap in alarm.

Geralt has a headache already. 

“Was that really necessary?” he asks Dethmold, who looks far too pleased with himself. 

“Oh, it will wear off in a few hours,” Henselt's wizard says, waving a perfumed hand. “It's not as if there's much of a difference anyhow. He’s an irritating little beast either way.”

“And I'm meant to do your king's errands while making sure a small dog doesn't run off a cliff?”

“If you like him enough,” says Dethmold with a shrug. “I'd kick him off the cliff myself, but then, I might scuff the leather on my boots.”

Without another word, the wizard saunters out of the tent off to do whatever wizards do all day. Be an inconvenience, mostly.

The little dog hasn't stopped yapping, the effort of its barking rhythmically lifting its front legs off the ground.

“Quiet, Roche,” says Geralt more harshly than he means, and the little dog obeys at once, tail tucked and ears slicked back. “Huh.”

If the commander of the Blue Stripes, presently transformed into a tiny mutt, can still comprehend orders in this form, then maybe he won't chase something off the first cliff he sees or bite anyone's ankles.

Geralt sighs and gathers up the small pile of discarded clothing and gear to stow in his pack, noting that at some point in the next few hours he'll likely have to deal with a very naked, very humiliated Vernon Roche. Hopefully all in one piece.

Feeling a little sorry for his earlier harshness, Geralt stoops to awkwardly pat the little dog on its head. Its fur is deceptively soft, especially between its unkempt ears.

“You in there, Vernon?” The animal’s head tips at the name, oversized brown eyes watering. While promising, that's not much confirmation that it understands him. 

“Sit," he orders.

The dog stares at him.

“Lie down.”

Its little body begins to quiver.

“Right, I wouldn't be in the mood for tricks either in your state.” Geralt has a vague memory of having once been transformed into a cockerel, but like most of the things he remembers lately, the memory is hardly useful and the context evades him.

“We’ll head back to your camp, and I'll try to keep you from being eaten by a large bird. Or something. It'll be fine.”

Things promptly go to shit.

Geralt should have thought to fashion a lead for the little dog, just in case, but if he were suddenly a dog, he'd hope no one would leap right to collaring him. 

At first, the dog trots beside him as they leave Henselt's camp behind, wandering onto the main thoroughfare of the Kaedweni army camp. Then, its body stiffens, scenting the air and the animal suddenly launches off at a run and almost immediately out of sight.

“Shit,” says Geralt, awkwardly burdened by the extra gear, and ignores the judgmental stares of dim-witted soldiers to hurry after the dog.

He follows the sound of harried barking rather than searching for tracks, and rounds a row of tents to find a cook threatening the little dog with a wooden spoon as it leaps at his legs, a serving girl cowering on the other side of the cooking fire.

“This your mutt, mutant?” the cook sneers. He’d threatened to spit in his food if the king let a Witcher stay in the army camp and probably had been interrupted leering at the poor girl. “Behaves just like you.”

After an unnecessary amount of insults directed his way, Geralt manages to coax the cook into giving the dog a scrap of meat to appease him. The dog growls as it gnaws the offered morsel, but before Geralt can snatch him up, Roche is off again. 

“Sorry about your ankles,” he calls behind him to the swearing cook, not really sorry at all.

After failing to nab the dog as it rustles in a trash heap, the little creature finally stops to sniff at a spot on the outer wall. The dog turns in a circle and lifts its leg to mark the wall, and Geralt figures he should divert his eyes to give him privacy and so promptly loses his chance to snatch the dog up as he rushes of again.

For his part, Roche seems to be having an excellent time as a dog. He barks loudly into the wind, little ears flapping, stubby legs eating far more ground than should be possible. 

Geralt loses sight of the dog once or twice but follows its high-pitched yap without much effort. 

It's not the worst way to spend an afternoon. Better than the slogging about in crypts he'd been planning on. As long as no wayward harpy tries to swoop down to make a meal of the yappy creature, the curse may wear off just running circles around the camp.

Unfortunately, the dog soon makes a beeline for the front gate, and though Geralt gestures to the Kaedweni guard to block the door, the soldier soundly dislikes him. He opens the gate wide as the dog bites at the leg of his trousers, shaking its head viciously. Geralt may have been able to catch the dog as it ptoceeded to lift its leg once more on the guard's boot, but the soldier promptly tries to drive said boot into the little dog's abdomen, narrowly missing as it darts away and out of the camp.

Yes, if Roche is aware and awake in there, he's having a very good time indeed.

Once outside the main camp, the dog turns predictably toward where the Stripes had pitched their tents beyond the walls. 

If Geralt knows Roche and his men, they'll never let him live this down, if they get wind of it. He’ll have to grab the dog before it reaches camp or risk Roche's surly wrath over the months of recurring dog jokes.

On open ground with less distractions, Geralt catches up quickly, but the mutt still evades him. Finally, he thinks to use a harsh command.

“Quit,” he all but growls. “Roche, quit.”

The dog cowers, whining, and Geralt scoops him into his arms with minimal effort.

“Should have done that right away, I guess,” he tells the dog as it licks at his palm, and he scratches absently behind its ears as it shivers miserably. He feels bad about the scolding, given how intensely the little dog reacts to his harsh commands. Geralt wonders if he would react the same to just anyone's barked orders. The dog whines low in its throat. 

Will Roche remember all this when he turns back? Geralt hopes not. 

Fashioning a lead out of spare leather, he secures the little animal and sneaks through the back of his tent to avoid detection. The Stripes are in the midst of cooking dinner, roughhousing and laughing together.

“Where's Roche?” asks Ves, as Geralt emerges for dinner some time later. “What’s with the dog?”

“Well. He'll be back soon. And the dog's lost. Looking for its master.”

Bearing two bowls of dinner, he returns to his tent and settles down to meditate for the evening. The dog laps the food up messily, then turns in several circles, digging in Geralt's blankets and flops down with a grunt curled against his legs. It lets out a long-suffering sigh from its whiskered snout.

“Long day, huh?” Geralt asks and the dog's tail thumps against the blankets. 

They doze together peacefully that way, until there’s a sudden burst of light, and Roche is very human again, face pressed against Geralt's thigh.

“You're not going to lick me again, are you?”

“Oh fuck you, Witcher,” grunts Roche, voice hoarse from all the barking.

Days later, Geralt thinks maybe it couldn't have hurt to let Roche the dog run full tilt into the Blue Stripes’ camp, barking exuberantly.  Would he have leapt at his fellows feet and wriggled with joy, just like any hound pleased to greet its family?

Watching Roche mourn his dead, empty and worn, Geralt wishes comfort could be as simple as it had been then. An easy pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears.

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obligatory beach divorce doodling

bonus rough cover redraw of x-men #41 (1995) But Beach Divorce below cut

[happi-dreams]

Woahza!! Spongbob critterpants?! (Again?!)

As well as huggy hassleholf

And another art because im insane

[aethersea]

I do think Blazing Saddles handled its one depiction of native americans very poorly, and the full extent of its representation of chinese workers on the railroad is they were literally just there. not even one single speaking line. unclear if this is worse or better than the redface.

it's fucking phenomenal at lampooning antiblack racism though. extremely blatant, extremely funny satire, which is constantly and loudly saying "racism is the philosophy of the terminally stupid at best and morally depraved at worst, and we should all be pointing and laughing at them 24/7"

plus the main character is a heroic black man who has to navigate a whole lot of bullshit but is constantly smirking at the extraordinarily stupid racists and inviting the audience into the joke. the one heroic white character is a guy who was suicidally depressed until he met the protagonist and they just instantly became buds, and he's firmly in a supporting role the whole time and happy to be there. the protagonist saves the day with the help of his black friends from the railroad, and uses the position of power he was given to uplift not only those friends, but all the railroad workers of other minorities too, in an explicit show of solidarity.

anyone saying "Blazing Saddles is racist" had better be talking about its treatment of non-black minorities. it had better not be such superficial takes as "oh but they say the n-word all the time" or "they have nazis and the kkk in there!" because goddamn if that's the full extent of your critique I very seriously suggest you read up on media analysis. there is too much going over your head, you need to learn to recognize satire.

[cutiesigh]

❤️🖤🩷

Wuthering Waves has taken over all of my free time recently, so here's a sketch of Scar!Ren I originally shared in da 14DWY Discord!!

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

What can I even say here to redeem myself

[kagoutiss]

dreemurr family physician

[puppyeared]

my attempt at making a fursona

[wolfythewitch]

Have u considered giving the creature and victor similar factions since you know the whole theme of fatherhood

I kind of made him look like victor and Henry's lovechild LOL. Though basing it off Henry more. I think it's silly and gay but also if I go down the route of how when victor saw Clerval it brought with him memories of home and his family, and the fact that the creature destroys that one by one is very silly to me.

Sees Clerval: serene joy and calm and peace

Sees the creature: oh dear lord

[ochablooms]

the carpenter's son and his hobby

[parisoonic]

every nice night at the pub ends in paperwork for Miss Pauling

[mossy-paws]

Dopplegänger

Uh oh.

(Og Photo:)

[egophiliac]

I DONT FOLLOW THIS FANDON WJAY HAPPENED

our butler(/guide to being an agent/best friend who bakes us special cookies and helps us run our cafe and encourages us no matter what because he loves our dad us) got sucked into a DREAMWORLD and had his spirits CRUSHED and he turned into a CRYSTALLY CHAMELEON MONSTER and we had to go through a spiritual journey and talk to the spirit of our DAD so we could POWER OF FRIENDSHIP him back!!!! (and some other stuff happened but what matters is that LEON WAS OKAY)

now he has a different-colored eye and a gentlemanly little face tattoo and...maybe other secrets that we'll find out later?!

[velvetwyrme]

some short warmup comics about my mom and transformers. TF One was her first time watching any transformers media and her favorite character IS in fact Bumblebee 💛

she also refers to him almost exclusively as "Bumble". the only time she calls him anything else is...

... when she calls him "Badassatron"

[bananafire11]

Hi tumblr have more of the clown