Geralt is a malewife

  she/her • book canon only • entire fleet of ships • AO3  

[lavodkin]

thanks for the beautiful ballad 🌼

[johix]

finished the wip <3 10000 points for anyone who can write me a nice gerlion sentence :D since I can’t really write myself but think about them all the time… anyway, enjoy everyone

[johix]

missed them so much I finished the wip right away… so let me give u just a small, a bit sad, gentle moment 

[calyxestra]

Dandelion in bloom

[johix]

you know… Witcher Logic still better than twn…

[tishawish]

meeting in beauclair

commissioned by @ r0binmon for the witchercreators4ukraine event on twt <33

[johix]

gerlion commission for @kurloz38 who kindly let me finish my old wip :’D thank you so much! 

[emiel-rxgis]

If you think about it Geralt had pretty fucked up life. And I mean like REALLY upsetting and unfair.

When he was a child he was abandoned by his mother whom he never had a chance to get to know. When he grew up he was living isolated, spending hours on exhaustive training. Then, he went through the trail and probably saw death of his friends for the first time in his life. After he left Kaer Morhen his first quest was to kill the bandits wanting to hurt a girl and said girl screamed and run away at the sight of her rescurer.

He was constantly feared and/or hated, stigmatized by an image of a brutal, greedy and dense witcher. He was working his ass off to cut himself off from this stereotype by learning how to read, write and speak eloquently. He was fetishized by sorceresses and was taken advantage by one of them.

He met a women he fell in love with but she didn’t feel the same for a long time and their relationship was very bumpy, with constant ups and downs in form of occasional meet ups (mainly for sex because neither of them was ready enough to properly express their feelings) and then long times of avoiding each other (though not always intentional).

He had a best friend who once was his voice of reason on many occasions but then he started to mainly irritate him. He adopted a daughter who he lost at least two times and he had to suffer silently, knowing how much pain she have been through.

He was used in a political machine by many people and politics was probably the last thing he have been interested in.

He permanently lost an ability to move his arm efficiently and to move without a constant pain in his knee. He had to live with the name “Butcher of Blaviken”, which reminded him of probably the last thing he wanted to become. To become perceived as evil which he was supposed to fight.

He lost the love of his life, his child, his friends (who were people he didn’t know long, maybe even didn’t know well but they still were able to left their lives behind and join this lonely witcher on his journey) but people whom he had the right reasons to hate (but he didn’t) were living.

He just wanted to fulfill the mission of a witcher - to protect others from the evil that was looming in the dark. Soon, he realized that no matter what he was doing, no vyvern or manticore would be as horrific or evil as humans.

Even though he wasn’t entirely human, even though he wasn’t perceive himself as such, he was one of the most tragic human beings. He realized that he was making mistakes and was trying to learn from them. He wasn’t indifferent to the suffering of others, even though he was the one suffering. He knew, maybe too well, that the world and people were responsible for the evil, but he has a part of him who was seeking justice no matter what he had to do.

[johix]

today’s gerlion wip, when u know they’ve f*cked but need to put some pants on bc tumblr staff are too pure

[johix]

yup I leave it here for today, night everyone

[fangirleaconmigo]

I’m currently rereading The Witcher books, and something that stuck out to me in The Last Wish is that in Blaviken, the alderman asks Geralt for help when he’s trying to pronounce a large word. He also asks Geralt to read a royal decree aloud for him. Geralt does so, and points out a spelling error in it.

It is also mentioned in Season of Storms that Geralt has attended astronomy lectures at Oxenfurt Academy.

Time and again, the books are purposeful in showing that Geralt is far more literate and educated than the average citizen.

Which makes sense. On top of whatever they taught them at Kaer Morhen (which isn’t talked about in great detail, but you need chemistry for potions, you need literacy for the bestiary, which would also include history, lore, biology, etc. etc.) they’ve been alive for so long that they are probably the most well traveled category of people on the continent (along with mages). They would accumulate incredible exposure to diverse cultures.

So whenever Geralt refers to himself (or is referred to) as a ‘simple witcher’ it doesn’t mean that he is lacking in culture, education, or intellectual curiosity. In fact, he has far more of all three of those things than most people.

What ‘simple witcher’ means is, Geralt is not ambitious(i.e., is politically neutral), lives a modest life without luxuries (does thankless dirty work, sleeps on the ground, eats simple food), and is straightforward in word and deed. (Dandelion uses ‘simple’ to describe Geralt as guileless.)

So. Witchers are essentially blue collar workers. They get paid peanuts to do physically risky work for ungrateful people. And though Kaer Morhen is something of a luxury in the world of witchers, Geralt lives near the margins economically speaking. He often talks about how hard he has to hustle to make a living. In fact, he comes into Blaviken with the kikimore hoping to fetch a “small sum” to “get through the winter.”

AND ALSO

Witchers are also some of the most knowledgeable, educated, cultured people on the continent. Aldermen, who would be among the most educated people in their towns, look to Geralt for help with royal decrees.

So. In summary (tl:dr) I appreciate that witchers defy so many stereotypes of working class people. (Not to mention, stereotypes of people who are socially stigmatized in other ways, though that would be a whole other post.)

[misterstalker]

This is brilliantly thought out and I agree with every point. To add to your post, Geralt is at least bilingual, possibly polylingual → evidenced by reading a book written in a dead language which no one else is able to read.

Blue collar worker Geralt, yes!

He works in a dying industry on a steadily-warming dying planet. His way of life is going away and he is under valued and under paid and left to negotiate the market value of his skills and labour with inflation. I wish the adaptations leaned into how relatable his perspective is to the millennial experience.

[love-and-cubs-and-white-wolves]

This is wonderful and well put! I'd add that Geralt also reads historic books for fun, likes to philosophize, and is pretty eloquent and sometimes even likes to use big words to impress others (which is pointed out by both Jaskier and Yennefer, both also saying that Geralt is doing that to impress Yen :D). Vilgrfortz also points out Geralt's eloquence and education, and even adds that Geralt can converse about genetics while a common peasant would've no idea about it. Not only Geralt was educated at Kaer Morhen, and at Oxenfurt (at least a couple of lectures), but he was also educated at Ellander - he attended the school in the temple "where they spell and write 24 runes" (as pointed out by Nenneke and Vilgefortz).

I agree that Geralt's definitely polylingual: dead language aside, he speaks Elder dialects. Can more or less talk to the dryads (even if their dialect is pretty difficult for him), but he's basically fluent in merfolk dialect, singing Elder at them with ease - he only has difficulties with the singing part.

Oh, and to add about that "simple witcher" thing: I agree, of course, but the I also like how it's also kind of a show of Geralt's sarcastic humor and it's spicy ("Explain it to me, I'm just a cabbage"), because he likes to twist things around and use people's own assumptions about him - against them. Like when talking with Vil, or when he said in Brokilon that he's a simple witcher, but even he would've made different war decisions, and then immediately started to moan about how there was only contempt left in the word and only he, a silly witcher, still believed in good will and common sense and was wrong xD.

To sum up: Geralt's the subversion of yet another trope: he's supposed to be an uneducated and deadly monster slayer, and here we have a very educated, eloquent, dare I say it, philosophizer and a pacifist :D. And I'm glad that Henry said that we'll finally see him like that in the show as well ;)

[johix]

finished the wip <3 10000 points for anyone who can write me even a nice gerlion sentence :D since I can’t really write myself but think about them all the time… anyway, enjoy everyone

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

Netflix Geralt hearing that Jaskier will Fucking Die if he doesn't get magical help for the djinn's spell: yeah. we won't let that happen. *pats back awkwardly*

Book Geralt hearing that without magical help to break the djinn's spell, Dandelion will live but won't be able to sing and only might be able to talk:

[johix]

missed them so much I finished the wip right away… so let me give u just a small, a bit sad, gentle moment 

[tio-trile]

The less gut-wrenching parts of A Little Sacrifice

[tio-trile]

I know I made the Sh’eenaz with legs drawing pretty and serious but this was all I was thinking about while drawing it

[tvcoroner]

I would just like to reiterate something very important about The Witcher.

Last season I saw a lot of posts from people praising the show about it’s treatment of it’s female characters in comparison to Game of Thrones.

Don’t.

I cannot stress this enough, a lot of really fucked up shit happens to many of the women in The Witcher, and Ciri is absolutely counted amongst them. The show may take things down a different path, who knows, but manage your expectations. Just some of the stuff that happens to Ciri alone makes Game of Thrones look like a children’s show.

I think her remarkably upbeat personality in The Witcher 3 did a fantastic job of hiding the fact that a lot of the trauma she went through would’ve broken other people.

So just…keep that in mind going forward. This could get dark REALLY fast depending on what they try to adapt.

[poetikat]

Some narrative choices made that deviated from the books also treated female characters worse or showed them in a bad light, IMO. 

Tissaia de Vries, Rectoress of Aretuza, whose greatest motivation is to see to the wellbeing and training of all her students, calmly turning failures into eels and calling it a necessary sacrifice?

Levelheaded, intelligent Calanthe, who taught Ciri to respect the Elder races and Brokilon, being a swaggering brute who walks into a party covered in elven blood, and her name is cursed by her people after her death?

Yennefer’s introduction to Geralt being one where she’s mind-controlling half the town into an orgy for her own amusement instead of him waking her up from a hangover?

Nilfgaard (Cahir and Fringilla, why?) sending a serial killing child predator after Ciri?

Physically removing sorceresses’ uteruses in exchange for beauty in a scene that’s almost too painful to watch instead of their infertility being the result of long-term use of magic?

Being able to point to Netflix Witcher and say “there wasn’t rape like in Game of Thrones” is a low bar in terms of it having positive treatment of women when held against the canon material.

And I don’t doubt there’s more to come.

[emiel-rxgis]

can people in Netflix Witcher fandom who haven't read the books could shut up for a sec? they don't know shit but bark the loudest

[emiel-rxgis]

surprising how "cishet white man" had written better female characters and better romance 😪

[love-and-cubs-and-white-wolves]

I know, I know Ciri is canonically bi, but what do you think of Geralt being bi considering he's been in a foursome with Borch and doesn't seem to make a big deal of other men being attracted to men? You think he's bi, but wasn't given as much attention as Ciri? (I'm bi myself, so I'd like to see myself represented more but this isn't like,, an attack or anything. It's just that there aren't many male bi characters in mainstream media)

Hi! I'd never consider it an attack, no worries :)! Also if I had to label myself, then I'd say I'm bi too, so yeah, high five :D

As for Geralt, you know, hard to say :D. He might be - with a preference for women, or he just might be straight but eager not to pass such a great foursome opportunity :D. Sexuality is a spectrum :). If you want to think that Geralt is bi, you can :D! It is implied that he slept with Borch, Tea and Vea after all ;) (unless he's just so extremely comfortable that he slept with Vea, and Borch next to him with Tea - who knows, it wasn't described xD). And he did consider Foltest "very pretty" :D. I wouldn't just ignore his preference for women, though, because it is very valid :). All preferences are :)

I mean, as for Ciri... I think I'm just a little bitter than most of the fandom completely erases her sexuality xD? Either they make her a lesbian (Phil is that and 90% of her posts are about her being predatory and ogling other sorceresses which is... well... I'd rather they focused on her badass personality, she didn't fund the Lodge to have sex ;p), or they make Ciri straight, or just ignore her altogether in favor of making Jaskier TW "bi representation" when he's not xD (at least, not in the books, not in the games and - for now, at least not yet - not in the show). Ciri was such a big step! In those times, I cannot think of any other popular book series with a bi co-protagonist, and even now it's extremely rare :). So let's celebrate it instead of forgetting about her. And let's celebrate other queer representation in The Witcher too, like, for example, Neratin Ceka, a nonbinary soldier who was a hero :).

(of course, not *all* representation was good: we had a gay villain and it was done a bit too stereotypical... but to play the devil's advocate, gays are people and they can be villains too xD. Also point me to a good mage, every single one of them has their sins :D)

Cheers and thank you for the ask :)!