#galatea again

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a kiss to make the other stop being stubborn - Dijkstra/Isengrim

Not sure if entirely a prompt fill, but you get what you get.

NB: this is set after Dijkstra and Isengrim flee to Zerrikania. Also, Zerrikania is giving fin-de-siecle Shanghai.

It was a good day. Good days made him nervous. Leaning out of the inadequate café chair, Dijkstra curled down the edge of his newspaper and glanced across the sunlit Zerrikanian square at the Redanian embassy. He studied its modest façade, the two guards dozing by the entrance. Something caught the light in a second-floor window, once, twice. Dijkstra rocked back, covering his face with the newspaper. The inadequate chair creaked ominously.

“I wouldn’t bother hiding. You’d need a bigger newspaper anyway,” snorted the elf.

Dijkstra glanced at him, sitting there in the sun with his eyes half-closed like a fed cat, and imagined the pleasure of snapping his neck.

“Easy for you to say,” he said. “You don’t fear your old life coming to find you.”

The elf held a cigarette to his mouth, snipped the tip, inhaled. “My friend, is that what you fear or what you hope for?”

The elf’s neck looked all the more tempting. Dijkstra grabbed him by the collar. “Damn you, Faoltiarna. I know taunting dh’oine is something of a sport for your kind, but can you get it through your thick head, can you, that my life’s at stake here? It could end at any moment.”

Isengrim leaned forward and, damn him to hell for doing it in public, gave him a wet peck on the nose. “Then at least you must enjoy the time you have left.”

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Gotta also ask for Ciredin:

SFW: 1, 14

NSFW: 4, 10, 15

I'm so glad that someone asked for Ciredin <3

Who cooks?

The help. What are they, some kind of middle class?

(Bonus HCs:

Eredin had servants all his life but sometimes had to heat up like meal packets in the field and hated even that. Ciri never had the desire to learn.

Canonically elves and humans have orthogonal taste profiles, and Eredin is moreover old and high-maintenance, so he eats rarely, mostly vegetarian, and stuff that Ciri finds either cloyingly sweet, very briny, or tasting like (gr)ass.

In a modern AU, Eredin would sometimes shop at Erewhon and experiment with weird vegan superfood bullshit and predictably fail, while Ciri sighs and silently orders takeout for two.)

14. Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind?

Eredin. He minds that Ciri isn't higher-maintenance as per her birthright and sometimes takes his frustration out on her, then feels guilty.

4. Oddest place they’d have sex?

He's definitely slipped it in while co-riding on his palfrey.

(Serious answer, I have a bomb fellatio scene that answers this question - ask me later).

10. First to orgasm? Last to orgasm? Who comes the most? Does someone ever end up unfinished?

I hc them having a very mundane and mutually agreeable sexual relationship ngl. Like, sometimes it doesn't happen for one or both of them and they're really apologetic but sometimes it can't be helped but then they just remind each other that fulfilling sex doesn't have to end in orgasm.

15. Open or closed relationship? Do they sometimes share?

Open but they don't share. Ciri is the more territorial and would rather not even know. She has a closed set of sexual partners that she sees concurrently but compartmentalizes from one another because it's freeing for her to be a different version of herself with each person without fear of contamination (you know, take a break from being lady of space and time/traumatized child/war orphan/etc). Eredin is a serial monogamist in that he becomes obsessed with a person to the exclusion of all others, but for a short period of time. He goes back to her in the interim. If they were to share it would be to hurt each other.

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A fable about looking up a new fandom on AO3

I got ship vibes from the Dark Elf captain and the Tarkian merchant in Tectum Carvos and decided to check out the Vagrus fandom on ao3. Folks, there isn't one! There is NO fanfic based on this game 🤯 the tag doesn't exist!

And now for something vulnerable: I still want to write this fic, but I think this will be my first time writing for a nonexistent fandom, so we'll see how I do with no engagement at all.

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Ok Isengrim/Dijkstra:

Sfw: 9, 14

Nsfw: 3, 9

oooooh well that's a pairing no one has ever asked me about before^^

9. Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go?

Does Dijkstra canonically know Hen Llinge? Probably, and probably poorly in Isengrim's estimation. In my mind-fic about what happens when they flee together to Zerrikania, they settle in a large port town (seagulls, sun-bleached piers, multi-storey houses with inner courtyards and open-faced corridors where women hang the washing...) that has a large émigré Seidhe community. He tries to teach Dijkstra some usable elvish so that he can communicate with their friends and maybe find a job, but Dijkstra is hopeless so he remains a surly house husband.

14. Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind?

Good question. Dijkstra would say Isengrim, and Isengrim would shoot him the stinkeye like I was sleeping on an anthill and wiping my ass with a leaf while you were porking Philippa on her silk sheets.

3. Any kinks they clash on?

Isengrim likes to refer to Dijsktra's penis as Little Dijk. Dijkstra disagrees.

9. Quickest turn ons? Immediate turn offs?

Isengrim would have a hard time at first accepting that he's, uh, hanging out with a dh'oine. But Dijkstra is just so big and fluffy and kind of dangerous underneath that.

ty <3

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Auberon/Eredin & sfw 11, 14, nsfw 8, 9, 15.

alright, starting off strong with an exotic ship choice. under the cut:

11. Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights?

An opportunity to link my crackship smutfic? How fortuitous 😉

Anyway, I doubt the elves take showers, but even if they did it would be baths. Together on occasion. Auberon is a bit of a germaphobe and wouldn't get into Eredin's brackish water, so if it's together, it's after everyone's already clean and for um extracurricular activities. Or just to chat. Their best conversations happen in the bath.

Somewhat unrelated, I am a big fan of communal bathing being a thing among the elves (appropriately old-timey), and of course Auberon has his own luxurious spa suite that Eredin loves to take advantage of with Auberon, without, with people other than Auberon...

14. Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind?

Everyone assumes it's Auberon because he looks better, but it's actually Eredin. Auberon doesn't mind but he likes ribbing Eredin about it, and Eredin minds that.

8. Favourite erogenous zones?

I did not consider that I may be too innocent for these asks...

Eredin likes anything between the chin and chest. Auberon is into nipples.

9. Quickest turn ons? Immediate turn offs?

Speaking to how they are in the relationship and not to the characters generally, Eredin likes being a dirty little secret but dislikes being reminded of their difference in status, and so can get touchy about innocuous things like jokes about being high-maintenance. Auberon finds him a little gross, which is what turns him on.

15. Open or closed relationship? Do they sometimes share?

Open, definitely, and extremely "unofficial". I hc them as having a weird connection that nobody else gets, that Crevan especially doesn't get, so while neither of them is in principle against sharing, they don't share to keep it on the DL. Like, Eredin leaves through the window sometimes.

Ty for your interest <3

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For the choose violence ask game: 1, 9, 22

i think these are exactly the questions i got asked last time, which is interesting. but im not gonna peek! these answers are fresh from the oven:

the character everyone gets wrong

just one? i think last time i answered avallach and attributed it to his character being substantially changed for W3, and i still quite like that answer. another character people get "wrong" is ciri, who i think suffers from protagonist syndrome in that obviously many of us identify with her because we spend so much time in her head, so in the end her fanfic characterization often ends up more the writer's projection of their personality and preferences onto the character rather than the character herself. i'm def guilty of that though so like, not throwing any stones.

9. worst part of canon

again, just one? i don't remember what i said last time and i have so many spicy takes tbh. so here's a random one: i don't think the women in witcher are very well-written. like all of sapko's female characters are well-developed, interesting, textured characters, and some of the "women's issues" he addresses were certainly forward-thinking at the time, but like, it's still very maley-gazey as in it reads like a man writing women. as an aside, it's interesting how much of the witcher is about motherhood or rather the rejection of motherhood and "traditional" female roles in general, which in one sense is super feminist reeee but in another, like, it'd be great if being an individual wasn't juxtaposed to engaging in some of the basic characteristics of life, such as reproduction, in which women happen to get the short stick. A lot of sapko's female characters, including ciri and yen, are giving ovid's camilla in that they're super awesome widely respected professionals until penetration happens, and then it's a symbolic death.

but like the notion that you can be a person in society or a woman is a common and so far indelible feature in many slavic cultures, so im probably just a lil triggered. but if anyone still wants to cancel me, that's totally fine!

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

i still remember and like my last answer to this: i love the random minor characters giving us perspectives on like the political stuff coming from different slices of society. the first chapter in blood of elves, the one where it's a bunch of talking heads at the oak tree, is like one of my favorite chapters in the entire series.

my fresh answer is a bit of a copout as in it's obvious: the aen elle stuff is fascinating and y'all are SLEEPING on it.

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Aen Elle hot take?

Avallach is worse than Eredin.

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I may have missed the previous time you posted this, soooo here goes: 1, 7, 10, 12, 17, 18, 22 😄

ooooh a nice big crop! 1 and 22 over here. others:

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

honestly I don't get the fascination with dandelion, sorry, jaskier, sorry, JASK... i will say he's livelier in twn than the books because he's straight up psychedelic camp rather than just passable comic relief, but idk if that says something about the other twn characters being a bit flat...

10. worst part of fanon

geraskier

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

i'll answer this question in a way that generates max spice level and min cogent argument:

"unpopular" characters as in no one ever thinks of them: dijkstra, isengrim, rayla, condwiramurs, eithne

"unpopular" characters as in people hate them: eredin, avallach, triss, philippa, rayla

you should like them because i like them and am shouting about it very loudly in public. that's how this works, right?

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

worldbuilding-focused elf fanfic. i want your oc-centric treatise on how elves do agriculture, mutuals!

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

honestly i'm not familiar enough with the fandom to say. but, as someone whose niche is def "slept on" (which i don't mean in the sense of more people should read it - lots of people are not into it, they have excellent reasons why, and we don't want them anyway), i kind of like the niche topic vibes. sometimes i feel like an academic who does something that only 10 other people in the world understand, and as someone who thrives in small groups, it's exactly what i wanted!

feel free to agree, argue, or give this post a spicy pepper rating!