#witchers

[lunegrimm]

Started my pre-holidays "tradition" of playing through Witcher 3 again, I just love this game so much! I usually don't play a lot of games a lot anymore but this one hooks me right in everytime.

[theyaregayyourhonor]

Mistaken identity shenanigans hit differently with Desmond in the witcherverse.

Aiden to Lambert: Who was gonna tell my you guys are making more Wolves now? Let someone else train him, that baby punk almost got me in his bomb sweep.

Eskel to Coen: I met the new Griffin! I can see why you picked him to revive your school. His beaked hood looked kinda cool.

Coen: Keldar jasn't mention anyone new. Are you sure he wasn't a Crane? I met a crazy one the other day, he jumped into the water off the crow's nest nearly missing the rocks!

Letho to Gaetan: tell your new Cat not to steal my kills.

Gaetan: ... we don't have new Cats.

Jaskier to Geralt: You may be surprised to learn that witchers can smile. I met the sweetest Bear last winter and have already written a few verses but nothing that truly captures the essence of such a tall and striking man.

Fringila after Desmond killed Emhyr and escape into the shadows: I see the Snakes have found a way to revive their school without Nilfgaard. Good for them

I think the last Manticore 'retired' so I like the idea of it being common knowledge in Witcher circles. I also think Voren of Dillingen is alive so when Desmond meets him he really feels for the guy. He experiments and finds a way to reduce the toxicity of most of his potions along with making up a pain killer one for when the phantom pain acts up. Next time Voren bumps into anyone else he shares the recipe and says that Merten must have decided to pass the torch to the next Manticore.

[cannibalwomn]

sam and dean winchester, your witchers ..

༒︎ sam and dean grew up traveling from town to town, inn to inn, never settling, and definitely never being trained in any witcher schools. kaer morhen was never a thought in their brains.

༒︎ i think that much like in the canon of supernatural, sam was chosen at birth by a sorcerer.. and magic was used to turn him into a "freak" as they say. dean was taken by his father at a young age to be .. mutated. to fight monsters better. of course. john winchester sucks in every universe.

༒︎ they're infamous witchers, known across the lands, much like geralt of rivia.

༒︎ sam studies monsters carefully, leaning more into fighting with magic and alchemy. dean leans more into his swords.

༒︎ dean's favorite of his swords is his silver one.

༒︎ dean's horse was given to him by his father, while the brothers stole sam's from a stable near nilfgaard.

༒︎ sam's favorite place is cintra, while dean's is temeria.

༒︎ dean's favored monsters are always of the draconid kind.. basilisks, dragons, even sea serpents. they make fine trophies.. and of course, ladies love the classic dragon slaying hero.. even if he is a freak.

༒︎ sam loves to study all creatures, but i think he particularly likes to help out cursed ones and spectres.. this includes botchlings, lubberkins, banshees, wraiths..

༒︎ dean is not super into the idea of magic, even in this world. sorcerers are untrustworthy to him, but he will reluctantly accept their help if sam's using his puppy dog eyes, of course.

༒︎ if they find an inn that is at least not full of patrons glaring at them, then getting drunk at said inn and definitely maybe dancing to whatever the bard is playing is in the cards.

that's it for now.. i hope someone else gets these brainworms. thank u. ♡

[thelostgirl21]

In case you were wondering what combining "The Witcher" and fusion bellydancing would look like...

Am I living the Jaskier cosplayer dream right now?

Why yes, yes I am. I mean...

Also, my partner was so happy that Radovid canonically doesn't enjoy wearing his crown, I'm telling you!

We'd actually performed another version of the choreography back in 2021, but only Jaskier and Ciri were identifiable characters back then, there was obviously no introduction with Milva, and it concluded with everyone more or less going "fuck off, bard!" (Yzaya and her daughter Ajija, that played Ciri, had choreographed it before Season 2 was released, back in the "everyone-finds-Jaskier-annoying-and-can't-stand-him-except-the-many-nobles-he-keeps-having-sex-with-apparently" era...).

Since then, Yzaya eventually had to retire from teaching / being in charge of our danse troupe (that I inherited from her), and Jaskier grew into a character that is well liked and respected by his friends and found family on the show.

So, the original ending, where he was collectively told to fuck off by all the dancers/witchers, felt awfully outdated and no longer quite worked.

Yzaya thus extremely graciously allowed me to remove about a third of the original choreography / ending, and replace it with something I've choreographed to Season 4's "I Believe In the Blade".

She also allowed Narayane to play Yennefer and improvise the part where she's in the center of our little group.

And, for us to add Milva.

And, of course, I couldn't resist adding one of Joey's best improvised lines of Season 4 during the "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" part.

The girls were really super supportive and wonderful while working with me on this number this session (two of them have never even seen the TV show, and they still totally went along with it!), and I feel truly blessed to have them.

Each of us have such different personalities, but we all have this ability to accept and love each other as we are, offer unconditional support, accommodate various medical needs / disabilities within our group, and value our differences.

They are my IRL safe space, my own found family...

So if you are a queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled person often doubting there's a place for you in the world, know that there are still people out there willing to see and accept you just as you are, welcome your ideas, show care for you and protect you like you're something beautiful and worth cherishing, and even trust you enough to put you in charge of their group (though, in all honesty, I accepted the position out of love for them, and because I was the most technically advanced of Yzaya's students. It was either I stepped in, or we needed to find another school that may not have allowed us to be as theatrical in our performances. In truth, I'm a chaotic natural born sidekick that CAN lead, but would rather behave impulsively and solve as many problems for the one in charge as I can cause. I was put on this Earth for my entertainment value, and I have fully embraced that part of myself! So now, at least, I have the luxury of being allowed to say "Hey! You guys put me in charge fully knowing and understanding the risks, so shut up!" and "Let me all remind you that I'm doing this for me because I love you!").

But yeah, these girls (as well as old members of the dance troupe that sadly can no longer dance with us, but that I still regularly hang out with, including Yzaya) are absolutely wonderful human beings that definitely are my people in all the ways that truly matter.

[seanofbeankeep]

Read the part of the book today where

Geralt: doesn’t understand how tides works

Jaskier: starts coming up with a story/theory that tides are caused by a giant sea monster

Geralt mentions that Yen told him it’s connected to the moon. Jaskier calls that a stupid theory and that his makes more sense

[mxpazel]

Every time I write about witchers I'm like "What if they were a people? Like with traditional attire, songs, a language only their vocal chords can make, mixed-match of the other countries in the universe?" and "what if they had more signs??"

Is this anything?

[revoevokukil]

At times, the book feels like an overt advertisement for one particular ostinato of The Witcher Cycle: what of the weight that we pass on? Inside the witchers’ trauma we can recognise the experiences of women—bodies violated and remade by the powerful, the constant tension between utility and revulsion. Inside Geralt’s story of leaving home for the first time hides Ciri’s tale of first losing hers…

It's not coincidental that witchers rank in many ways the same as, if not lower than, women in the society that they are supposed to save. Both are often unable to defend themselves without incurring retribution from those in power. Both are bodies to be used: women for breeding, witchers for killing; both subject to violation in the name of progress or pleasure. They are the objects of the ambitions, desires, and fears of the powerful. Common folk believe witchers are assembled from various human fragments, sewn, or glued together; automatons birthed by village witches but constructed by sorcerers. A witcher's touch, as Geralt fast learns, carries a stigma: many brothels refuse to serve them publicly as other clients might not want a girl who has been touched by a mutant. Yet their bodily fluids are of great interest to the class that created them, a class that controls and influences the social mores and prejudices affecting them. Sorceresses and sorcerers are the powerful of this world; themselves transhuman already. Their shadow selves—the village witches, whose mind breaks under Power, and witchers, who are hammered into shape with it—serve as experimental material. They must function as intended, yield what is required, or be discarded.

Witchers have absent mothers and distant fathers who'd love to vivisect them, mirroring the society that created them: born of the marginalized, shaped by the powerful, yet trusted by neither. Despite their abilities, they are viewed as deficient. Less than Man. In society's eyes, a witcher's “birth” necessitates he labour all his life to make even; kill things that try to eat man in order to negate his original sin of having been created as something more than man.

-- from Review of Crossroads of Ravens