#boppinrobin

HI ROBIN!!!!

you get... treat!

hi!! hmmm this is a good one because i don't think i've really thought much about this before? i tend to go hard on all magic in my fics and get creative that way. and i think find a new place to be from is a good representation of how i think they both feel about life in the muggle world and how they make it work, so coming from this angle will be a bit stream of consciousness!!

i've mentioned this before but i think harry likes to drive. having a car still feels like a life a goal for him, a symbol of adulthood. draco does not share this at all and hates the car until (out of fear and curiosity he won't admit to, he's not arthur weasley!!!) he dives deep into a research hole and winds up taking harry's car completely apart and putting it back together and becoming something of a gearhead. for science.

draco winds up being the one to fix harry's car if something goes wrong; harry barely knows how to change the oil. he blithely ignores the check engine light (it feels like his entire life has had a check engine light lit up about it) until draco sees it and screeches and checks the engine himself.

draco's big muggle thing is like, snacks. he's inherently mistrustful of modern tech (and writing he and harry sort of catching up on that together in the fic i linked was so fun) but he's curious and has a sweet tooth and the muggle world provides variety, so he's all about that.

oh, and coffee. draco has always thought he hated coffee and basic espresso drinks (too bitter) but catches on very quickly to all flavors and methods muggles employ to make it not taste like coffee. he loves a frap. harry feels the same way but doesn't get the exact same "this is new and exciting!!" joy in it that draco retains.

thank you!!! i love this combo omg???

20. top of head kisses 7. routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what they’re doing

“Hello, dear,” Jaskier called out as Geralt burst through the door. 

Something had him agitated, Jaskier could tell in the noisy way Geralt was blundering through the hallway to the kitchen, where Jaskier was working. As a result, Jaskier worked through the paper he was grading just a touch faster. He still tilted his head, absentmindedly presenting his cheek for the kiss Geralt usually gave him, as he tore through the last paragraph and added a few marks.

Only, the kiss didn’t come.

It took Jaskier a moment to realize what had gone wrong, as Geralt brushed past him. He hadn’t even registered the way he had tilted his head to the side, until there was no soft press of lips against his cheekbone or temple. Now, he only looked silly. Jaskier put down the paper and, feeling wounded, turned in his chair to face Geralt.

“Geralt,” he said, his voice so much more watery than he thought it would be. Gods, Jaskier, pull yourself together, he chided himself. It was only a kiss.

Geralt looked up from where he was furiously preparing a cup of coffee, but the tense lines of his face softened when he saw Jaskier’s expression. “Jaskier?” he asked.

“You--” Jaskier turned back to his paper then, his face heating up in his embarrassment. This was silly. No sense getting upset over a tiny disruption in routine. “You didn’t kiss me hello.”

There was a pause, and Jaskier tried to pick up his pen again and return to work. It didn’t matter. Not truly. Geralt, however, crossed the room until he stood in front of Jaskier, and cradled Jaskier’s face in his hands. He brought Jaskier’s head forward and pressed a kiss to the top of Jaskier’s head. 

“Better?” Geralt asked into Jaskier’s hair.

Jaskier let out a sigh. “Much.” His hands covered Geralt’s wrists and he pulled back to meet Geralt’s eye. “Now, what’s wrong?”

pretty diverse. just to immediately clarify a point, christianity doesn’t exist in the world of the witcher (except through literary influence on sapkowski and how he references christian motifs) so jot that down... idk why i’m pressed about this, but i keep thinking of the witcher fanart i’ve seen where objects have christian designs on them. like, ive seen fanart of regis standing in a cemetery where all of the graves had crosses on them... it’s like... why would they have crosses on them... if no one knows what christianity is? when ciri worldhops to earth during the middle ages, she sees white crosses on buildings and she finds them strange and out of place.

i’m not really a witcher theologist, but from what i can recall off the top of my head, there’s a variety of deities worshipped by the humans of the continent. some cults are really old, while some are new. geralt in baptism of fire mentions that the pantheon seems to be “ever expanding” in the times of war. geralt doesn’t recognize the emblem that the priest who is torturing a girl shows them, due to this expanding pantheon. 

so it’s safe to say that there are many new deities constantly being made and worshipped, and likely these new deities’ cults being abandoned just as quickly as they were made. there are also i’d say quite a few atheists and humans who don’t believe in the gods.

some specific human deities we know about:

the cult of melitele is one of the oldest and most widespread cults, this longevity and popularity is thought to be connected to how she is a fertility goddess of the harvest and childbirth. dandelion attributes this to how women need a lot of faith to go through with giving birth, and since birth and death is an unending cycle, melitele and fertility goddesses will forever remain popular

another religion also mentioned in the saga is the church of coram agh tera, the lionheaded spider, which is only relevant because a priestess of that church cursed nivellen into becoming a beast

dana meadbh is the focus of edge of the world, and the human peasantry of dol blathanna and the elves of the blue mountains recognize her authority. idk how much this extends into worship though

pretty sure that zerrikanians worship dragons and that’s why tea and vea are so steadfast to villentretenmerth

of course, you have the worship of the eternal flame, which controls the cosmopolis of novigrad with its 30,000 inhabitants

the prophet lebioda is mentioned a couple times while the hansa winters in toussaint iirc

the nilfgaardians swear by the great sun (as an expression... like how one might say “oh my god,” they say, “by the great sun!”) but it’s unclear as to how religious this can be considered 

but this is all about humans... what about the other sentient species of the witcher?

in the passage about melitele, we also learn that “practically every pre-human race and every primordial nomadic tribe honoured a goddess of harvest and fertility, a guardian of farmers and guardians, a patroness of love and marriage.” (the last wish, p. 36) so, assumedly, the elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and others worshipped similar deities. my personal take is that the dwarves seem more interested in metallurgy and the gnomes seem more interested in technology, and halflings apparently come from meadows, unless they’re businessmen... 

i feel bad because idk shit about the aen seidhe or aen elle off the top of my head. i know that the aen elle care a lot about ithlinne’s prophecy, and that’s kind of like a religion, right? following this prophecy around? the aen seidhe have ancient cemeteries that are large stone structures and remind me of stonehenge tbh but that’s not really here nor there

and of course because my username is gayregis... i MUST talk about the vampires... SO, it’s not entirely explicit, but i sincerely doubt that the vampires have any sort of organized religion. regis says that there exists no system of rules, restrictions, or morals among vampires, and one could argue that the purpose of religion is to enfore a system of that sort (though i’d personally disagree). he does later say that the full moon is a “holy day” for the vampires, i learned from @karanfile that this was translated from the word “oblewać,” which has a different definition/connotation to it than “holy day” does in english. quote from them: “oblewać is a fun word, because it literally means 'pour something over something else', but also means to celebrate something by drinking. also usually extensively.” so i think it’s less of an organized worship, but a ritual celebration.

ooh good question! Uh, shit, what am I listening to. Fuck! Lemme get out my fantasy ipod, hold on a tick. 

Mm, hate that, hate that, oh that’s garbage... Last song I listened to was Imaginary Parties by Fantasy Superfruit, and the other day Lulu sent me Fake Happy and said it reminded her of me, ‘cause she was being passive aggressive as fuck, Lulu. Still a good jam, though. 

😘 😘

🍜 favorite dish 🍜

this is like. a cheap answer. but i really love grilled cheese sandwiches. cheddar cheese is the crucial ingredient but the addition of swiss, parmesan, mozzarella, maybe a nice provolone, is never unwelcome.

☕️ favorite hot drink ☕️

HOT CHOCOLATE BAYBEE SLURP SLURP

🌻 favorite flower 🌻

it's a tie between roses and jasmine. roses are such a classic beauty, they smell terrific, and they're useful in food! but the smell of a cluster of jasmine bushes on a hot day is what i imagine heaven would smell like, if it were real. maybe heaven is real, and it's the smell of jasmine.

😈 favorite meow meow 😈

fun fact: i read the books out of order on purpose because i am very focused on instant gratifaction, so i read all of the hansa parts first and then went back to all of the rest of the books, thus i read the assault on castle stygga before a little sacrifice

so when i backtracked and read a little sacrifice, i had a very spiteful look on my face, like sapkowski fucking did it again, huh...

a little sacrifice has a lot of depth and it has a beautifully written sad ending but the first time i read it (with the fan translation from reddit) i didnt quite know what was being translated and what wasnt so i didnt know if i was missing any context, plus when i read, i skim and then go back a thousand times to reread it if i liked it, so i was just extremely confused as to what the fuck the relationship geralt and essi was supposed to be like, and then you get to the end and it’s like well i guess their relationship doesnt even matter after all because she’ll never show up again

also i remember being physically nauseous at reading that essi couldn’t be over 18, especially since i was like 17-18 when i read it a couple of years ago. yeah that basically was the closest i ever got to leaving the witcher fandom entirely, i had like this whole conversation with myself at 2 AM about the decision to stay in the fandom if i have to deal with this being canon, the solution i have come up with for it is that i simply do not acknowledge that part as canon and essi is like 25 in my mind and also she never fell in love with geralt

on one hand i think the story of unrequited love/doomed romance is interesting solely because it is something that you’re not meant to be like “aww cute i hope they get together” at, it’s a terrible fucking relationship in context. and geralt mentions this multiple times because he’s So Monogamous all he wants is yennefer, and this was an interesting way to develop your main romance, sapkowski does this like ten times in the series, where geralt and yennefer are fucking miles apart but somehow their romance gets developed during this period. i think it’s the embodiment of “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and it’s something that realy flew over CDPR’s heads, like they didn’t have a “hot and cold” / “on again off again” relationship, they both had a lot of issues relating to intimacy and committment and self-image which prevented them from true intimacy even though they had become very vulnerable with one another

on the other essi’s purpose in this story is literally just to fall in love with the main character and then die. like. i was genuinely mad because it wasn’t even a valorous death for a symbolic reason, such as with the hansa who die to demonstrate that an exchange of lives has occured. essi just dies because it’s sad and there’s not much place for her later in the series. i was genuinely mad because she had this really great relationship with dandelion and seeing that expanded on was something i felt we got cheated out of. all of the geralt and essi scenes we got i think should have been proportioned in a 1:2 ratio with scenes with her and dandelion / her and dandelion and geralt as a group, because she really didn’t get enough development of her own but had a lot of potential. 

plus sapkowski was just like “actually dandelion isn’t always incredibly self-absorbed and blinded by arrogance, let me demonstrate situations in which he cares deeply about the people involved and acts appropriately” and then immediately tossed that concept out of the window until we get to the end of time of contempt/roll into baptism of fire. like you’re really going to throw away the potential for depth and development for one of the main characters that’s the constant contrast to your main character. idk it was just nice to see how dandelion’s character changed to be more mature with essi in the room bc that’s his little sister ;w;

also can i just say the subplot with sh’eenaz and duke agloval annoyed me to no end. the message of the main plot is supposed to be that a little sacrifice for love is actually a really large sacrifice, and geralt refuses to hold any resentment against yennefer anymore because he realizes that she has sacrificed a lot for him and he hasn’t in return:

“A little sacrifice isn’t enough here; you’d have to sacrifice everything, and there’d still be no way of knowing if that would be enough (...) Now I know that a little sacrifice is a hell of a lot.” 

but then sh’eenaz loses her fishy tail for duke agloval ON TOP of all of the sacrifices she has made for him before? i can’t deal with this, i call bullshit. the duke has NO redeeming qualities and i still can’t see them as a couple because he was such a dick. so this relationship being part of what demonstrates “a little sacrifice” really just serves to muddle the message of the short story

i have an idea to rewrite the whole thing so to make essi x sh’eenaz real (there is potential in this ship) and the message clearer. i think there should be no romance between essi and geralt because it’s weird and for a character who is basically just Younger & Female Dandelion to immediately fall hard and fast in love with geralt is eye-rolling. i get that it’s about the message and themes of the story and not about the characters, i understand this, the characters actually matter very little, but the message would even be clearer if sh’eenaz had left the duke for essi, because it would show that sh’eenaz has already sacrificed, she’s already done so much, and because the duke never reciprocated, she left him and found love with a better person. and that could be geralt’s wakeup call that a little sacrifice really is a hell of a lot, it would send him hightailing to apologize to yennefer or at least communicate to her that he appreciates her sacrifices that she has made for him, because if you don’t appreciate the sacrifices, you will lose your loved ones.

also ofc i’d involve gerlion and all of this because i feel like there is this weird, buried trail of gerlion vs geryennefer running throughout the sword of destiny, here is my “im looking at this too closely” analysis of the path of how gerlion and geryennefer both get to exist:

bounds of reason - geralt is of course still on good terms with dandelion, but needs to mend things with yennefer, and he manages to do so by the end of the story, also dandelion and yennefer are mildly antagonistic to each other (i also cross out That Comment/Joke/Scene from my mind just fyi, its really just horrible and out of place so i cant consider it as canon)

a shard of ice - geralt and yennefer still have feelings for each other but end up separated by the end of the short story because of insecurities relating to their capacities for love and their relationships with others: there is this contrast between yennefer and istredd, which is a long relationship of friendship and istredd is someone yennefer goes to when she needs security that she will be loved, geralt is someone in contrast that she is very passionately in love with and isn’t really thinking about longtime reliability with

eternal flame - geralt and yennefer have called it quits for now, dandelion also just broke up with his girlfriend, geralt and dandelion meet in a city and decide to get smashed together. that situation alone calls for a single eyes emoji. but id like to point out the parallel here between yen/istredd and geralt/dandelion, dandelion is someone geralt goes to for security in that he will be loved, that his company will be liked and appreciated. also one of the stupidest things ive come up with is that “eternal flame” does mean some romantic interest who’s been in your life seemingly forever and you’ll always love, and the story IS called... ok anyways.... at the end of the story we are presented with this weirdly emotional scene as dudu changes into dandelion because from being geralt for a few seconds, he knows his thoughts and knows that geralt will never use violence against him & that he’ll let him go... this is a very interesting scene because of how comic the rest of the story is in tone

a little sacrifice [rewritten] - so my take on this would be that geralt and dandelion have unresolved and unacknowledged closeness and it’s eating at the both of them. geralt is just annoying because he doesn’t think he’s ‘normal’ enough for love, basically nothing really needs to change except the last 3 to 4 chapters... they still have the argument in bed, they still go to investigate the dragon’s teeth together. just instead of essi randomly confessing the all-consuming, obsessive romantic feelings for geralt that she developed in less than 35 pages, dandelion and geralt are the ones sitting down just discussing what is going on with their relationship that has been developed in-depth for i guess five short stories now (including the voice of reason) and around 15 to 20 in-universe years that have not had any affect on their ages because that’s narrative for you. instead of geralt having to console a lovesick girl crying over him and thinking that he can’t make this little sacrifice, the theme of sacrifice for love is carried over by a discussion of how much they have already sacrificed for one another over the years, and contributes to the redux theme of “sacrifice for love needs to be reciprocated.” simultaneously, after sh’eenaz leaves the duke for a better option, geralt realizes the meaning of a little sacrifice and realizes how he has acted poorly towards yennefer, and seeks to make things right with her again. THUS we can have both ships and they wont conflict.

the sword of destiny - holy shit none of this romance drama shit matters AFTER ALL. actually it’s the CHILD which has been important all of this time, and it’s time to be responsible or invite doom across the threshold... ah wait okay doom has already entered the house. doom is eating tostitos and bean dip.

something more - following consequences of the end of the sword of destiny. obviously about ciri but yennefer and dandelion also have incredibly significant scenes in this short story and i think it’s just to represent that they’re also important in geralt’s life

beginning of blood of elves - yennefer and dandelion actually have a good conversation about everything including geralt and they basically matrue up and agree to never be hostile towards each other ever again. they both see that the others give him something that they cannot, and they’re not in competition with each other at all

tl;dr

yeah no prob! there is an official chronological order for the books:

the last wish

the sword of destiny

blood of elves

time of contempt

baptism of fire

the tower of the swallow

the lady of the lake

even though the last wish and the sword of destiny are compilations of short stories and not novels like the rest of the saga, they come before blood of elves and set up all of the action

also i would say don’t worry too much about having read season of storms before the other books, it doesn’t really have “spoilers” for anything except geralt’s relationships with dandelion and yennefer, but that’s inconsequential as well because they come into it pretty early on and there’s no like, big twist, like “OMG massive spoilers geralt has a best friend and a wife!!!”