So, I know I haven't posted in forever, but a bunch of things happened so I didn't, so I'm coming back in with a bang. This is an approximately 5k explanation of the lore, worldbuilding, and biology information I couldn't fit into this vampire Jaskier fic I wrote for a gift exchange. I really hope you enjoy it. Also, for clarity, I used lowercase; higher vampire, when talking about all sentient vampires, alps, bruxa, etc, and capitals; Higher Vampire, when talking about the kind of vampire that Regis and others are. 

Before the Conjunction 

The first time I started deep diving into Witcher vampire lore, and coming up with my own, I came up with a general idea for their previous world before they were brought to the Continent by the Conjunction of spheres, based on their traits. For one, the vampire's size, approximately the same as humans, is extremely unique among sanguivores (animals that feed on blood). Almost all of the species who do so are bugs and insects, which are many many times smaller than the animals they feed on, both for sneaking the blood so the provider of the blood doesn't notice, and so they can feed multiple times on the same victim with no problems (or, in the case of ticks, stay on the victim for as long as they live without having to find a new host because of lack of blood). Of course, there are many exceptions, like several kinds of lampreys that feed on fish that are similar sizes, or slightly bigger than them, (though they feed on other body fluids as well, not just blood) or the white-winged, and hairy-legged vampire bats, which are about the size of a mouse, and prefer birds, including domestic chickens. But those are exceptions, and so I figured that it was likely that in their original world, they fed on creatures far larger than them, maybe something similar in size to the biggest dinosaurs. 

It's also likely that that world would have lower gravity, which would assist in making it possible for the giant creatures they fed on to move around and support their own weight (like the ocean does for large whales, and is part of why sea creatures can grow so much bigger than land creatures) and also make it easier for the vampires to leap up high enough to get blood from them. Sanguivores need to have very good mobility to feed from their much larger prey, so most of them are able to fly, or at least jump extremely high. An example is fleas, which can jump up to 150 times their body height. In the higher gravity of the Continent, their jumping skills would be much less impressive, but they still have much more speed and strength than any other humanoid species on the Continent.

Blood as a food source 

When I started actually researching sanguivores in order to write the story, I found out something very interesting. Animals that feed purely on blood usually have to drink much more of it than other similar sized animals have to eat of other foods. Blood is not a nutritious food source at all. It is approximately 95% water, and the rest is mostly protein, with a little bit of sugars and a tiny bit of vitamins and minerals. If you assume that the vampires have a similar need for calories as a human, they would need to drink approximately an entire full grown human worth of blood every single day. In modern times, it wouldn’t be much of an issue to stay unnoticed in a large city, even for quite a few vampires, because of the sheer amount of humans that go missing or are murdered each day. However, on the Continent, which would likely be similar to medieval times in our history, it would be significantly harder to be a vampire without arousing suspicion, as populations are smaller, and also far more spread out, making it very easy for people to notice that people are being taken, especially if they're feeding off an entire person each day. They would also need to travel a lot to be able to feed before being driven off. And that's just for one vampire in the area, any group of vampires would have to travel very often to accommodate their need for blood, which is probably why most vampires travel alone, and tend to be rare in the games. Except for the vampire brothel in the games, where blood can be exchanged for sex, making it far easier for multiple vampires to survive in one spot. 

Of course, cattle and other large animals have about 6 times more blood than humans, which would make it easier, and far more likely to find them in the wilds, where there would be no contracts, and where Witchers would be less likely to find them. This is helped by the multiple large monsters in this world that they could feed on, like wyverns, griffins, or even kikimores! Of course, it seems that most of their skills seem fine tuned for feeding off humanoids, and most mentions of them have them only feeding on humanoid blood, but I will discuss that later. The thing is, there seems to be a lot more vampires around Toussaint, as in Blood and Wine, there were enough to completely overrun the sizable city of Beauclair, with mostly farmland around it, and not many wild areas for vampires to hide. What was their source of blood that so many of them could live unknown so close to the city?

Part of the reason creatures that feed on blood are pervasive in so many cultures, is the more metaphysical aspects of blood. It was often seen as a source of life energy, a type of magical energy that was unique to each person, and the source of much of their energy, which is why most cultures have some sort of blood magic, and often used blood as a signature of sorts. This is sort of similar to how succubi and incubi are said to feed on life energy, through the method of having sex with people. If vampires were feeding on the more metaphysical life energy as well as the actual calories that blood gives them, it's more than reasonable to assume it would reduce their need to feed, so they don't need to drink an entire human per day.

I mentioned in the story that blood from the veins and blood from arteries has different properties for the vampires that drink it, so I thought I'd provide an explanation here. Arterial blood provides more instant energy, and venous blood provides less, mostly due to the circumstances in which it is taken. For vampires who don't want to hurt their donors, taking from an artery would be dangerous and far more likely to be deadly because of the combination of the fast pumping artery (depending on the artery and how badly it's injured, you can bleed out from an artery in under a minute) and their anticoagulant venom. However, if you're fighting someone, not only will your heart beat faster, pumping blood out of the wound faster, but you also get a dose of the adrenaline pumping through your veins, giving a vampire an even bigger advantage if they can process the adrenaline quickly. (Just about every animal on earth can make and process adrenaline, so if the vampires are close enough to be able to process human blood, they can probably also process adrenaline). But if they're taking from a slow pumping vein, the process of taking blood will be calmer and slower, and without the adrenaline of fighting or having sex, the painkillers in their venom would have greater effect, and probably calm the person even further. 

But that's not the only reason arterial blood has more energy in my universe. I was thinking about how the life energy vampires also feed off would work, how in lore, it's finite (can die if enough is sucked out of you) needs to be carried in the blood so vampires can access it, but also be accessible to succubi and incubi, who also feed off it. For that, I'm associating it heavily with blood. And because in the past, the heart was seen as the center of the mind rather than the brain, I wanted to incorporate that, and have the heart be the source of life energy. So arterial blood, fresh from the heart would be full of life energy, while venous blood would be empty of it, going to the heart to be refilled. So arterial blood would be a better source of energy, but also far more dangerous to the donor.

Note; while many stories of vampires that feed on humanoids have them have a venom/saliva with coagulation properties (to reduce blood loss and death after feeding) every sanguivore that I know of on earth has saliva or venom with anticoagulants, to ensure that the smaller blood vessels they're feeding off don't close so soon after opening. If vampires originally fed on animals much larger than humans, they would need anticoagulants for the same reasons as creatures like mosquitoes. To have the properties of their saliva change to the exact opposite effects is extremely unlikely when it would probably do nothing to help them, and probably take thousands of years to develop.

Vampires feeding off life energy as well as blood could also explain why, 1) they seem tailored to feed from humanoids, because I believe that humanoids would have more life energy than animals due to their sentience, so human blood would give them more energy, and 2) why higher vampires only get drunk off of the blood of sentient beings, (I cannot find a direct quote to either contradict or confirm this, feel free to let me know if I'm wrong) because it provides something extra that animal blood doesn't. Of course, even with that, it would still be hard to maintain a consistent blood source, especially if they don't care about human lives and kill every human they feed from. 

A vampire community 

The dramatically higher density of vampires around Toussaint must have a cause, and I believe that cause is some kind of vampire community in Toussaint, where they work together with humans to get the blood they need. I believe there must be a vampire noble family of some sort ruling over the area, so the human nobles believe that the area is under control and that they don't need to visit. I'm going with this idea partially because I'm keeping Jaskier’s (a Higher Vampire in the story) background of being noble born, and partially because Orianna was a very rich and well thought of vampire, that seemed to be a noble of some kind, possibly connected to Jaskier’s parents. Also, a place where vampires could live freely with humans would almost certainly have to be ruled by vampires, as in the world of the Witcher humans would never put aside their prejudices enough to let that happen. 

This community would probably be extremely careful about keeping themselves away from any attention from Witchers, killing dangerous monsters in the area and policing their own to make sure no rebellious teenagers (like Regis) go wild on blood and attract attention. I bet that once the group that pressured Regis into blood drinking was found out, they were killed or driven out so they wouldn’t attract attention from Witchers. 

I believe that Regis was a part of this community partially because I wanted him and Jaskier to know each other, and partially because his name means kingly or regal, which added to the sheer amount of names he has, similar to traditions of the British royal family, heavily implies he's a noble of some kind, possibly Jaskier’s cousin, and was supposed to be the heir until Jaskier came along. It could also go well with Dettlaff's distant appreciation of him, never getting up the courage to talk to someone more noble than him. Another reason I believe Regis was a part of that community is that he was once in a relationship with the Queen of the Night, who later became the Madame of a brothel that offered sex for blood, offering the same kind of stable food source and safety that the vampire community could. Maybe she was even inspired to set out on her own to create her own community by Regis' addiction, wanting to make more safe places for vampires to live without needing to kill. 

The community would likely have the non-vampire villagers pay their taxes mostly in freely given blood rather than goods or money, (though some goods and money would be necessary to pay the taxes of the nobles above them). I also believe there would be a lot of innovation, medical and magical in that kingdom, because of the blood need. The vampires would likely be able to detect illness, deficiencies, and other medical issues that can be detected in the blood, which would likely lead to impressive medical care that anyone can access in that kingdom, both due to them having more knowledge about blood and the body, and due to a vested interest in making sure the blood they feed on tastes good (it would be a very likely evolutionary advantage to make healthy blood taste good in order to make sure their only food is giving them everything they need, and not hurting them, like how rotting food usually tastes/smells gross). Magical innovation would likely be because they would be searching for some way to multiply blood, or remove their reliance on it entirely, also working on a way to reopen the portal to their home world. All that would explain why there are so many more vampires in Toussaint than anywhere else.

After the Conjunction 

Now for my explanation on how vampires as a species so easily switched from feeding on creatures much larger than them, to primarily feeding on humanoids. I believe that the lower varieties of vampires, the ones that are not sentient, are more likely to live in the wilds and hunt creatures rather than humans, while the sentient ones are more likely to hunt humans, just due to the amount of skills that seem specifically tuned to hunt humans. These skills are very common in the sentient ones, but always seem absent in the non-sentient ones, skills like telepathy, shape shifting, the intelligence to blend in as a human, usually a better resistance to the sun, and invisibility to magical scanning. 

We all know that Higher Vampires each have a unique power, like Dettlaff's power over lesser vampires, and the possible variety of powers is unknown, possibly every power you could ever think of, and that makes Higher Vampires an extremely adaptive species. The only disadvantage is the very low numbers of them that we know of, despite how hard it is to kill them. This makes it likely that they have extremely low fertility, or very long reproductive cycles, making children a very rare occurrence. This makes sense with their impossibly long lifespan and invincibility unless killed by another higher vampire, as otherwise, the whole world would be quickly overtaken by higher vampires, even over other vampire species with the fact that they do not need any food/blood to live, so there is no need to have many children. 

However, it's very likely that they can interbreed with the other higher varieties of vampire. They all have many similarities, both physical and in their abilities, so it's likely they can interbreed like humans and Neanderthals could, and it's likely the cause of all of the sentient vampires being able to blend in with and hunt humans so easily. If they previously drank from creatures far larger than them, the ability to look more like a human would be completely useless, only making them more vulnerable with a lack of claws and teeth, and I speculate that vampires were the only humanoids in their original universe, given how most of them don’t see humans as more valuable than prey, not accepting them as other sentient beings. Much like the humans in the Witcher universe actually! So they had to find a way to blend in, and fast, because humans already had legends of evil blood drinkers, and were fully willing to kill them. 

The source of vampires ability to shape-shift and use telepathy was likely higher vampires who had those abilities naturally, and interbred with the other sentient vampires, passing the abilities along so quickly due to the environmental pressure to blend in, especially as humans began mutating the ability to use the Chaos in the new universe, and start to hold their own against vampires. Especially because they had to adapt to the higher gravity of the new world, and lack of their traditional food source, so they would be at a disadvantage, whereas humans came from a very similar world and could easily use their previous knowledge in this new world. And the cause of higher vampires breeding so rapidly and easily with the other sentient vampires? The intoxicating abilities of human blood. Even if they wouldn’t breed with them usually (for cultural reasons I suspect, which I will share later) the sudden ability to get intoxicated, and their sudden removal from everything familiar would likely combine to make them want any kind of connection and closeness with familiar species as they could, making it easier to breed important survival traits into the different species very quickly. 

Vampire genetics

However, some of the higher vampire species are weirdly different from each other, other than the abilities that make it easy to hunt humans. One major thing I found though, was that mula, Higher Vampires, katakans, and nosferats have both a very humanlike, and a very batlike form (the only semi-official image of a mula I found looked somewhere in between the two, so that could be either an inbetween form, or it's only form, but apparently it can look very similar to other vampires in their human form, so it likely does have both forms, and the one image was just in an inbetween form) and bruxae and alps have a very humanlike, female looking form, and can shape-shift into a full animal, like a large bat or cat. (Sidenote; it is specifically stated in the Blood and Wine bestiary that alps can turn into animals, though it is not mentioned anywhere else. As for bruxae, there is a scene in the books where a bruxa turns into an "enormous black bat". This could be interpreted as a humanish bat form like many other vampires, but in the translation I read, it seemed like it had no humanoid features in its bat form, never standing upright like a human, and having full, working wings instead of the more humanlike arms in all other higher vampires batlike forms. As far as I know, only Higher Vampires of the higher vampires have full wings they can use to fly in bat form. The bruxa could partially transform back into a human, like how other higher vampires have in between forms, giving it a few humanoid features, but it was described as distinctly different from its fully batlike form, so the full bat form is clearly not at all humanoid) 

This sharp difference in its shapeshifting and forms despite the fact they can interbreed heavily implies either sexual dimorphism so strong that they appear to be entirely separate species, or that they are separate species that regularly interbreed, with some of the species being entirely one sex. Of course, it's possible that the purely female appearance of bruxae and alps is just a part of luring humans in, and both males and females of the species look like female humans when in their humanoid form, but it's 1) a little harder to fit into the ideas I have, and 2) less likely that Higher Vampires would interbreed with them, thus making their ability to all disguise themselves a little less likely. And 3) a lot of the lore of this story was heavily inspired by the worldbuilding of this fic, so I wanted all the alps and bruxae to be female. 

I do find it unlikely that bruxae and alps wouldn't have a batlike form like all the others, as it seems like they have a more humanlike form, as well as being able to look more distinctly like a vampire, with longer nails and teeth, but still mostly humanlike. This could be their more batlike form, but it's more likely to be an inbetween form. They would also probably have a true form in their original world before they could disguise themselves as humans, so I believe that they do have a more batlike form that we've never seen in canon. Maybe they can only bear young in their batlike form, which would make them more vulnerable and also harder to hide amongst humans, so they may hide away in the wilderness, possibly getting mistaken for other species with a known batlike form. 

In the wiki, the mula is only referred to with male pronouns, and Higher Vampires, katakans, and nosferats seem to be both, reffered to with neutral pronouns, with none of them being able to turn into an ordinary animal, though Higher Vampires and mulas can turn into a mist form instead. (Fun fact, Higher Vampires having a mist form is only seen in cutscenes in the games, and that fact is not in the wiki. This gave me a panicked moment in the last phases of editing this, where I thought this entire part was heavily based on some widely accepted fanon. Fun times.) And funnily enough, the only higher vampires we know of are all male, (and in my story, including Jaskier) though they are referred to by neutral pronouns in the wiki like the other species that can be either male or female. Maybe because of each one's unique abilities, they can be female very rarely, with males being much more common, which would also make it possible for them to breed within their group, fitting the cultural aspects I came up with. 

Because of all of this, I believe that they are a heavily sexually dimorphic species, except with males, females, and hermaphrodites instead of just males and females. It's possible that katakans and nosferats could be either sex instead of hermaphrodites, but that would make the sex chromosomes more complicated, so I'll stick with the simpler option. Another option is that they are separate species that can interbreed, but as the most well accepted definition of species is that it is a group that can interbreed and have viable and fertile offspring, so having multiple species that easily interbreed and pass genes between them and through generations makes it unlikely that they are all separate species by our definition. (Of course, in our world, some species are considered different species because they can't interbreed purely due to living in different places, and the Conjunction could have gotten rid of geographical limitations, making them technically different species, but I'm going with Occam's Razor for this) So the way I made it is that females (bruxae and alps) have the ability to turn into other animals like bats, cats, or other animals, while males (Higher Vampires and mulas) have a mist form. But katakans and nosferats, getting both genes, wouldn't be able to do either, needing two copies of one kind of transformation gene to be able to do it. Also, both katakans and nosferats are the only higher vampires that are susceptible to the sun (except for alps, but it doesn't seem to actually hurt them, just tan them very darkly), so that's a gene that is probably connected to the sex chromosomes in vampires. 

I was also inspired by the side blotched lizard, a species with three varieties of males, each with a different set of markings, behaviors, and mating preferences, which shows that you can have distinct varieties of a sex within the same species without them combining, making the two varieties of each sex of higher vampire perfectly viable. So females would need two female genes, males would need two male genes, and the hermaphrodites would have one copy of each. Thus, Higher Vampires could breed with almost all the other types of higher vampire, passing on their adaptations for the new world, except for the mulas. They would only be able to pass it on to a hermaphrodite variety, which could only then pass it on to the mulas, which could be a good in-universe explanation for why they are so rare (aka, are in none of the games, and are only mentioned once in the books), because it took longer for the gene to transform into a much more humanlike form to pass down.

Vampire culture

Almost all of this is pure speculation based on other ideas about them I came up with, because there are very few facts about it on the wiki. We know that all intelligent (higher) vampires celebrate full moons as an important holiday. We know that there are three different tribes of vampires that live in different places. That's about it. So I'm doing a lot of speculation here. For one, I believe that there is some kind of higher being/god that they believe in and worship, likely tied to the full moon. It seems unlikely that the being they worship would be an Unseen Elder, as it is shown that even Higher Vampires are terrified of disturbing them, and full moon celebrations usually consist of raiding villages and getting drunk on blood, and given that bruxae are said to sing shrill and sickening songs after they drink blood, I doubt they're trying to worship the unseen elder, who we know does not like disturbances or excessive conversation. However, I do believe that Higher Vampires, especially the Unseen Elders, are seen as the favorites of that god, much like prophets, saints, and the Pope are seen in Christianity. The scene in Blood and Wine where Geralt talks to the Unseen Elder seems to imply that only the elders are allowed to decide that a Higher Vampire can be killed, and even then, the vampire who did the killing is still ostracized, which makes it even more likely that Higher Vampires are fairly rare, and also revered in some way. Their power over all other vampires would also cause them to be seen as blessed, or just better than any other kinds of vampires. (Dettlaff having the power to control lesser vampires makes it likely that he has the possibility to become an Unseen Elder, because as Higher Vampires get older, their powers grow, so I assume that if he gets old enough, he would be able to control other Higher Vampires as well. This could also explain why the Unseen Elder is willing to help Geralt with Dettlaff when the direct threat to him seems minimal to us, because Dettlaff has the potential to usurp him in the future). This power, the other random powers they could have, and their near invulnerability, would make it easy to think that they are the most favored of whatever deity they worship, and thus the most superior kind of vampire. Even the fact that they have no need to drink blood like any other vampires could contribute to the belief that they are better somehow, more spirit than body. Like how in many religions there are fasting rituals that supposedly bring them closer to their god or gods, or stories of people so close to the gods that they didn’t need to eat at all. 

But all this would make Higher Vampires feel superior, and want to breed only within their own type, much like medieval royal families (the infinite lifespans and the rarity of children would lessen the impact of inbreeding). But for that to happen, they would either need to have Higher Vampires that can birth children, which could be possible due to the wide array of powers they can have, and real world sex differentiation being more complicated than you think, like bird species that usually have two sexes having an animal be half male and half female, both gonads being functional, or they pull other types of vampires that can bear them children into the "royal family" to have children for them, likely a combination of both. 

Also, in the vampire language, they likely have three or four gendered pronouns instead of the three in the English language, (depending if they have a neutral pronoun or not) masculine, feminine, neutral, and ones referring to the hermaphrodites. This makes it likely that they are more likely to accept trans and nonbinary vampires than humans would, especially if there can be Higher Vampires that can bear children despite the species being all male usually. Maybe those vampires even have a specific pronoun, just for them! The vampire language shown in the games is mostly derived from Etruscan, (an ancient language that we only know for certain the meanings of a few hundred words) which (to my minimal knowledge of how languages work, and a few Wikipedia articles) seems to only have two pronouns. 

Anyway, this is my worldbuilding of the Witcher vampires, but feel free to ask me to clarify if something is a bit muddled, use this worldbuilding in your own stories, heavily adapt it, or correct a fact I got wrong! I really enjoy people using little pieces of my ideas! I'm hoping to post a little more often in the future, but I can't promise anything. I should respond to comments/people tagging me more often now though!

Guys, this is a super cool idea, so I thought I'd spread the word! I'll be joining, though I won't be writing any of it, just helping with ideas and planning it out. Talk to them if you're interested about it, it's sure to be a great project!

Avengers Sitcom Fanfic

Hi, I’m putting this up on tumblr instead of a discord thread because I don’t know which ships will be included at this point but I’ve been wanting more and more to write episodic fic to give us the Avengers Sitcom we’ve all been looking for since 2012.

I’m looking for

co-writers to help me plan the show and write episodes if they want

people with good knowledge of the canon (cinema or any of the comic universes)

feedback from potential readers on what they’d like to read (NOTE: I am not promising to include everything suggested but I will try and take as much into account as possible)

I am thinking

something in the realm of if Fremulon were given the project; B99, Parks and Rec, Superstore, character growth, humour, representation, but not a high level of angst.

Also, your tag, "SHIELD's A+ parenting" is a golden tag. SHIELD has "custody" of so many people with unusual circumstances who are so dependent on them (like Steve after the ice) and it misuses that trust so badly (Steve being alone in a cabin right after the ice, taking advantage of Natasha's want to remove the red in her ledger, etc) That tag really just fits the circumstances so well.

AO3 tags are funny because:

“Dad [Character]” or “Mom [Character]”–fic contains said character’s relationships with their official or unofficial children. Can be taken as read that they’re good parents.

“[Character] Is A Good Parent” or “Good Parent [Character]”–means exactly what it says, that this fic contains character being a good parent. However, is usually reserved for characters who are not always good parents, or not considered such by some of the fandom. It has a defensive edge.

“[Character] Is A Bad Parent” or “Bad Parent [Character]”–again, exactly what it says. And, again, generally reserved for characters whose parenting status is debated in fandom.

“[Character]’s A+ Parenting”–this is where it gets less straightforward. This one is always, entirely, sarcastic. Contains character being a terrible, terrible parent.

“[Character]’s B+ Parenting”–oddly, this one is sincere! Contains character being a flawed parent, messing some things up, but sincerely trying and loving their kids.

“World’s Okayest Parent”/”World’s Tryingest Parent”–this is the writer saying “I can’t in good conscience say they’re a good parent but I love them and I think they did their best… whether that was good enough or not.”

(Of course these tags are generally about dads, in practice, but they mean the same thing either way.)

My WIP titles, in a random order, and yes, you can ask me about them.

Valentines fic

Morning after

New crossover

A man's best friend (is his soulmate)

Geralt's first child surprise

Wanda and Pietro

Remix

Untitled document

Five times a Howling Commando was glad they didn’t have the serum (and one time they wished they did)

Tagging: @stuckyflangst @bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher @prowlingthunder

Fanfic WIP Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @turtle-steverogers!

Rules: List all your WIP titles, all meaning even the ones that are vague or nonsensical. Tag as many people as there are WIPs (whoever invented that rule clearly wasn’t a writer lol okay) --- agreed

My wip titles are listed in order of 'worked on most recently' to 'haven't touched in a while'. Feel free to inquire about any if you wish!

(Or Not)

Forest of Apple Trees

Therapy Works (if you therapist isn't a Hydra agent)

The Captain and the Asset

It's not your fault

Mirror mirror

Alt Options 11 Steve and the Battle in Wakanda

Alt Options 12 The Alt-Alt Timeline

Ice and Blood

Dreaming of You

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Tagging: @usaonetwothree @perplexinglyparadoxialperson @jinxquickfoot @gaiagalit

Dying Clothes Black With Monster Blood; How it Might Actually Work

So a bit ago I realized that black monster blood being used to dye Witchers clothes was something that existed in fanon fairly heavily, and so me being me, I started doing some research. See, in medieval times, while a halfway decent black dye was readily available, by dying it in common dyes, first blue, then red or yellow, it heavily effected the lifespan of the garment. See, the longer a garment spent in the dye, the more it would degrade, and the shorter the lifespan of the garment. Add that to the amount of wear and tear a Witchers clothes go through and constant mending, it would last significantly shorter than any other clothes, and be far more expensive in the long run. For leather, it was far easier to dye black, needing to just soak the leather with iron and an acid (and tannins, which would have already been in there from the leather being tanned). However, it takes about two weeks of soaking to get a deep black, so it could be quite expensive. So black clothes on a Witcher would be highly unlikely and expensive, from either a long term or a short term perspective. So monster blood being black dye was by far the most logical solution. That could even make it seem like Witchers have more money than they do, to constantly have so much black cloth and leather on them, which could make people think that they profit heavily off monsters and destruction, making them less likely to pay them reasonably. Unfortunately, from the wiki, it seemed that no monsters had black blood. Unfortunate, but that wasn't going to stop me.

I started to think that maybe vampires and necrophages would have black blood. They eat blood and rotting bodies respectively, which would require some specialized ways of dealing with the higher risk factor of that kind of diet versus the fresh, raw meat that most other monsters eat. I assumed that they might have a specialized protein or enzyme that would protect from that, which might make their blood black. The enzyme would have to be able to grab onto both cells not of the body they were created in and poisonous compounds, which sounds highly inconceivable, but maybe it would bind to and deactivate poisons and tag cells that aren't of that body for destruction? It would be very hard to explain how it can tell foreign cells from ones of that body, and I honestly don't know enough cellular biology to explain that part, but there is magic in the Witcher universe, so if it isn't possible, I'll just say it's magic.

Then, I remembered that the potion Black Blood exists, so I looked it up. The whole point of it is that it poisons your blood, so if any necrophages or vampires try to take a bite out of you, they get poisoned. The thing is, one of the main ingredients in Black Blood in the third Witcher game is four units of ghouls blood. So I started to think, maybe whatever makes their blood black, also makes them mildly poisonous to others of their kind, so they don't go after each other. The process of brewing the potion would concentrate it of course, especially with the addition of potentially poisonous mushrooms, but the base of it is in the blood. And then, I saw that Black Blood has high toxicity (in the first game, in the third game it has low toxicity, which makes no sense to me, it's literally poisoning their blood!) And I remembered that high toxicity turns Witcher's blood black. (The veins around their eyes are black, so I'm assuming that the rest of their blood is black.) I was thinking that maybe Witchers have some of that enzyme too, and when their livers are overwhelmed, that stuff starts to bind to the toxins in their blood, turning it black.

I figure that this enzyme would grab onto toxic compounds, bind to them and deactivate them, turning black in the process, making them harmless, and easy to flush out of the body by peeing. (Which would mean after going toxic, Witchers would probably pee black. I can only imagine how concerning that would be for someone to see a Witcher pee black.) Of course, with those enzymes made by their bodies already, Witchers could get black blood if they ingested enough of any common poison, but without any of the good effects of potions. These enzymes would probably be an essential part of a Witcher's immune system and poison resistance, and part of why their body can handle poisons and sicknesses so much easier than humans.

Now, in Black Blood, that concentrated amount of enzymes that attack unknown cells would in itself do some damage to monsters, but it would also quickly attack Geralt too, because he isn't the creature that made those enzymes, but it would be more effective if some of those enzymes were bound to a poison that keeps working after it was bound, possibly from the mushrooms also in the recipe. That way some of it wouldn't bind to the Witchers cells, and stay floating around in their blood for the enemy to grab a mouthful of. It would also make sure that any monster closely related enough to the monster that gave the blood in the potion to not be effected would still be hurt by it.

This would likely mean that Black Blood would take longer to subside, and be a lot more dangerous than most other potions, because the poison is already bound, so that enzyme in their own blood wouldn't bind it, so it still does damage to them as their body flushes it out. That would make the poison in those specific mushrooms a highly effective way to poison Witchers, because it can bypass a very important part of their poison resistance, so it would be incredibly important that non-Witchers don't find out.

But, if that enzyme only turns black after grabbing onto an compound not made by the body or tagging a cell for destruction, then it would make sense why vampires and necrophages don't have black blood normally, making ignoring the wiki saying that no monsters have black blood completely unnecessary. (Though maybe their blood would get darker after a meal, when it has stuff to attach to, which would make it easy for Witchers could tell how recently they had fed.) Of course, because it binds to organic materials, Witchers would only be able to collect it in glass or metal, as anything it came in contact with that was organic would easily stain black. Cotton, leather, wood, bone, even turtle shells! However, the shells of sea creatures wouldn't be effected, mostly being made of calcium carbonate.

To further this theory, I looked through the entire Witcher wiki for things related to blood, and found some interesting things. So in the games, when you kill monsters, you can loot their corpses for materials from that monster. I would assume that Witchers would only normally pick up parts that are useful for something, so I'm assuming that the parts Geralt can pick up in the games are only the important ones. Almost all the materials in all three games that are a kind of blood that you can get from monsters is from vampires or necrophages, implying that there is something about those kinds of blood that's unique and important. The only exceptions are blood from bloedzuigers in the first game, which are like leeches in that they drink blood, the same food as vampires, so they would likely have the same compound in their blood, quest items (often used in highly specific circumstances and is human blood fairly regularly) and monster blood from the third game, which can be crafted from almost any monster part, and is used to craft a wide variety of different things. Because of this, I'm taking it as purely a game mechanic, so the developers didn't have to code it so that any monster part could work for every single one of the 55 recipes that require monster blood. And yes, I counted them. So there wouldn't be anything special about the fact that it's blood, making blood from vampires and necrophages the only important and unique blood from monsters that a Witcher could use.

Another odd thing I found in the wiki is a material called Abomination lymph, which is only obtained from vampires, necrophages, and bloedzuigers. Lymph isn't blood, though it does have similarities, which only makes it a weird coincidence, but I thought it was some very interesting information.

This whole research hole was very interesting, and though I don't know enough about cellular biology to produce a theory about this that fits real world biology well, (if you have any info that connects to this I would gladly hear it) I connected a lot of interesting pieces, and have some very interesting ideas that will definitely be incorporated into my stories from now on. Hope you enjoyed!

Saaaaame

shout out to the girlies who didn't have tumblr in 2012 but experienced it secondhand via scrolling through screenshots on pinterest in 2016

okay so I know this makes some ppl uncomfy and others dont care but!

reblog if you’re okay with people spam liking your posts

im okay with it! just thinking this might help ppl

100 AO3 Subscribers Event🎉

I wasn’t expecting to ever get this far, much less this fast, but thank you so much. I know that there’s probably some people here who don’t read my fanfic, but here is the best place to announce it (though I will also be announcing it in the notes of my next few fics) and run the event, so I’ll be doing it here. Feel free to participate even if you don’t subscribe to me on AO3!

What I’m going to be doing is allowing you guys to submit sentences, either Captain America or Witcher based, on either my AO3 fics or my Tumblr (the same username is used for both of them; PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson) and after I get how many I want, I will be putting them together to make a (probably very cracky) fic, one for each fandom. You will be able to submit them either as a comment on one of my fics, as a comment on here, or as an ask if you want to be anonymous on Tumblr.

The Rules

1) For your sentence to be properly submitted, you must tell me that the sentence is for the event and wether it’s for the Captain America or the Witcher story

2) Your sentence cannot be sexually explicit, as I do not write sexually explicit stuff very often, so I will be preemptively removing it

3) You must be okay with me minorly editing your sentence so that it can fit more easily into the overall story

If you are not okay with any of these rules, please do not participate.

Other than that, have fun! Submit one sentence, submit a bunch of sentences, either anonymously or not (if you do not submit it anonymously, I will ask you if you want to be credited, and you don’t have to say yes). I can’t promise to use every single sentence I receive, but I will try my absolute best to use the majority of them.

I will keep open submissions until the fandom with the least submissions gets to twenty-five sentences, though I might change that, depending on how quickly this goes, so keep an eye out for updates!

Thank you all so much for your support of me and my writing of the last two years; sometimes it feels like a dream that so many people like my writing! Your support, subscriptions, comments and likes truly keep me going, and keep me inspired to write!

🌺If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously, or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog!🌺

Number one, I have a weighted stuffy named Chester.

Number two, my absolute favorite colour is royal purple, and has been since i was in elementary school.

Number three, I work at a warehouse.

The Routes of Witchers

So, I basically live on the wiki of every fandom I’m in, and when I was looking up locations, I realized something weird about the locations in the Netflix show. Every one of them (that I remember at the moment) are in the Western half of the Continent. Except for Posada. Now, this may not seem very weird at first, but let me give you some context.

So I always write Geralt as autistic, because I relate to him really heavily, and I’m autistic, and it fits really well with him, so I’m going to use a lot of my own experiences as context. Of course, autism and other neurodivergence presents differently in different people, so it may be different than your own experience, or other’s experiences. I’m just going off my own experiences here.

For me personally, I hate change, especially at work. I need to know the rules of a place, how it works, exactly what to expect, or I panic. So if Geralt is even a little bit similar, he would need routine and habit to live happily on the Path. One of those things he would need is a route he takes every year, so he knows what to expect.

Having a route would mean that he knows exactly what cities and towns, and which businesses in them are welcoming to Witchers, which places he can trust for good armour and sword repairs, where patches of certain plants usually are, (for example, knowing that there’s a big patch of a certain plant just after a certain village, so he doesn’t have to pay for ingredients when some is just over the next hill) having people that he knows and is friendly with, knowing that maybe this one area blames every kind of monster activity on werewolves due to a local legend, so he can’t take them on their word about what they saw, and that certain people or places will always try to poison Witchers that come their way, that kind of thing. It would definitely make it easier on him to know things about the area.

So, I made this map of routes through the Continent, where Geralt’s route is the blue one. Lambert and Eskel would probably switch off on the other two, getting a change when they want one. Of course, they would zigzag and go off course as necessary to get to villages with contracts, but these are the basic routes.

The thing is, Posada is way out of the way for Geralt. I think though, after Blaviken, Geralt would completely avoid it, and switch routes to one on the other side of the Continent for the first time in his long life. That would mean that any people that count him as friends, that support him… he doesn’t see them anymore. He lost his stability and support system on the Path in one fell swoop. He changed routes, not only to avoid the virulent hatred for him over there, but probably also as a punishment for himself. Because he is the master of self-loathing, and would definitely do that to himself.

So imagine, he’s been doing the same route for literal decades, and then switches to one on the other side of the Continent abruptly. He has no clue which places are safe, what kind of monster activity is common, that kind of thing. So he heavily over prepares for everything, contract or not, going into a new town is ten times more nerve racking than normal (not only does he have to deal with the normal loud and overwhelmingness of each place, and not know what this village is like about Witchers, but the nickname of the Butcher of Blaviken marks him for even more hatred) he is so much more on guard and nervous… basically, he is an absolute wreck and I doubt he made it to Kaer Morhen the first winter because of how much longer he took, which definitely didn’t help his need for routine.

He does this for years, and gradually gets used to it, but it still doesn’t feel right, and he’s generally more anxious than he would be on the other route. And then he meets Jaskier in Posada. And Jaskier starts to improve his reputation, tries to convince him that he deserves good things, and… Geralt wants to see him more. So he decides to switch routes to see Jaskier more. Of course, he never says it, even to himself, but still. And that also lets him see his friends from the Path again, gives him even more support and love while out on the Path, all caused by Jaskier.

And it’s because he’s on the other side of the Continent that a lot of the things in the show happen, because he’s in certain places at certain times, which makes his blowup at Jaskier on the Mountain even sadder. Because, to a certain extent, it is Jaskier’s fault that all that craziness happened, because he’s what triggered the move back to his original route. Of course, it’s still bad that Geralt blew up at him at all, but it makes it a little more understandable.

Anyway, this has been another episode of me way over analyzing tiny details, hope to see you next time.

So, fun fact; apparently it isn’t normal for carrots to be bitter and make your mouth tingle slightly. It is possible I have a slight allergy to carrots. Whoops.

At least I like them that way?🤷

So I took part in the Shrunkyclunks Big Bang, and I can finally post my art! I worked with WinterSabbath, creating art for the wonderful fic, James Barnes: The Underworld's Best Friend. It’s a fascinating fic, full of mythical creatures, cute Stucky moments, and some really great moments! Put simply, Bucky is someone who is the connection between the mythical world and the human world, a job that has been passed down through generations of his family. I decided to illustrate the journal entries about their job that Bucky and his family wrote, with each author having a different drawing style! It was so much fun to experiment with different styles and techniques!

Just finished this! Spreading it so they can hopefully have a much larger sample size!

Do you READ or WRITE fanfiction?

Then I need your help for my grad dissertation!

Who I am: Emily Faulkner, MSc student at Robert Gordon University

I’m studying: The information-seeking behaviours of fanfiction communities and their applicability to libraries

Where: https://robertgordonuniversity.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/fanfiction-questionnaire

How long: About 30 mins depending on your fanfic sites

Closes: August 2nd, 2021 noon EST

Open to: adults who read and/or write fanfiction content (fan comics and podfics included)

My Gender Identity (Or Technically, My Lack Of One)

So last night, I went through the trending tag of Pride, and had some feelings about gender. So I did a ton of research and rambling to one of my discords, and figured out that I’m apogender. It’s under the umbrella of agender, but slightly different. Basically, it’s feeling completely removed from the idea of gender.

To explain it better, let me give you a metaphor. Let’s pretend that aliens contacted earth tomorrow, and we all got along and everything was fine. The thing is, all aliens in the universe assign pronouns on the basis of wether you like celery or not. Earth is the only planet that doesn’t. There are debates on it, like what you’re called if you only kind of like celery, or if you only like celery sometimes. There’s expectations about how you act and what you wear based on if you like it or not, what kind of jobs you can do. There’s discourse about what it means to like celery, and what it means if you liked it before, but don’t like it anymore, people questioning if they actually like celery, or if their parents just pushed their views onto them. There’s debate on whether marriages between two people who like celery should be recognized, because “it’s not the natural way of things! Marriages consist of someone who likes celery, and someone who doesn’t!” And through it all, there are us humans, who are very confused. Because celery isn’t really that important to us, liking it or not doesn’t matter much, so we don’t know why so many things are decided because of that. We just don’t really understand, because it’s so different from what we know. We wonder why on earth would someone be attracted to someone who likes celery over someone who doesn’t? What does that even matter? That is me, not properly understanding what gender is, or how it works. Like, you do you, as long as it’s not hurting anyone, but... I just don’t get it. It’s just so out of my sphere of understanding.

I’ve never exactly understood gender, as a concept, and was very confused about the idea of having opinions about what pronouns were used in relation to yourself, or having names that fit one gender or another, that kind of thing. The thing was, I didn’t really... explore the idea, or think too hard about it. I think some part of me subconsciously thought that being asexual and aromatic was fine, but my gender being weird was one step too far. But once I started properly figuring myself out, and found a discord that is practically my family already, I started exploring. I started by classifying myself as nonbinary, which felt right but not exactly. As part of trying to figure that out, I tried out using he/him pronouns for a bit, and they definitely didn’t feel wrong, but they also didn’t feel completely right. I assumed that was because I just wasn’t used to them. But later, I realized that she/her and they/them felt the same amount of not really right, but I didn’t even think to question it, because they didn’t feel wrong. So I started researching. Agender felt almost right, but not quite, but when I read the definition for apogender, it just... felt right. No pronouns feel quite right because I don’t understand the need for pronouns at all for myself, but none of them feel wrong either. So yeah, call me whatever pronouns you want, I don’t care enough to have a preference.

So, instead of doing things I should be doing, like making art for my big bang, I spent a majority of the weekend making these. A bracelet for each of my flags, asexual, aromantic, and nonbinary, as well as a rainbow infinity bracelet, symbolizing autism. Hyperfixation sure is something.

Do you think Steve could tan or get freckles after the serum?

I'm guessing he probably wouldn't sunburn easily.

Mini Super Soldier Serum Theories;Number Eight;Skin Discolourations

<Link to previous

First of all, burning. The reason our skin burns isn’t because of the heat of it, it’s because the UV radiation penetrates our skin and damages our DNA. Cells that have damaged DNA kill themselves by apoptosis, which prevents them from becoming cancerous. The more melanin we have in our skin, the less UV radiation penetrates our skin, which leads to far less sunburns. So while the natural resilience of serum enhanced cells would help with sunburns, it would only go so far if the super soldier had very pale skin, like Steve and Bucky. And add that to the fact that they are outside fighting things for hours on end without sunscreen, and it’s likely they would get many sunburns on their faces. Of course, the damaged DNA would be fixed, and/or be replaced quickly, so it wouldn’t be something to worry about. It’s even possible that most of the damaged DNA would be repaired, leading to cells not having to die to prevent them from becoming cancerous, so there would be very little flaking and peeling. It would still probably go red, as that happens because blood floods the area to help with the damage.

As for tanning and freckles, they are both caused by the skin overproducing melanin in response to sunlight, in order to protect you from burning. Tanning is more common in people with darker skin, and freckles are more common in people with lighter skin, so it’s far more likely Steve and Bucky would get freckles. But, as the serum makes everything faster and more intense, especially with healing, I could easily imagine their skin way overproducing melanin after a burn, and either significantly darkening their skin, or making a huge amount of freckles.

Link to next>

So, I just recently figured out that I’m autistic, and I just figured out that it’s probably why most people don’t write super senses the same way I do.

Something I don’t think is commonly known about people with autism (and some other things like ADHD) is that we don’t have a normal sensory filter. So, while most people would easily be able to ignore someone talking near them as long as they’re relatively quiet... people without that filter can’t do that. That hole in your sock you can ignore after a bit? Not us! The sound of cars outside? We can always hear it. A bright light? Always annoying! Every single conversation in our vicinity? We hear everything. Of course, everyone has it differ in intensity, in which senses are more effected, and sometimes it acts up more than others, but it makes it far easier to get overwhelmed if our brains are processing so much sensory data.

Of course, having never talked about it because I thought it was the normal way of processing sensory info, I couldn’t know that it wasn’t normal. I thought everyone could hear everything all the time! I even wondered why more people didn’t wear headphones all the time to escape the constant noise.

So when I started reading Steve fanfic, and I knew he had enhanced senses, my thought process was, “if normal, ordinary people sense everything around them, and Steve has enhanced senses, then he would sense even more stuff constantly. Why don’t more people write that stuff?!” Of course, most people have a sensory filter. So I wrote things were Steve is constantly hearing, smelling, and feeling everything.

Of course, PTSD can mess up your sensory filter as well, making you more alert to things, and it’s also possible that the serum removed his sensory filter, so I probably won’t be changing how I write enhanced senses, but... it’s just fascinating how such tiny things effect how you see the world, and how you create. In big ways yes, but also in little tiny ways that shift everything just slightly.

Also! I am still posting the Mini Super Soldier Serum Theories, and there will be one tomorrow, I’ve just been very busy with three fandom events. Don’t expect them to be very regular, though I will try my best!