"I do not wish to fight you." THE WITCHER S03E06

hhnfjjjf hi wolfie, I'm getting Dadralt feelings, so how about 2. all encompassing hug from the promptlist, possibly baked together with 31, swaying side to side whilst hugging? Love you~

Have some Corvo Bianco retirement! Minor gerlion.

CW: TW3 spoilers, canonical character death, alcohol

Hug Prompts!

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Retirement suited Geralt, despite all his protests in his youth. Turns out that Corvo Bianco had been exactly what he’d needed to lure him into leaving the witcher life behind him for good, well, almost for good. He still took occasional contracts at local vineyards, but most days were spent managing his estate and practicing gwent with B.B.

Possibly the best part of living in one place that wasn’t a crumbling keep in the depths of the Blue Mountains, were the visitors. Corvo Bianco had become a hub for all of Geralt’s oldest and dearest friends. His own bed was now shared most nights with Dandelion, the poet leaving his cabaret behind after just a few months, to nobody’s surprise. The only things Dandelion had ever committed to was his work as a bard, and Geralt.

After Dandelion, had come Lambert, Eskel, and Lambert’s apparently alive friend Aiden. They’d swanned into Geralt’s kitchen one winter morning with bottles of shitty vodka and white gull, and demanded a night of drunken shenanigans for old time’s sake. It wasn’t quite the same as the drafty old halls of Kaer Morhen, and none of them were able to bring up Vesemir and his dreadful taste in hats just yet, but it was familiar and warmed Geralt’s heart. It was good to know that he still had his family despite abandoning the path.

After the witchers of Kaer Morhen was Yennefer. That had been a surprise considering how they’d left things with the Djinn wish broken, but she’d turned up on his doorstep looking as beautiful as ever, smelling of lilac and gooseberries, and everything had been okay. She’d dragged him out for a picnic in the surrounding fields, and they’d talked and bickered just like they always did; no hard feelings.

He’d been in the middle of a game of gwent with Dandelion when Ciri had popped into the living room in a blur of bright turquoise light. The poet had fallen off his stool, hat tumbling from his head as he landed with a loud thud. Ciri had just laughed at them both before flying into Geralt’s waiting arms.

It was always the same whenever they met, Geralt would drop everything just to hold the young girl in his arms, praying to gods he didn’t believe in that this would be the time when he didn’t have to let her go.

“Ciri,” he greeted her warmly, holding her to his chest, barely able to keep the tears at bay. He wasn’t sure whether it was Destiny or just fatherhood, but he knew there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for his daughter, and letting her go was always heartbreaking, like cutting out a piece of his soul.

She laughed again and spun them round in a circle, before settling into a gentle swaying motion that seemed to drag all the tension from Geralt as they danced to some unheard song.

“Hi Dad,” she murmured, still not letting him go, which was alright by him.

@revoevokukil I started to write you an ask about Avallac'h that turned into a half-meta/half-ask mess of thoughts that was way too long to drop in your inbox. Sorry about that! BUT if you've got the spoons I'd love to hear your opinion of Avallach's endgame post-TW3 (even though I know you focus mostly on the books). If not, please don't worry about it! I know it's a lot!

If anyone else is else interested, you can find me talking to myself about Ciri and Crevan's post-TW3 relationship under the cut. I hid it under the break because while this blog isn't spoiler free the content is rather more detailed than usual.

(Also anyone even moderately interested in the Aen Elle should definitely check out @revoevokukil's fics and meta. You won't find better.)

So since you’ve been going at it with the excellent Avallac’h thoughts this week, I’ve got a question for you, since you have spent so much time time thinking about him and are much more immersed in the lore.

I’ve been tossing ideas for a post-TW3 Ciri/Avallac’h/Morvran fic around in my head (which absolutely no one has asked for) but it won’t quite settle into a clear narrative. I think part of the problem is that the interpersonal dynamics are obviously incredibly messy - Avallac'h and Ciri's most so.

The thing I’ve been trying to figure out is simple, and yet not simple at all. What does Avallac’h want?

To explain. The end of Witcher 3 (as I understand it) leaves Avallac'h's story very open ended. From what we learn throughout the course of the game, it seems easy to assume that his future goes one of two ways. 1) With Eredin’s death, he returns to Tir na Lia and becomes king or, 2) he disappears into the mists, leaving us to assume he went off to live on some other world, minding his own business and no longer concerned with the larger workings of fate.

I’m throwing out option two on the basis that it contradicts everything we know about Crevan’s character. He has spent his entire life believing, no, knowing, that he was destined to play a key role in the fate of the Aen Elle - retirement doesn’t suit him.

As for becoming king - maybe? It’s not that I don’t think the crown would suit him; he’s not averse to positions of power. And true, we don’t know much about the political factions and how exactly one rises to power in Tir na Lia (or at least I don’t). However, even though Avallac’h is clearly a respected and powerful member of their society and near the royal family, he and Laura never got all the way to the altar. He doesn’t have a blood claim to the throne.

Combine that with his multi-year escapade with Ciri that ended with his direct involvement in the murder of many of their brethren, it seems like a stretch to think that Avallac’h could simply waltz back in and assume power with no resistance.

I could be wrong, of course. If the Wild Hunt was the sole military force, and not just an elite forward detachment, there may be no military power that could stop him. His role in defeating the White Frost could weigh heavier than the lives lost.

But, king or no king, there’s still the question of Ciri.

That was a long winded way of getting to my final point.

The game seems to imply that with the defeat of the White Frost Crevan’s business with her is done. She was a tool, she served her purpose, the immediate threat is gone and there is no other attachment between the two. They go their separate ways.

But, to my reading, The White Frost was only part of the problem. The biggest, most immediate, part, true. But only part. Ciri may have eliminated that threat, but, without the elder blood gene being restored, others will come. And Avallac’h has always taken the long view.

So I don’t think it’s likely he would be done with her, not forever. There’s too many things still tying them together. Fate, necessity, the trauma of what never was, and a real, if ugly jagged edged, bond that was formed in their years traveling together.

But what I can’t puzzle out is what there is to do. The time that he would have been willing to drag her into his laboratory, if that time ever existed, is long past. Perhaps by now the shadow of Laura has faded enough that he could take her as his own, but not without Ciri’s consent. And would she consent? Pick your ending: there’s no place on the path for a pregnant witcher, as queen she’d need to be concerned about a different bloodline. Perhaps, especially if he were king, he may have the notion to make her his queen, but Tir na Lia is a place of great trauma for her and there’s still the question of refusing to let any children of hers be but pawns of some greater plan.

It’s messy, and there’s never going to be a clean solution. But there’s love between them too. And once again, the questions of individual wants vs. the greater good bump against each other and don’t quite fit, but I’m struggling to parse out the outline of what dynamic could even get close.

Sorry for the long not quite question! Part of this was just getting down in writing my thoughts for myself. But how you write Ciri/Avallac’h is the main reason I like this ship at all and if this has prompted any thoughts from you I’d love to hear them! <3

Time (War) won’t keep us apart

Boom! Gallifrey Time War rant and my fears towards TW4! Taking care of those of you who don’t wanna read negative or ppl who only started Gallifrey and don’t wanna hear spoilers, I’ll keep the rant under the cut. Wanna say that I still love the series even if I rant about the latest boxsets. Saying hi to @gallifreyburning and to the collection server who were unlucky enough to hear my rant from the first hands.

So when I read the summary of TW4 yesterday, I undertood that my worst predictions might as well happen in the boxset. I really hope I misunderstood the synopsis of eps 1-2, but so far it looks like Leela and Narvin are both having a separate adventure in different eps. Which was initially what me and @gallifreyburning joked about. We were like “in the context of latest TW boxsets they’ll have Narvin and Leela in the same TARDIS, but they will barely have dialogues: instead Narvin would spend his all time with Reyo and the chickens”. AND NOW LOOK AT THE EP 2 SYNOPSIS. Mr. Finish, I will never make a joke about Gallifrey in my life again.

But seriously I find this whole Time War situation upsetting. It feels like BF don’t understand that people want to see the main characters, you know, together? Not for 1 episode out of 4. Judging by the summary, TW4 gonna have the same structure as TW3: 3 episodes of the characters apart (Leela’s adventure, Narvin’s adventure, Brax saving Romana adventure) and one BIG FINAL EPISODE OF THE 4 TOGETER THAT WE WAITED FOR. Which isn’t cool at all? Because it’s very little. I don’t think it’s possible to ensure a good ot4 dynamic with so little time. Let’s count: Brax was gone since TW1 ep2, Leela was gone since TW1 ep3, then returned, but imo the conflict with her and Narvin and Romana wasn’t solved in the end of TW3 (again, because of that 3 to 1 structure of the boxset, that gives little time for the characters to talk when they’re finally met). In addition to that Leela should be properly pissed off by Narvin letting Romana stay on Unity to face certain death, but I guess this thing can still play out in TW4. So the absence of these characters for such a big period of time should probably provoque some questions from other characters, There’re things they would want to discuss. But because of this structure it’s more possible that these subjects will open up between individual characters (Leela and Narvin, Brax and Romana).

I think that the separation of the main 4 (or 3, since Brax was sadly moved out of the main plan from s4) is the weakest point of Time War series. Even in the good old s1-6 it was a problem, like remember s5? Imo s5 didn’t work nearly as well as the other 5 because Leela and Romana (and Narvin as a grumpy bonus) barely been together. And Leela and Romana are the core of the show and it feels like the show lacks their dynamic drastically in TW arc. 

The funniest part that this separation is made for cheap drama. Like did you have any doubts Romana won’t come in TW4? I didn’t have any. I predicted that Leela would be out of the door in TW1, again for drama. TW3 could have ended with ot3 facing the daleks together, to be saved by Brax later (since it probably gonna happen to Romana anyway). But leaving Romana alone was more dramatic and sad I take it. You know, leaving her there so the ot4 would be collected in the last episode of the FINAL series. Instead of having the 4 together from the beginning.

Again judging by the synopsis, we’re gonna switch between ot4 and Rassilon and Co (aka Livia and Mantus). And here I’d unpack one of the problems that I have: secondary characters. Secondary characters in the TW series aren’t that interesting? I know Livia since EL (where she was actually pretty cool?) to TW2 + War Master Anti-Genesis (where she was idk weak imo), but do I know about her much? I don’t think so. Who is she? What are her goals? Her character traits? Idk really. Mantus? He’s just a s1 Narvin ver.2.0. but with less charm. I mean compare them to the characters from s1-3. It’s super easy to remember Darkel, Valyas, Mathias,Wynter and say what were they.They had their own character trains that made them unique in the setting. In my opinion, TW series created only one memorable character - Eris. We know who he is, his relationship with the main characters, his conflict and his goals. Which is one of the reasons I have problems with the ot4 interracting to the secondary OC instead of each other. I don’t believe the OCs gonna be interesting.

I had some other complaints, but I forgot already, cos this post is too long. Thanks if you happen to read it till the end.

Hi, just wanted to ask, how did you get into the witcher franchise (did you read the books before you played the games or vice versa?). Love your blog, byeeee :)

ty for the ask!! i hope you dont mind if i go too in-depth because i was legit thinking about this earlier today... 

tldr: i played tw3 and liked it, then read the books

i got into the witcher because one of my favorite gaming youtubers was doing a playthrough of tw3 on youtube in around i think september 2017. i liked this specific gaming youtuber for being shit at games and not caring about it... but tw3 was a different game. it felt like the decisions mattered, that there was an actual story here, that when this youtuber made shitty decisions and didn’t really care about the characters involved, i got frustrated because this game seemed really good... so i picked up the game myself and played it though, it was magnificent. not to r/witcher “the witcher 3 is literally the best game created in this history of ever” but it was sincerely good... not only does it have a great story, characters, and graphics, but it is genuinely comfortable to play as a game, even if you’re not great at games (i like playing video games but i’m not good at them when it comes to combat, i literally just would prefer to hack and slash through). so, i played through tw3 and the fact that it made me cry multiple times i found to be really interesting... but it was still just a game to me, it wasn’t something i thought about when i have time to daydream headcanons. i had read i think the witcher (short story) halfway through playing, just to get a feel of what tw3 came from, but from that, i realized the books and the games were incredibly different entitities, and i decided to not read the books until i had finished the game, or at least until i had more free time on my hands (mind i was in high school and was a senior, and during this time was when i was submitting college applications... exceptionally stressful, and the reading/writing part of my brain was absolutely fried from essay writing and reviewing). i was particularly struck by geralt and ciri’s relationship and the isle of mists quests fucked me up pretty bad. 

then around later 2017, i was really enjoying tw3, and had finished tw3′s base game and hearts of stone, and was now making my way into blood & wine. i was just playing it like normal, then came the part when geralt met regis. at first i wasn’t too interested (i mean, i was, but in the story of blood & wine, not in the books) until the little journal text pop-up appeared on my screen. you know, the one about quests you just received, or characters you just met. it was going through the motions of saying i finished this quest, picked up this new one, i was all like fine, fine, okay, alright, and then it just fucking puts regis’ long-ass name on the screen taking up a good amount of my FOV and i am immediately like, what? what the fuck? who the fuck? that’s the name? of the guy we just met? that guy??? he didn’t seem like someone with a name like that? who the fuck IS this guy.

so i head over to the wiki page for regis. i thumb through the basic information, i’m pretty interested, this quest stuff to find ciri sounds interesting. i decide to give the witcher books another try, because i have more free time now and am way more invested as everyone here as characters. also, i want to find out more about yennefer, because she was being badmouthed by everyone i saw online, and i wanted to read more about her and see if she was really so bad (spoilers: she’s not at all, the internet is just misogynistic).

i don’t think that i’m going to actually really care about these books, i just want more flavor and explanation about how in hell a witcher met a vampire and these two somehow became friends. so, i don’t care about reading them in order. i go online and find fan translations of every book, i open baptism of fire and i just start reading the bit about the fish soup. i’m suddenly just laughing my ass off, really interested in who these other characters are, milva and cahir, and how dandelion seems to actually be the best friend to geralt that he was said to be in tw3. i also notice immediately that geralt... oh my god, geralt’s such a cranky bitch. i’m SHOCKED at how annoying geralt is. i realize that this is probably what geralt’s been like, this whole time, and tw3 just gave me a sterilized version of him. i’m trying to decide if i like this change or not, at first i HATED it... but then realized it actually gave him a character, where in tw3 he feels a little more... empty, waiting for the player to project a personality onto him.

so, i just read all of the hansa bits of baptism of fire, skipping over anything i don’t understand. i am saddened when i can’t find any more, so i move onto tower of the swallow. and then lady of the lake. “oh, so that’s why geralt was surprised to see regis in blood & wine...” feeling at a loss after reading stygga, i start at the beginning and make my way through the books chronologically, like they should be read. i soon realize that this series really isn’t about killing monsters at all, and i’m thrilled. i thought the series was just going to be about geralt killing things in a swamp and reporting back to whoever hired him, like in tw3... and i was wrong. this series is about personal connections! relationships! ... and fatherhood. [see read more for personal junk]

i can’t remember when i started disliking tw3. it must have been around the time that i finished the books (im using the word finished loosely... i still havent finished some scenes because theyre too violent to read and continue with my day in peace, and i also read tos/lotl by skipping around, so i never got the full experience of reading them as full novels).

i just distinctly remember returning to my tw3 new game+ save after rereading the fish soup scene, and thinking about how lonely the game felt... i just felt so dispairingly alone, this loneliness that i hadn’t felt while playing before, that i had to put the game down. i returned to the game again, but i had just reread edge of the world... and i felt so alone again. 

so reading the books ruined tw3 for me, not out of malicious intent, but just because i think i realized geralt isn’t meant to be the lone wolf. the novels center around him and his family and friends, and i just genuinely missed that when replaying tw3. plus, i began to realize a bunch of things, like ciri’s scar is supposed to be bigger, geralt’s supposed to wear his hair in a headband, yennefer’s hair is actually curly, dandelion’s supposed to actually be in the game. there were so many inconsistencies with the characters i had imagined while reading the books that eventually i just stopped playing tw3 (i already played it once, so nbd) and got really into the books. 

sometime later i saved up like $80 to buy the paperback versions of the books (UK versions including season of storms) because i knew i was in really deep lol and i wanted the official translations super badly, also we were doing an assignment in class that allowed us to do something with our favorite book, but we needed to have it in-person and not as an e-book, so it was the perfect excuse. much time spent on hansa headcanons later and... here we are today.

a read-more, because this is more personal. 

the witcher series picked me up at an eerily appropriate time. two things in it stood out to me: 1) geralt’s relationship with ciri 2) regis’s alcoholism. 

i distinctly remember an event where i started crying in front of my parents because my dad was being so absent in my life or maybe it was because they were arguing, something like this... and i remember referencing tw3 isle of mists quest actually by saying “i shouldn’t have to learn it (good parenting) from a video game” ... lol. it wasn’t an epic burn from a 17 yo, but it was just a painful remark made in anger. i still think back to it because of how first watching geralt hug ciri made me feel and how i was actually really bitter because i was jealous of ciri for about a week after completing the quest. then i kind of pushed it out of my mind and didn’t think so much about it, until the night i mentioned it.

in late march of 2018, something very bad happened in my family. that’s probably the best way to describe it. the situation ended in my parents finally separating. my mom and i were pretty afraid and lost after that. after i had collected my thoughts and everything and went back to as “normal” as i could, about a month later, when the creative part of my brain finally began to function again and wasn’t inhibited due to fear, i clung to the witcher more than i did before... and this time, actually particularly to regis, because guess who has a whole redemption arc relating to not being alcoholic and being a genuinely good person who speaks gently and heals the vulnerable?

Spoilers for The Last Beacon...

You have to admit, as fun as it is to see Ianto and Owen banter and bond, at the same time, it’s a bit sad in the implication. Ianto tells Owen he always thought Owen didn’t like him. If the story is set early series 2, then by the timeline I’ve built in my head, Ianto has been with TW3 for about a year. So he’s spent an entire year thinking Owen didn’t like him. And it totally josses what we all love to believe, that Ianto not only became a bigger part of the team while Jack was gone (which is still possible as he probably has a very skewed image of himself on the team) but that he and Owen got along better while Jack was gone as well. How many fanfics have we all read where Ianto and Owen actually support one another during Jack’s absence? Where they go out for a beer, help one another, develop a quirky relationship? Apparently not, at least not in GDL’s eyes. And that’s the sad part, this element of Ianto’s character that has such low esteem, that keeps his distance. And that in spite of all our fanon dreams, Owen and Ianto weren’t really friends after all. 

#cahir has such a big sub energy

Fringilla & Cahir THE WITCHER S03E06

Eamon Farren as Cahir THE WITCHER SO3E06

For those of you who follow and who don't want to be spoiled to the Witcher 3's Volume 2 yet, blacklist #tw3 part 2 spoilers. I am already working on one gifset, so, heads up.

You can also use the #the witcher spoilers or #twn spoilers if you haven't watched season three yet.