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(Source: Merlin: A Casebook, by Peter H. Goodrich)

This has the vibes of a Hurt/Comfort fic for Merlin and Morgan shipping, only it still doesn't well...

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like to me the most tragic aspect of the tristan/iseult story is that the whole reason iseult's mother gave the love potion to her daughter is because she wanted her to be happy. iseult is being suddenly shipped away across the ocean with the man who murdered her uncle so that she can go make peace by marrying a strange man she's never met and her mother will probably never see her again. but the potion is her desperate parting gift to make her daughter’s marriage tolerable, and maybe even happy, if you can call whatever feeling iseult experiences under its influence happy. and just by chance it is drunk by the wrong man!!! and everything spirals out of control and it’s not even her fault!! like of course it seems stupid to give your daughter this insane potion but it was literally just because iseult's mom didn't want her to be scared. she wanted to make sure this strange king took care of her daughter. that is the tragic love story 2 me.

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Apply this to Geralt, whose ending is shaped in Arthurian fashion. It tears at my soul to think that by entering legendary matter at the end of Lady of the Lake, he faces the mythical time of never ending repetition of archetypal tales where it will always end the same way for him, no matter who picks up the pen after Sapkowski.

Cried about King Arthur today.

He is the Once and Future king solely because we keep dredging him up from Camlann and forcing him to tell his story over and over again. It ends the same. It always ends the same.

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A Question of Price popped into my mailbox today. Art by Matteo Bellisario. Simply for the visuals, it is probably my second favourite comic adaptation after A Grain of Truth.

And it's a Pavetta show.

They play with the green of her bloodline's eyes plenty and I can never say no to glowing eyes. Also, seeing the fury on Pavetta is truly awesome and delightful. I can only imagine her once she starts seeing through her husband's plans later on - hysteria my ass.

No spinning, floating table. Plenty of reaction-pics, though!

Like mother like daughter. Memeable.

As expected, they compressed the tale & tucked it-nipped it here and there. No Draig Bon-Dhu and his bagpipes; Drogodar and his lute represent! Having Calanthe utter 'Do not be cute!' instead of 'Stop being so clever.' I can easily live with. It was a shame though, to lose the antics of the gathered would-be-grooms. I guess Coodcoodak really gets all of the spotlight in this regard.

Crach puts me in stitches and personally I had never given thought to Eist appearing as he does here, but Emhyr is classically handsome even as a hedgehog.

Post-curse Emhyr is giving strong young-Cahir vibes.

Geralt is at his most refined, effeminate intellectual yet. 'He's an elf!' Doubtless 'the touch of someone else's coarse, unpleasant clothes against his swollen skin' contributes, though his verbal dance with Calanthe is unfortunately cut down to size. I like it, though.

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Witcher stuff

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The Traveler Returns

Can anyone guess where he’s been?

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The perch had stopped flopping, and was lying, moving its gills, amidst its colourful, striped brothers. The girl stared at it, lost in thought. ‘Death on the ice,’ she said, ‘has something bewitching about it.’ — Ciri, The Tower of the Swallow

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Went to a Uni taster day thing today. This place is the holy GRAIL (heh) of Arthurian legends!

They legitimately have rows upon rows like this, each bookcase has 6 shelves and each wall has like 4-6 bookcases. And there are over 12 walls of this!!!

(Ngl, I read "The Lancelot-Grail Reader" as "Lancelot-Grail x Reader" maybe I need to take a break from Lancelot fanfics...)

They have journals, scripture, various editions of the original texts and books discussing them in various ways, a metric fucktonne of stuff about knights/King Arthur/Welsh mythology/welsh medival lore stories and history, AND many of the books are in Welsh as well...

Including an entire shelf of The Mabinogion/Y Mabinogion/Y mabinogi. ( @gwalch-mei I feel like it might have been you or one of your moots who wanted to read this in Welsh?)

So yeh. I'm kinda excited to start at this Uni because in my down time I can borrow some of these (and let's be fair, use them in my fics), given I only actually own 1 arthurian legend related book, and that is a translation of the Mabinogion in English 😅😂

Also I feel like you guys are the only ones who will understand why seeing these two made me happy too;

Honorary Gawain of Orkney/Gwalchmai mention ofc

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All Thronebreaker Maps (Witcher World)

Place names added from the Thronebreaker in-game map overlay, and from dialogues and other game text when it was possible to identify the location. Thanks to @dukeofdogs for the original images and for finding the missing Mahakam snowmen!

1. Lyria

2. Aedirn

3. Mahakam

4. Angren

5. Rivia

6. Aldersberg and vicinity

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I have long adored Elegy of Fortinbras by Zbigniew Herbert, one of Poland’s most celebrated post-war poets. Fortinbras, the Norwegian prince who takes the Danish throne at the end of Hamlet, addresses the dead Hamlet.  I must have been sixteen or so when I first read this poem, and my instinct was to intensely admire Fortinbras, the practical man of action. I was uneasy when I read about Herbert’s biography, and found an essay that identified Fortinbras with the fascists and communists Herbert spent his life resisting. I thought: is that really the choice, between totalitarianism and useless, suicidal indecision? Must Fortinbras be the villain?  But the poem is richer and more complicated than that. Fortinbras gives an elegant impression of what is noble about Hamlet. Hamlet has all the best images: a star, elegant, heroic, crystal notions, wolfish, fallen nests; he invites fascination and metaphor, and has a certain integrity which Fortinbras cannot help but admire. But Fortinbras has the ability to make decisions, to stay alive, and to rule Denmark. Both men have their separate virtues. -- Rachel Edwards

Elegy of Fortinbras To C.M.

Now that we’re alone we can talk prince man to man though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant nothing but black sun with broken rays I could never think of your hands without smiling and now that they lie on the stone like fallen nests they are as defenceless as before The end is exactly this The hands lie apart The sword lies apart The head apart and the knight’s feet in soft slippers

You will have a soldier’s funeral without having been a soldier the only ritual I am acquainted with a little There will be no candles no singing only cannon-fuses and bursts crepe dragged on the pavement helmets boots artillery horses drums drums I know nothing exquisite those will be my manoeuvres before I start to rule one has to take the city by neck and shake it a bit

Anyhow you had to perish Hamlet you were not for life you believed in crystal notions not in human clay always twitching as if asleep you hunted chimeras wolfishly you crunched the air only to vomit you knew no human thing you did not know even how to breathe

Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me you chose the easier part an elegant thrust but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching with a cold apple in one’s hand on a narrow chair with a view of the ant-hill and the clock’s dial

Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project and a decree on prostitutes and beggars I must also elaborate a better system of prisons since as you justly said Denmark is a prison I go to my affairs This night is born a star named Hamlet We shall never meet what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy

It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince

Zbigniew Herbert (tr. Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott)

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Speed painting

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Let's play with this grain of Ciri-Avallac'h from The Witcher 3's cut content. Ciri seems to feel disconnected. Avallac’h reframes her pain as something positive.

The main message can be read in three ways: 1. He’s telling her that rootlessness and displacement can actually be freeing, that not being tied to any one place or people can be empowering. 2. He’s helping her make peace with feeling like a permanent exile from human society, making her less likely to seek return to her old life, and making her relate to himself more. 3. He’s sharing his own experience and loneliness with her in an attempt to relate and make her feel less alone with her exceptional power, as well as more dependent/connected to him.

Then the second half: only free beings can make the right decisions. Which decision? ‘Right’ for whom? Her? Him? The world? We know it’s about helping him, the elves, and all races by attending to WF. Avallac’h has learned that putting pressure on Ciri (khm, blackmailing her) impacts their relationship negatively, and he doesn’t want that. Their goals must feel as if naturally aligned. She’ll have to experience her choices as her own. So he’s building a relationship with her so that she’ll eventually choose what aligns with his needs. ‘Ciri, you’re special and free to choose things others wouldn’t understand.’

By comparing her to elves, Avallac’h is subtly reinforcing the idea that Ciri is above or separate from humanity. This can make her feel special/chosen rather than displaced, distances her from forming strong human attachments, and reinforces his own importance as her guide to understanding her nature and morality. This is staple to him in the books, btw.

On Ciri’s side, to have someone know and relate to you when you’re hard to know even for yourself, must feel nice on some level. Of course, Avallac’h knows Ciri because he has been studying her long before they ever met in person. She is the centre of his world, obsessively so, in a way she’s likely never experienced before. She is free to go anywhere and pretend to be anyone, but as she tells Geralt, that too can become a burden. Ciri IS different. Ordinariness is what tempts her, but rejecting what she is entirely, arguably, is not actually a healthy way to cope. Running away brings consequences too (of personal and world-altering sort). Were Ciri not an idealist this wouldn’t matter… but Ciri is one.

It’s a cool piece of character work: it can be read as caring and something Avallac’h genuinely believes, as well as manipulative. Avallac’h is also revealing how he sees his own race – as nomads. As perpetual wanderers who never belong. Interesting, considering how elves once traversed the multiverse freely; used to seeking out novel realities for the sake of it, or for escaping competition. They can be expansionary and aggressive, but as only one option among many among the ideologies that guide them. It puts a spin on why they want their freedom back.

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the type of ship i fuck with the most

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As part of the Opole Book Festival, a meeting with Mr Andrzej Sapkowski took place & here's what he had to say on Ciri and witcher mutations in the upcoming game.

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„Miłość kpi sobie z rozsądku. I w tym jej urok i piękno.”

— Andrzej Sapkowski „Pani jeziora”

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i can’t stand “it’s not that deep” attitudes like even if it really really isn’t that deep just PLAY WITH ME. just fucking PLAY. have a meaningless but deep analytical conversation with me. just like think about shit for fun. does anyone else like to think about stuff for fun. it’s so lonely