sorokmagpies

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When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

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I have a very rough idea in my head that I don't think I can clearly articulate beyond "And that concludes tonight's reports on German air forc—WHAT'S THIS? IT'S KING ARTHUR WITH A STEEL CHAIR"

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You there, tumblrina, what day is it?

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Dude… give me the bottle (or when you lost a rhyming contest against the supernatural skeletal horse)

The second art is new and is featuring Mari on her day off — There are more doodles and sketches in my reblogs — I found out about Mari Lwyd several years ago - and I fell in love with the concept. Here are some of my Lwyd arts I drew during all this time My most popular art with her is here

P.S. - don’t forget about the frogs

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Ciri's Trilogy

Ever since The Witcher 3 was published, concurrently with which I first read A. Sapkowski’s works, I have wanted a trilogy of games about Ciri. Any fanfiction would do, including CDPR’s one. Fanfiction, because I believe Sapkowski wanted to leave Ciri’s future open to the imagination of everyone. It’s part of her charm—she gives hope that anything at all can happen. Hence, in all honesty, I just wanted to continue imagining her story: beyond the end of Lady of the Lake, beyond the end of The Witcher 3. I want to read more about Ciri. Period. Consequently, I am now elated, but also terrified.

I don’t take issue with Ciri, the witcher, I take issue with Ciri having gone through the Trial of the Grasses. I hope CD Projekt Red will change their minds about this, or at very least makes it work differently on Ciri—the Child of Destiny—than on other witchers. For starters because, as Geralt notes in Sword of Destiny, the witchers believe the Child of Destiny would not need the Trials. Ciri is special. She is a mutant carrying the blood of elves, mutated in conjunction with the human genome. Elder Blood, witcher-trained, magic-capable, princess, heir of an Emperor & descendant of another such beyond the stars, prophesised mother to another even more powerful mutant saviour, if not a saviour of elves herself. She is extraordinary; she does what witchers do despite of it all, despite not getting or needing the mutations.

’What can you know about saving the world, silly? You’re but a witcher.’

But now she is just… also one?

The sceptic in me says the only reason they went for Trials for Ciri was to keep it close to how the gameplay holds up. To have a "witcher-eyed", female protagonist upholding their brand. So it could be about potions and signs additionally to what Ciri would have had by default → oils + magic + Elder Blood. I would like for them to give us witcher ciri, but book-Ciri - a witcher girl setting off after monsters while remaining herself, with her own struggles and unique perspective on the universe. This here feels more like a PR move, and I don’t like it in the grand scheme of things; even while seeing a rough and capable Ciri tickles my heart in a special way. There were other ways to gamify her abilities; they are giving her magic use anyway, after all. It feels a little cheap. In fact, I can see how Elder Blood—Ciri’s uniqueness—is precisely how CDPR can handwave away the Trials, but isn’t the “cosmetic” aspect of it exactly the point? It makes the decision hollow, a ploy, but if you were to give this decision depth then you would run the risk of overstacking your protagonist and forgoing the spirit in which her character was conceived and relates to witchers and the world.[^1]

Moving on. This was the only part that I did not like and, as ever, there are ways of writing yourself out of this. (I dearly hope they have writers who love book Ciri.)

A few years have passed since the end of The Witcher 3 when The Witcher 4 begins. Witcher Ciri wants to be the hero. She has always wanted to do the right thing; she is always picking sides. She is young, she is idealistic, and she is furious. It’s what seems to unite the Ciri in The Witcher 4 with her at the end of The Witcher 3.

"She's almost obsessed with the way she lives. There are some moments where you have to go with your heart instead of always going with the calculated calls. And this is what I love in Ciri. She's less calculating, following her heart, her passion, her gut feel.” - Source

In both the published and draft endings to The Witcher 3, Ciri chooses potentially fatal, self-sacrificial “rituals” for the greater good. She chooses; you, the player, cannot do anything about it. (In the drafts you could, but it turned out to be a bad decision.) In the trailer though, it seems like Ciri is almost running away from herself, or something else, by the way she dives into this life. This intrigues and has storytelling potential - getting what you have always wanted is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

The world and people keep disappointing her, however, and, as the monster used in the trailer not very covertly insinuates: “fate cannot be changed”, "you weren't supposed to come back.” In this sense it almost feels like The Witcher 3 should have been Ciri’s story from the very beginning, because they are revisiting important beats from it and, after only a few years, are likely to handle loose threads. Ciri’s struggle is with having been born to exceptionality, to a destiny larger than life, yet desperately trying to make it smaller for the sake of her soul.

The insinuation made about Ciri’s life through Mioni—the peasant girl offered in sacrifice to a local “God” for the greater good of the community—is not subtle. This is Ciri fighting off the echo of her own story, trying to change such fates in principle. For Mioni, if not for herself. Saving her from being ritually sacrificed—as in prophecies. The monster she faces, by the way, preys on trauma. No subtlety here, whatsoever.

“At first glance, it seems that it is just the flower that is floating on top of the water,” says Kalemba of a cleansing sequence in a bathtub. “But the fun fact is that this is a very Slavic kind of flower. This is a special flower that people in the medieval era were using in special moments to defeat evil. It is very symbolic. Every single frame here is very meaningful.” - Source

But the world and people keep disappointing; Ciri's good deed goes unrewarded, and Mioni dies anyway. Because in principle the Mechanism is set up in a certain way and it is running and it is not easy to grind it to a halt without casualties. How much then is Ciri ready to sacrifice if she is wont to pick a side and fight no matter what? Such questions, I intuit, may become relevant later in her trilogy, but the seeds are sown. Because frankly, in the trailer, Ciri comes off as in The Tower of the Swallow: she has figured out philosophy. It’s a little naive and lacking in experience, seeing the world narrowly, focusing on her truth. It’s very youthful. It’s also—curiously enough—backtracking from the end of The Witcher 3.

What happened in-between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4, and, overall, the books and the games? I predict that in Ciri's first solo they may be doing a parallel in the spirit of Lady of the Lake’s ending - Ciri running away from herself/past/failure while attempting to build a new life. It's relatively safe, it's solid. Additionally, in CDPR's original concept for The Witcher 3's "witcher ending," Ciri was meant to experience a profound disillusionment with the witcher's path. After facing the harsh realities of the profession, she would abandon it entirely, choosing instead to traverse the universe in search of ways to atone for running from her destiny—a destiny that demanded she use her extraordinary powers for the greater good of many beings across different realms. It’s possible a double-bottom is hiding in plain sight.

I hope they will explore a truly morally ambiguous Ciri, letting her be messy and problematic rather than simply heroic. I hope they address her past experiences with nuance, not shying away from the ugliness. I hope they let her get drunk in her obsession with the witcher life for a while, break hearts, slowly begin stitching her own back together perhaps. I hope they navigate into the heart of her magic, touch the painful humanity within without forgetting that she has an origin story already, and dare to explore her as Her.

Footnotes

[^1]: I am also sure they go through with the plot where facing the White Frost has locked or seemingly robbed her of her Elder Blood abilities, for better or worse. And since this is going to be a trilogy I will further bet she will get those abilities back as the stakes for her climb higher and higher toward the end game. The other pathway would be that she starts out as having it all, so to speak, and ends up with nothing at all (but we did not see her blink here, I think, so I doubt this); finally "normal." At whatever cost. Narratively in a computer game, for a character who is the Grail, THE person who could do it all, this sort of shuffling makes sense. You can keep the gameplay fresh.

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aubrey plaza and patti lupone | hot ones versus ☽ come to me, powers of darkness, powers of whoreness and slutness... ☾

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This is the best idea in the history of film.

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Merlin and Vivien, from King Arthur and His Knights by Frank E. Schoonover (1932)

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Pearl, banded agate, diamond, and gold necklace, Hancocks, c. 1865 (at 1stdibs)

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my favorite genre of women is running from creepy castles/houses

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I think it’s very fun and beautiful that there are nontraditional fic formats that certain fandoms can do and do well, and whole genres of fic that are popular in one fandom that you may never see in another

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“How’s your WIP going?”

"Have you made any progress?”

“How close are you to being done?”

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Mystery Inc. meet Holmes and Watson!

I am having a lot of fun with this Victorian Scooby Doo au!!

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Mystery Inc. but it’s the 1890s

Who had late Victorian Scooby Doo on their 2024 bingo card? Hmm?

The idea came to me when I was thinking about Sherlock Holmes and then remembered the iconic mystery solving gang hehe

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Poppies and bones

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SIR ARE YOU FREE ON TUESDAY

AND he has a skelly friend???

Me rn: