#and like...without magic yen probably would be disabled her whole life

[theother-will-grayson]

I am. Genuinely surprised trans!yennefer is not a huge thing, especially in modern aus. Her relationship to femininity, physical transformation, beauty, and fertility especially in fanon is like a perfect allegory. Also more disabled portrayals of yennefer in modern aus please.

[sunflowersupremes]

I think, respectfully, that there is a lot of people who misunderstand what Yennefer’s storyline is about. Yennefer’s storyline is not actually about having a child. She says she wants one, because she dreams of being loved unconditionally. But that’s not the crux of her character arc. Yennefer’s storyarc is about autonomy, freedom and choice. It’s also about abuse.(1/7)

I’m not sure if this is a responce to Why Yen’s Storyline is Frustrating to me, A Childfree Woman or if it’s a responce to Jaskier is Better than Yennefer so I’ll link both. 

I’ll agree with you that her storyline is about autonomy, freedom, and choice. As I specifically said, I was fine with the idea of ‘I can’t have kids and I’m bitter about it’ as it was presented in the books. My biggest issue was that Netflix fucked it up and turned it into some sort of ‘overcoming disability is strength torture porn’ (because of the weird surgery that she was awake for) and also went into ‘womb magic’ which is just.... nah. 

When Yennefer of Vengerberg was fourteen years old, she was sold to Aretuza. She had no choice in the matter and no means of escape. She was told over and over again that her only real path to power is to follow the path set forth by the Brotherhood: She learns, she ascends, she takes the transformation, and she becomes a powerful, admired mage who can create her own legacy. To do this, she is told she has to give up a part of herself.(2/7)

Yeah slavery is bad. 

And yes, the sorceresses go through a lot of shit. 

But they’re also incredibly spoiled and privileged once they get out of school, so don’t forget that. It’s specifically stated in Season of Storms that the mages could make everyone on the continent immortal and immune to disease but they choose not to because they like having power over poor, non magic people. 

If Yen really wanted to fuck over Aretuza she would share her knowledge and make the world a Utopian paradise, but instead she’s all “me, me, me” and just wants a baby, fuck the poors. 

Yennefer is not someone who is sterile for a medical reason. She was not born this way. She did not give up her reproductive ability as part of a medical procedure to save her life. This isn’t even a matter where the use of magic lowers her fertility naturally (as is implied, I believe, in the books.) Yennefer of Vengerberg was eighteen years old. She was promised everything she’d ever dreamed of. And she also knows what happens if she fails. (Anica says hi from the eel tank).(3/7)

I never said Yen was sterile for medical reasons, I said that her storyline was dangerous to people who want that sterilization.

Just like how JK Rowling’s book about a crossdressing serial killer is dangerous to Trans folx despite having no Trans characters (I know this is an extreme example, it’s all I could think of). 

Things don’t have to be exact for people to draw correlations if they have no other experience with that thing. 

But like you said, that’s not how the books handled her infertility, and there’s my whole problem. The books which were written 30 years ago by a man somehow handled this better than a show written in 2020 by a woman and that’s insane. 

It is not clear that the Brotherhood would accept no for an answer. She was also very desperate and not necessarily thinking clearly. She’s discovered that she was betrayed. The person she trusted gave her secret to people who are now using it to screw her over. She’s desperate. She makes the choice. And then, she learns that everything was a lie. The power and respect are non-existent.(4/7)

How is it not clear that they would accept no for an answer? Discount Dandelion was already putting his tools away when Yen came to him. He was done doing surgeries. He is clearly uncomfortable performing the procedure on her. 

She spends thirty years cleaning up messes of people who are happy to insult her as soon as she’s not doing what they want. She’s not going to have a legacy at all. Neither Yennefer, nor the show itself, has ever tried to say that a woman needs a child to be complete. But what did happen is that Yennefer was abused and manipulated into making a huge sacrifice for absolutely nothing. And she’s incandescently angry about it.(5/7)

She didn’t make a sacrifice for nothing. She got a lot out of it. In fact she got exactly what she was told she was going to get: power, beauty, and magic. 

You just said she can create her own legacy and now you’re saying that she needs a kid for her legacy so???? 

Children are not your legacy. Full stop. That’s ridiculous. Children are indepent, free thinking humans who do not owe their parents unconditional love.

It’s not about a child. Not really. It’s about having choices taken away. If being an Aretuza sorcerer required celibacy, she’d be having a hundred orgies. If it forbade marriage, she’d be hunting for spouses every day of the week. She has convinced herself she wants a baby, because it represents what Aretuza stole from her.(6/7)

LIke I said before, if she really wanted to fuck over Aretuza she could help poor people without demanding money and share their magical secrets, but she doesn’t do that because it doesn’t directly benefit her. That would annoy them so much more than one random chick having a baby. 

Is that a great reason to have a kid? Probably not, as Geralt points out. But let’s be honest, there are plenty of uterus having people in the world who have children for worse reasons, or sometimes without any reason at all. Why shouldn’t Yennefer have that right? Why should Yennefer allow herself to be deprived from something she never really understood she was giving up?(7/7)

Just because other people are having kids for bad reasons doesn’t make it okay for Yennefer to do it. If that were true then everyone could do anything to their kids and just say “yeah, but the Duggars” and we’d have to accept it. 

No you’re absolutely valid that she’s abusive

(I’m not sure if this is the same anon or not)

Yeah I wish Netflix would acknowledge this more. Yen is much more complex than they showed. Instead of giving us random people watching her and Istredd fuck they should have developed that out more.

They took away everything that makes Yennefer an interesting character and just tried to turn her into a Super Feminist who Can Do No Wrong (tm). 

They don’t acknowledge her complexities, they don’t acknowledge that she’s abusive, they don’t acknowledge that she’s still incredibly spoiled and immature despite being fucking old as balls. 

Mostly because I think it’s important to show that Geralt, a physically strong, large and able bodied man, is still able to be a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault.