Hello! I hope I won't sour your mood with this ask but I have been thinking a lot about your gay dogs this month especially.
I'll just try to keep the context short but in general I'm someone that has accepted being romantically undesireable. It was hard but in the end I have built my life just around me, my humble family and at this point in time I don't even think I have the time for a partner. And considering that it's the love month and a lot of people are preparing to celebrate it with their SOs I assumed that, actually, this is a thing that I sort of have in common with Machete.
From the miscellaneous lore on your profile I see Machete as someone that also has kind of rejected love. That also has built his life around his job, possibly hobbies, his family or mentors (depending if we're talking about canon or modern au). Who kind of forgot that relationships are a thing and that people bond with others in that way. Well, at least he did until meeting Vasco.
I just love thinking about their awkward beginnings. Machete being 100% sure that Vasco is just joking, maybe even sometimes teasing him (in a friendly banter type way) or just explaining to himself that all that kindness and interest is just him being a very considerate friend. And then we have Vasco that just tries to be subtle, as if he was trying to pass a fawn without it noticing and running away, but also with time gains confidence and tries more risque moves. Vasco being all smug and Machete being flustered when their hands or shoulders or tails brush in passing. And then when both are sure of their feelings we have Machete who has to choose between God and his love. Who, at first, unwillingly accepts that divine wrath will be worth their brief love.
I just love your boys. I swear they are all the love supply one might possibly need
Thank you for such a long and thoughtful message! I don't know why you thought you might accidentally sour my mood, I'm utterly delighted whenever I hear that someone has been pondering my little guys (rotating them in their head, as they say), and when they go through the trouble of sharing their findings and conclusions I'm so happy I could crawl up a wall.
I think you deciphered Machete's inner workings very well, especially those of the original canon version. The concept of love is of course prominent in Christianity, so even as a kid being raised in a religious environment that discouraged overt displays of affection and close personal bonds, Machete wasn't completely alienated from it. But it has always been a nebulous, unperceivable and unattainable thing for him. When he was old enough to lock down his career choice he readily accepted he'd never have romantic relationships, spouse or a family, and I think he must've been too young and socially inexperienced to think of it as a significant loss. Either he consciously blocked out the need for companionship by studying and working like his life depended on it, or he didn't really consider that being genuinely befriended, appreciated and loved as a person instead of a respectable and competent authority figure was even an option for him, at least not until Vasco came along.
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Ever since realising that Joey referring to Jaskier as sapiosexually connecting with Radovid was likely 100% intentional, I've literally been losing my shit over the potential implications...
Like... new headcanon!
What if Jaskier has always approached the act of having sex with someone else as a form of performance art, driven by his desire to please his "audience", and making other people passionately respond to what he's doing for them?
Like... what if what normally sexually interests him isn't so much inspired by the other person, but more by the general idea of being wanted, needed, and the anticipation of the positive feedback he might get from sexually interacting with them.
He readily experiences primary aesthetic attraction towards other people, finds them interesting, becomes curious about them, and feels instantly affectionate towards them; but he's not sexually aroused by / attracted to them, per say.
He really wants to make them feel good, and bask in that sense of intimacy, togetherness and praises he receives from being sexually involved with them (yeah, because he's that good at figuring out what pleases them, and offering it to them).
And somehow, audience response/participation tends to really inform how good or "smooth" he is when it comes to his ability to seduce someone, and convince them to become sexually intimate with him in the first place?
For example...
So... what if Jaskier is a bard and an artist through and through? Not just on stage, but in the sheets as well?
Turning sex into poetry and something very deliberate, where it's all about a sense of artistic expression, and a pure melody of various physical sensations and emotions!
Sexually? Jaskier is an artist, a creative, a free thinker... All is fair!
But it's not something that he usually feels any urge or need to engage in based on the way someone else inspires him any sudden desire to have sex with them specifically.
He loves his sexual partners, he's intrigued by them, he wants to connect with them - even if that connection lasts but a night - and sex allows him to do that.
But maybe he has no idea that sex might be experienced differently by others.
Maybe he just thinks they're like really really REALLY expressive and appreciative of the sex itself, or something, whenever he notices how hungrily some of them appear to throw themselves at him, or at each other.
Also, I've somehow always found it a bit weird how Jaskier seems to fully remain clear minded during Yennefer's magical orgy.
Yennefer comments on how Geralt seems to be immune to her spell, as if it's some kind of big deal!
But then, there's Jaskier...
He just waves at them as if he's totally unaffected by everyone else fucking each other around him, and being surrounded by a bunch of naked bodies having sex...
And/or looks like he's not quite comfortable with the way someone's hand is moving closer to his crotch at some point...
Grant it, he's slowly being suffocated to death by a Djinn's magic, and likely has other priorities than sex in mind!
But that's just the thing...
Isn't Yennefer's spell supposed to override people's ability to think rationally or fully understand what's happening? Everyone snaps out of it looking confused, and poor Jaskier just basically passes out, but he's never once looked like he stopped looking at what was happening around him from an outsider's P.O.V.
Whenever the camera cuts to him, he seems to be sharing the same reality as Geralt and Yennefer, not the kind of sexual haze everyone else appears to be happily trapped in.
Would being affected by the Djinn just make him immune to the whole "sex weed magic thingy" as well?
Or would the usual lack of primary sexual attraction towards other people make it a bit harder for Yennefer's spell to take a hold on him?
(Another headcanon theory I came up with - should Jaskier be revealed as being the direct descendant of Fjall and the Lark - would be that, perhaps, the small touch of magic in his blood would be enough to make him more resistant to certain types of spell... On top of being able to eat whatever he comes across without freaking poisoning himself, I swear!)
But yeah, let's just imagine, for a moment, that sapiosexual Jaskier would have no clue (or very little clue) of what it actually feels like to specifically be sexually attracted to someone (rather than the sex itself, and all it may represent to him) in a way where you are viscerally craving that sexual contact with that specific someone, and you feel like you might go crazy if they don't finally have sex with you.
Then, along comes Radovid, that he develops a sapioromantic and sapiosexual attraction for...
And, for a while, Jaskier thinks he's just losing his freaking mind, because there are moments where Radovid is just there, simply being all sensitive and insightful while discussing dwarven politics with Yarpen, for example...
... and poor Jaskier's never been so sexually aroused in his life!!!
But Radovid is not even technically doing anything that's supposed to be "sexually charged"!
He's fully clothed, being all smart and sensitive, talking about a topic of interest to him while having lunch by the side of the road...
...and Jaskier is just there, casually eating next to him while listening to him talk with their friends.
It's 100% casual and totally trivial, day to day stuff... No plan for Jaskier to try and seduce him and have sex there!
So, how come does he suddenly feel the urge to pounce on him and beg Radovid to just take him right here and there, in front of all their friends at camp, and it's taking all the self-control he can humanly muster not to act upon that impulse?!
Instead, Jaskier stands up, awkwardly excuses himself, and decides the best way to manage the situation is to go take a random dip fully clothed in the nearest river.
"Why?", they ask. Because he was getting hot, that's why!
And no, he couldn't just remove his clothes instead! He liked them really baggy an concealing that day, thank you very much!
As a matter of fact, he might decide to just start wearing his shirt over his pants from now on, because he's starting a new fashion trend! No other reason!
Oh...
Oh, no...
NO.
Don't you dare look at me all concerned while trying to read into my behavior, you stupid prince... Wait. Is that a smirk?
You're smirking aren't you?
How do you look like you've figured it out, when I've no fucking clue what's even going on with me?!
Great! And now the river's cool water is not even working anymore!
That's it! I'm never walking out of here again, and I hope you know it's all your fault!
No. No, don't take off your shirt and get into the water with me, that's not...
Oh? Oh! Everyone else is going and leaving us alone? Okay, nevermind! Fuck! Why's it so hard to walk while standing waist deep in water? Surely there must be a way to get to you faster...
And I'm just imagining poor Jaskier trying to ask Yennefer if Radovid might be some kind of sorcerer with latent magical abilities or something... Because, whenever he's around, there are moments where he randomly feels this overwhelming urge to make love to him, even if the context is not appropriate for delivering a sexual performance of any kind!
Like yes, it has happened to him before to have "the muses" whisper in his ear that sex with a certain someone might be good, and he's typically very open to sudden bursts of inspiration and unplanned sexual improvisation!
But that's not the same thing!
It only happens specifically with Radovid - especially when he's saying or doing something really witty, sensitive or insightful - and it's like his whole body suddenly catches fire, gets all tense and trembling with need; and being touched by him and having sex with him feels like finally being able to breathe after someone's forcefully been holding your head under water for a while...
Radovid must be bewitching him, somehow, for sure!
And Yenn is like "You know that what you've just been describing is simply what regular sexual desire feels like for most people, right?"
And Jaskier's just going:
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I genuinely think people need to separate magic and spirituality/religion way more.
I haven't done "new" magic in over a month and I feel less bad about it than I thought I would.
There's so many posts out there asking for advice on "getting back into magic after taking time off" and I always thought they were a little weird because that kind of ebb and flow is really normal for pretty much everything you learn outside of an academic or workplace setting. (even in school you get break periods)
For 15 years I've been learning solely on my own everything from calculus through khan academy to polymer clay through youtube tutorials and it's just natural *for me personally* to go through periods of great interest and massive skill improvement in conception and technique and then just~~~ stop for a while.
The server I left was doing this 100 days of witchcraft thing where the point (I gathered) was to show that even little things like stirring intention in your coffee counted as magic and you shouldn't feel so bad that you're not doing ceremony every day. I tried to participate and got about 5 days in before that plus a lot of other things made me leave (and tbh I should have left earlier because it was not a good place for me).
What struck me most was that unlike seemingly everyone else, I felt worse when I listed things like "read 2 chapters of magic book" or "made weekly offering." It felt more like I was just trying to come up with something--anything that would make me feel like I was participating and "being productive." It didn't feel like it was making me "see magic in my everyday" because I already felt that way because I've been doing magic my whole life--in the way I sing, in the way I move energy when I stretch and exercise, in the way I talk to the plants and animals, in the way I make offerings to my room or an intention, in the way I cook like Tita in "Like Water for Chocolate" or the way I would astral travel without knowing it. When I had to list out all the "magical things" I did every day they felt *less* magical and more like what a "that girl" influencer would put on their instagram post to show how productive they've been.
I genuinely think people need to separate magic and spirituality and religion way more. Magic is at its core, a skill/art/science. It is not 100% spirituality/religion. Your paganism or spirituality might influence your magic or interact with it (like how my animism interacts with how I work with symbols or how I ask my divination tools to come to life before I use them), but I truly believe there's a great deal of magic that exists outside of spirituality/religion/etc.
I wish secular and atheistic witches got more respect and exposure and credit. I wish there were more books and really popular influencers and discords that are as populated as the ones that spend 60-70% of their talking about deities and religious holidays. I wish it felt easier to get into spaces with other magical people where even if you weren't doing "everyday magic" you still felt welcome to talk and share your magic and it wasn't just crickets when you did.
It's just so weird to see so much content out there basically enforcing the kind of "hustle culture" type productivity mindset of "you need to be doing this every day if you want to connect to other people on this or share anything about it.
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