#jaskerkin

[fictionkinfessions]

I'm glad I don't recall all of my prior full name. I will never learn it again. I was Jaskier, not fucking "Julian" or whatever, sure, my parents gave me that stupid name (and apparently some fanfic writers write Geralt using it in very private and personal moments and that is just wrong, so wrong, so very, very wrong), but it wasn't my name. It was just the name that was slapped on me and they expected me to live up to it. Well, I didn't. What a disappointment I was. And all the better for it.

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[fictionkinfessions]

I liked seeming delicate and not actually being delicate underneath everything. I chose my clothes so they hid my muscles, but does anyone really think someone who traveled with a Witcher- any Witcher, but particularly Geralt- wouldn't be at least somewhat competent? Beyond that, I was a traveling bard, do you have any idea how many bandits foolishly thought every bard was rich? And they didn't exactly take kindly to "I barely have two coins to rub together and nothing I own is worth a damn to you". They wouldn't have known the worth of a bar of soap if it were counted in gold right before their eyes, and nice clothes weren't exactly worth much when already tailored to someone else (they could be re-tailored but that was its own cost, reducing the price, and if the person was larger than me, well, that's no good, is it). So out came the swords, daggers, clubs, whatever they fancied, and I didn't always have Geralt around to defend me. But when I did, I liked the fantasy of being his helpless bard who needed him. I also liked being underestimated. Being unintimidating. You learn more when you look like your sword is just an ornament on your belt than you do looking like a threat. People don't pay any mind to the "drunken bard" who looks like a strong wind could pick him up and carry him away. Perhaps someday, I can be like that again, though I likely won't be able to carry a sword on my belt very often. How sad.

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[fictionkinfessions]

I keep going back to the fact that I really fucking felt that shoulder thing. It hurt when I first watched it and I haven't had the guts to watch it again yet. Like, holy shit, that one is apparently a very strong fictotype despite me apparently not really connecting with it that strongly. Maybe because my source counterpart is, as far as we know so far, a cis girl and I was a trans boy. But if I can watch my other fictotype in the same show get his fingers burned in what was a really traumatic event and feel only the emotional side, clearly there's something stronger with the one who had the shoulder thing and I might need to find a way to connect more with that one... If only I knew how. I really don't think I'll be able to do something like finding my Geralt or writing my memories as a fanfic.

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[fictionkinfessions]

I think it's really funny that fucking Jaskier the bard, who thrived in crowded taverns and among the raucous Witchers, now gets overstimulated playing video games for too long. Who placed a bard's soul in a brain that overheats like a cheap old laptop trying to run Cyberpunk? Why can I not have back the brain that could handle the utter sensory chaos that is a crowded tavern for hours at a time?! Oh well, I guess.

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[fictionkinfessions]

I don't even know how it happened. Or if it follows the rules canon set out but I should know by now my canon will always be different. I wasn't a Witcher, not really, the others never accepted me as one, I wasn't trained as one (and Geralt training me doesn't count, or didn't in their eyes, I was too old anyway, didn't have the same childhood trauma they did), but I wasn't... Not a Witcher. I know I was taken by... Someone, they thought if they put me through being mutated, whether I lived or died, it would break him or they could use me as a weapon against him. Instead, I lived and slaughtered all of them. He found me like that, covered in their blood, scared and confused, and he took me to the only place a Witcher is truly safe.

I don't remember anything between when they took me and when he found me. I don't even know who "they" were. Maybe it was Nilfgaard going after Ciri, maybe it was any of who-knows-how-many other people Geralt managed to piss off. But you know what... Making it my problem was their biggest mistake.

Funny, isn't it? People underestimate a bard, but I was never helpless. Traveling was always dangerous, and I was a frequent enough traveler that I would have been dead long before I even met Geralt. They didn't even bother to restrain me well enough (evidenced by the fact I broke out of their restraints), they probably thought I would be weak even if I survived. I showed them just how wrong they were before Geralt even found me.

I think he was proud of me. And scared for me. He knew I would never truly fit in anywhere, not even at Kaer Morhen since I was already an adult when I was mutated, not put through what proper Witchers went through. What he didn't realize is that I have never fit in anywhere, and perhaps I prefer it that way. They did allow me to stay there with him both to be trained to survive and throughout winters after, but it always felt more like I was his guest than someone who belonged.

When I first remembered all this, I wanted to think it was just a fantasy. But I know better. I know what I became. For better or worse, I can't pretend it was all just a dream or some figment of my own imagination.

[fictionkinfessions]

happy pride to my fellow annoying disaster mspecs! may we all fall in dumb love with our local mysterious himbo (or other gendered variation) and follow them to the ends of the earth. hopefully with less surprise dragons this time. ~jaskier

[fictionkinfessions]

*strums a lute, pointing passionately at the nearest beautiful stranger* i love u bitch... ~jaskier