#witcher jaskier
Jaskier: Uh this new tunic is so damn itchy!
Geralt: Just take it off then.
Jaskier:o_o
Geralt: Fuck. No, uh not like that I–
Jaskier: You said what you said…
BITCH. I just snorted cider out my nose reading this
Why did I think of Geralt whistling Roach over for some reason?!??
Jaskier would be so confused…
Jaskier: You need a hobby
Geralt: I have a hobby
Jaskier: Brooding isn’t a hobby my dear
Ciri: Am I in trouble?
Yennefer: Take a guess
Ciri: …no?
Jaskier: Take another guess
Jaskier: As your best friend-
Geralt: No one is my best friend
Jask: AS YOUR BEST FRIEND-
Jaskier: What we need here is a compromise
Geralt: Meaning I do what you want and compromise my integrity
Jaskier: Democracy in action right there
Jaskier: You know, I could have been killed… or worse …
Jask: Geralt could’ve given me another lecture on responsibility
Yennefer: Who would win in a fight, Jaskier or Geralt?
Ciri: I can’t answer that, Geralt's my dad!
Yen: So Jaskier?
Ciri: Yeah
Jaskier: Truth is, I only know one truly platonic relationship
Geralt: You and me
Jaskier: Don’t make me laugh dear you want to hit this so hard
Yennefer: Sorry I was late I was… taking care of something
Jaskier: *Enters the room looking noticeably dishevelled*
Jaskier: SHE PUSHED ME DOWN THE FUCKING STAIRS
Ciri: Hey Geralt, how do I get revenge on those who have wronged me?
Geralt: The best revenge is letting go and living well
Ciri: Hey Jaskier how do you-
Yennefer: Do you really want to hear my opinion on your music?
Jaskier:Yep!
Yennefer: It’s trash
Jaskier: Your opinion? I know my dear, tell me anyway
The Witcher With Blue Eyes
*throws this at you* random bullshit, go!
here, take some random ramblings of an au i came up with!! no fucking idea where i am going with this, but you can’t stop me
*
There are stories of a witcher with blue eyes.
Geralt was still a relatively new witcher, just five years on the Path, when this rumor appeared, and he was not naïve enough to fall for such fodder.
All witchers had yellow eyes. This was a given. None of the witcher schools had the exact same mutagens – every school was just slightly different, imbuing their witchers with the characteristics of the wild beast they represented – but all witchers had yellow eyes. That was how it was. That was how the mutagens worked. That was how a witcher could be recognized.
A witcher with blue eyes.
Geralt scoffed.
*
There are stories of a witcher with blue eyes.
There are stories of a witcher who strangled a wyvern with his bare hands, out of madness.
There are stories of a witcher who laughed, with empty blue eyes, as he danced with his twin blades and wrought cold blood.
Geralt is no longer new to the Path, and he has heard these stories for a while now. Even among his own brethren, the stories are whispered and shared. His mentors talk about blue eyes with cold indifference, but it’s apparent they are unsettled. A blue eyed witcher – who ever heard of such a thing?
But then the School of Viper loses its most infamous witcher in its own keep. In the blink of an eye.
And Geralt’s not so sure they’re rumors anymore.
*
Julian was different.
Even before the mutagens and the training and the trauma, he was always slightly to the left.
When he arrived at the steps of the School of the Viper, he had been scared witless. Gorthur Gvaed, the Viper Keep, also known affectionately as Blood Gate Keep by its inhabitants, was located deep in the Tir Tochair mountains. It was the furthest south Julian had ever been; it had been months from the lands he had grown up in.
It was also the furthest he had ever travelled, dead on his feet as he followed the viper witcher down the beaten Path, in boots not cut-out for the long days walking.
The witcher rode his horse while Julian walked. Julian was never allowed to touch the stallion and was threatened with the loss of his hand otherwise. The witcher only stopped when Julian could go no further, and sometimes then, forced the stumbling boy on with a crushing grip on his arm. Julian would sway on his feet, his vision would swim, and not even his not-so-human blood could save him from his human needs, like food, and water, and rest.
The witcher never gave him his name. He did not speak except to give commands. He called Julian names like “wretch” and “bastard.” He never called Julian by his name.
He was cold and cruel, like the village kids used to be to Julian.
Julian did not like the witcher.
But then they would pass through a village or small backwater hamlet, and he would see the sneers and barely disguised looks of disgust on the humans’ faces. The witcher may have thought him a mindless child, but he was smart, and he noticed when the witcher was forced to pay over three times the asking price for services like horse stabling and food. He saw when the witcher was scammed on hunts when they made their way south. He caught the whispers and murmurs of half-baked plans to murder the witcher in his sleep, just for being different.
He bore witness to the mistreatment of the witcher.
And though he damned himself for thinking it, Julian understood. He felt a kinship with the witcher.
And it did not excuse the witcher’s behaviour. It did not excuse his cruelness. Hurting others was a choice, no matter how hurt you were. But even then, a small part of Julian could sympathize with the man who was beat into this cruel soul.
They weren’t so different from each other, cruelness and all.
It took a long time for the witcher to trust Julian enough to leave him unsupervised – always with a threat lingering, of promising to hunt him down and slit his throat if he tried to run away – but when he finally did, Julian made no attempt to escape because he knew there was no point.
But Julian would never forget the face of the witcher when he came back from a hunt to find their camp painted with blood, Julian sitting by the fire and methodically cleaning the dagger he had successfully slipped from the witcher without notice. Several bodies lay on the outskirt of the camp; bandits who had made the mistake of thinking Julian was helpless.
An arm was missing from one of the bandits and the fire in the middle of the camp was roaring, the wood stacked high and the flames impossibly hot. Julian roasted his meal over the fire. It served the witcher for leaving him to starve, he thought bitterly.
And just once, Julian preened when he saw the way the witcher looked at him.
With something more than contempt.
With something akin to unease.
Julian was eight that night.
*
Julian was nothing.
Julian certainly wasn’t special when he arrived at Blood Gate Keep. He certainly wasn’t the first more-than-human boy to be claimed by a witcher and taken for the Trials.
Julian was nothing.
Julian was a contradiction of bloodlines, was the product of a shameless family.
Julian was nothing.
Julian was not special. Julian was not different. Julian was not more.
Julian was nothing.
Julian was not going to survive, because he was weak and small and he didn’t listen, and Julian was nothing. He was nothing. He was nothing. He was nothing. That was drilled into him as sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
Because Julian was nothing.
*
Every witcher school had the boys relentlessly train. The mutagens only did so much, and there was no success if there was talent without skill. Julian learned this very early on.
But Blood Gate Keep, despite the Trials, and physical training, and reading in bestiaries, still had all young witchers in training go through a final exam: The First Hunt. It was a physical exam before the Trials took place. The young boys had to survive in the surrounding wilderness for several days isolated and alone and make a kill; every boy was put out prepared with weapons and camping gear and told not to come back until they had proof of their kill.
Blood Gate Keep was in a remote location, more remote than other witcher schools, far away from any human civilization in the mountains, and as such the surrounding lands were wild and untamed. Mindless beasts and monsters roamed the base of the mountains, hid in the passing rivers, and hung in the low clouds.
Nobody thought of running away, for that only led to death.
The boys were given two weeks to complete The First Hunt, and no more. If they came back without proof of kill, they were slaughtered. Sometimes the vipers of the keep would take pity and leave them to starve out in the wilderness, alone.
Any monster would do, as long as it was dead and killed.
Sometimes the boys went for small monsters, or babes of monsters not yet old enough to walk and open their eyes. Some boys killed wildlife and maimed it so much it was indistinguishable from any other monstrous corpse, and they would claim it a monster. No one ever batted an eye at them.
Julian was thrown out of the keep with nothing but a bedroll and his dagger.
His mentors laughed as they closed the door on the young boy.
No one thought he would survive the Trials, much less complete The First Hunt.
He set out with a vengeance.
He survived out of pure spite.
And he marched straight back up the mountain to Blood Gate Keep, soaked in the blood of an arch griffin, blue eyes wild, the tongue of the griffin ripped straight from its mouth with his bare hands.
His dagger was clean.
*
The other boys in the keep were cruel, just like the witcher who brought him there. Even within the confines of stone walls, with death imminent, his peers still couldn’t find it within themselves to be kind toward him.
Julian has watched many boys comfort each other on cold nights, has watched older boys console the younger, has noticed the way many boys sleep together because of nightmares.
But not with him.
They tease and mock him.
They push and shove him.
They point and stare.
He’s the only one with eyes as blue as his, with a streak of wild that could not be tamed by their mentors, almost feral. He’s the only one who didn’t bow and snap under the cruelties of Blood Gate Keep. The only one who was not infected with hatred.
And none of the other boys can sympathize with him because they don’t understand him. Julian does not wish to hurt others. All the boys at Blood Gate Keep were going through the same thing, but it affected all of them differently. And some of the boys took the lessons they were handed and grew up bitter and wishing others could feel their hurt; others took their lessons and grew up tired and wishing others would never feel their hurt.
But none of it matters because the other boys still hate Julian.
It hurts, because even among a group of those who knew what he was going through, he still felt utterly alone. He was slipped poison in his drinks. His food was swiped. His clothes were shredded. He was targeted in training. There was no end to the cruelness, from mentors and peers alike.
Some days Julian falls mute from the sheer pressure pushing in on him from everything and everyone.
One day Julian is almost killed in his sleep by another boy in his cohort, and no one says anything when that boy never shows up again. It was not uncommon – even normal – for those in Blood Gate Keep to betray each other and sabotage others. It was encouraged. And still, Julian forces himself from his bed to live to see another day.
Julian uses his disadvantages to his advantage.
Everyone underestimates him.
He understands why.
Julian is small. Even with all the hormone packed lichen and meat the witchers fed the boys at the keep in preparation for training and Trials. Julian is thin where the other boys are broad, he is lean where the other boys are muscled. Julian has soft features. He has soft floppy hair and soft blue eyes. The other boys have stringy hair and deep shit-coloured eyes, even if they weren’t brown.
*
Julian won’t survive the Trials because he’s too weak. He’s not quite human, but he is still weak in the eyes of his mentors. Julian doesn’t do what he’s told. He will fail.
But within Julian’s small frame is a feral animal.
And it’s almost laughable when he sees their reaction every time they push, push, push – and he finally pushes back, finally snaps at them – and they’re shocked. Like they never saw it coming, even though it happened every time.
You don’t see what you don’t want to believe, supposedly.
*
Julian learned that the School of the Viper did things a little differently than the other witcher schools, and he wasn’t surprised.
He wasn’t surprised to learn of his school’s failings.
*
Julian passes through the Trials, to everyone’s shock.
Julian comes out of the Trials with his same inhuman blue eyes, to everyone’s shock.
Julian slits the throat of the witcher who had brought him to Blood Gate Keep, to no one’s shock.
Probably because they never found out it was him.
*
Witchers weren’t liked, but some schools had better reputations than others.
Certainly, the wolves of Kaer Morhen had the most heroic reputation; headstrong and loyal, with more morals than most witchers, disregarding that most witchers didn’t have morals at all.
The cats of Stygga Castle were known to be maniac, either lacking all emotion or treading the fine line of insanity with too much emotion; they killed not just traditional monsters, but also monsters of the human variety, and would take any contract for an innocent’s head if given enough coin.
But the vipers of Gorthur Gvaed were neither of those.
Vipers were predators, through and through.
The mutagens the School of Viper used did not tamper with emotions the way the mutagens from the School of Cat did; it did not need to, for every Viper that came out of Blood Gate Keep was beaten into a cruel and merciless man.
The School of Viper did not raise witchers with morals of a sense of duty to humanity, the way the School of Wolf did; vipers were not safe even within the walls of their own keep, for they never knew when a peer would turn on them for coin, vengeance, or fun. Witchers who stayed in the keep were constantly kept on their toes, their drinks poisoned in game, their training brutal and to the death, and vipers learned early on that you needed to strike first to win, lest your comrade do it first.
Vipers weren’t noble, and vipers weren’t insane; they were just senseless.
*
It was a lie that Cats were the most unstable witchers.
Cats may have had a reputation for being short a marble, but vipers were completely unpredictable.
*
Being the best got you nowhere in Blood Gate Keep.
His fellow witchers and mentors thought Julian weak. They only saw his blue eyes and small frame and soft voice, and their eyes passed over him.
That was good.
Being smart, being strong, being fast – those were traits that made you a target in the Viper’s den.
It was a constant battle of trying to best one another, trying to come out on top, trying to eliminate any form of threat, even if that threat was a fellow witcher, one of the few boys to make it through the Trials with you. Boys were poisoned left and right. Throats were slit. Witchers died in training if they weren’t strong enough, because a Viper never showed mercy, even when it was his brother who lay at the other end of his blade.
After all, if you couldn’t survive a spar, what good were you on The Path?
Julian used all weapons and tools at his disposal.
He never initiated an attack; he was never the one pouring acid in another’s stew, he didn’t engage in to-the-death spars, he never snuck through the keep and assassinated a fellow brother.
His behaviour wasn’t born out of morals, he soon realized.
It was predatory behaviour, like the Viper he was.
An opportunistic predator.
Julian sat in waiting; he waited for another to initiate the struggle against death. And then, before they could blink, before they could realize that their easy target isn’t so easy, they’re gone.
It was amusing to watch as his peers’ brows furrowed in confusion as to why he was still alive.
And yet, no one figured it out.
No one suspects the fool, after all.
Julian was probably the most dangerous Viper in the keep.
*
As soon as Julian earned his Viper medallion, he left Blood Gate Keep and never looked back.
Julian felt silly wearing two medallions at once, and with great reluctance, he took off the medallion from his parents and packed it at the bottom of his pack with care. He knew his new witcher medallion would be of more use, and would probably save his life, whereas he didn’t know the first thing about how to work the medallion his parents gave him. It was one of the few times he felt truly upset with himself, for all his achievements at Blood Gate Keep, he couldn’t figure out a simple magic piece.
Nonetheless, he didn’t bother with goodbyes or a grand departure. He felt no comradery with the vipers he had shared a den with.
And maybe he walked away with a few witcher corpses at his feet, but that was neither here nor there.
*
There are stories of a witcher with blue eyes.
But those stories haven’t been told in years, and Geralt forgets about them like bedtime stories told to children when they’re young.
After all, a witcher with blue eyes doesn’t exist.
*
As is the cycle with history, new stories come about.
*
There are stories of a bard with blue eyes.
*
Geralt: I fell in love with a damn clown.
Jaskier: I’m a bard, you bitch!
Geralt: Sometimes I can still hear him honking his stupid little nose.
Scrambling to finish this mer!Jaskier from @craftgamerzz’s au in time for mer-may
How did mer-may go by so fast
Jaskier study from a season 1 bts pic
and yes, I will never get over how we were robbed of even this small bonnet “cuz it looks sily” *internal screaming*, at least in season two he has a feathery hat , even if only for a short while :””D
ID under the cut:
[ ID start: realistic but sketchy pencil and watercolor study of Jaskier from the Witcher Netflix, he is shown from mid tigh up, he is a lighskinned young man with short brwon hair, he is wearing a small black bonnet hat with a black ostrich feather and some white skinny feathers, he is wearing a blue doublet (tudor era jacket) with red and yellow accents with matching blue pants, his expression is calm , End ID]
Post link
oh lord…
these shoulders …
Joey wtf
*horny panic*
Although it’s the least winter portrait possible, I’d like to wish you all a happy holiday season!☃️
