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my writing, little fishie
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<3 Thank you! (I am still doing this askmeme guys, don’t judge me. I put it in the queue because it cheers me up so much all this time later.) And it’s funny because someone else commented on the whole extended reveal situation, but this part of it specifically is a part I enjoyed– of course having Geralt laugh until he can’t breathe is entertaining but I really love this kind of shit, where there’s room for humor in a real dark scene. I have been a fan of this for ages, and it’s something you see in very old sources. I wrote a whole paper on it in college about the sudden whiplashes in tone in the Irish medieval epic the Tain bo Cuiliagne, where you’ll have the hero give a lengthy speech about the dignity of his foe and how little he wants to fight him, and then conclude it with “but if he dares to face me, I’ll still rip his head off” more or less verbatim– of course I wrote this paper so long ago I don’t have any of the materials digitally, ha (O WordPerfect I hardly knew ye).
But I’ve always been a big fan of that sort of thing, and I love incorporating that into scenes. Geralt is a perfect protagonist for that, as well, since he’s got that inhuman ability to recover from very serious wounds, and the whole Witchers Don’t Feel Pain ridiculous stoicism that’s clearly fictional but equally clearly meaningful as an ethos, and so on– really ripe for this kind of shit. I was delighted to get to pull it off.
Sometimes as an author you’re like hm perhaps this reveals too much of me but I’m sort of past that now, though it’s been humbling to go back thru my stuff for this askmeme and be like oh heh all these stories have the same underlying themes and in fact sometimes the thing someone’s mentioning occurs in more than one place. ha ha. But I’m not all that self-conscious about it. my id is pretty uhhhhhhh obvious. I definitely like pretty boys badly injured stoically cracking wise on death’s door, and that is not an uncommon literary theme, so. (from Little Fishie https://archiveofourown.org/works/22956328, chapter 5.)
“It might kill you,” Eirich said. “Do you have a family? Is there anyone we should send word?”
The Witcher closed his eyes for a moment. “Just– give my medallion– to the next– Witcher you see,” he said. “They’ll know.”
Eirich nodded, and went to his bag, laying out supplies. “Anyone else we should send word to?”
“Your friend,” Benrick said. “Or– weren’t you traveling with someone?”
The Witcher blinked, glanced at him, and closed his eyes again. “Yeah,” he said. “The kid. Jaskier. Bard.”
“I heard he was ill,” Benrick said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” the Witcher said again. “But if he lives– I promised him– answer to a riddle.”
“I’ll tell him,” Benrick said.
The Witcher opened his eyes. “Only if he lives,” he said.
“Nobody lives forever,” Benrick pointed out.
The Witcher laughed a little, and coughed, and blood came out of his mouth, shocking red on the white of his skin. “Fair,” he said. “Nngh. Tell him– she eats them.”
“She eats them,” Benrick echoed, a little puzzled. It wasn’t a riddle he’d heard before.
“He’ll understand,” the Witcher said. “She. Eats. Them.”
“I’ll tell him,” Benrick said.
“Only if he– lives,” the Witcher said again. He squeezed his eyes shut, clearly in pain.
