cointosser: (Default)
Jaskier "old-timey fuckboy" Alfred Pankratz ([personal profile] cointosser) wrote2021-04-12 08:58 pm
princessvegas: (128. this dirty little damsel)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-01-24 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ They're simple things to her, but something that she has learned in the past few months is what seems basic to her is a mystery to others. She had never thought, before Abraxas, that she knew very much. She's from a poor public school in the Midwest, from a place so sparsely inhabited and blasé about education that her high school 4-H club had more funding than the entire AP program. She's used to being the one who needs things explained, who's treated like an ignorant child, surrounded by people with better educations and deeper understandings of the world. Now she's pulling random science facts and tidbits about prehistory from her memory, and just those small actions have built confidence in her knowledge that she never thought she'd have. She doesn't know if she would have been able to push ahead learning magic if she didn't feel boosted by the simple act of actually knowing stuff. Stuff that she didn't even knew she knew.

And there is something extremely gratifying about showing someone a thing that they've never conceived of before, of seeing their reaction and watching their eyes change with comprehension.

Her warning is actually based on the fact that she accidentally gave him a panic attack within a few minutes of meeting for the first time (if confetti cannons warranted Xanax and weed, he would need heroin to cope with unexpected fireworks), but it's fine. She actually expects that he'll be exposed to fireworks either way -- there's no way in hell that Sam doesn't throw a Fourth of July cook-out with a bunch of Roman Candles -- so she just laughs. ]
Look, I ain't think to say anythin' at Halloween, I'm not gonna spring somethin' even bigger on you without a warning.

[ There's a snort, somewhat bitter, and she refills her glass with a thought, as the bottle has long been emptied. She takes a knowing sip, looking over the rows of grapevines. ] You've never been a woman. When you're a girl, you get jaded early. Men hurt us, startin' early. Half the time, it's your own daddy does it first, if he even stuck around. [ She fishes a joint out of her cleavage, because of course that's where she keeps such things, then lights it with a wave of her hand. Taking a drag, she offers it to Jaskier, blows the smoke out in a cloud. ] There's this famous saying in my world. 'Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.' You wanna survive, you better learn that fallin' in love is just breakin' all your defenses down for 'em.

[ When she looks back at him, it's with an expression of resignation, acceptance. An eyebrow lift that says, That's just how it is. ] Every woman you've ever known has a story about when she loved a man and he used it to ruin her. They just never told you.
Edited 2022-01-24 16:05 (UTC)
princessvegas: (046. we are the new americana)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-01-30 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He "admits" to have never been a woman, and she chuckles with a wry smile. It's not that she thinks less of him for not understanding -- she doesn't think he's capable of understanding. She doesn't think any man is, because they live in a world that teaches them that the things they do to women are fine, just, logical. That women are the fools, are helpless, deserve it.

She does not appear surprised to hear his sordid history (look, when she decided to make a cuck out of her god-king, she knew exactly what she was doing), and in fact, she mostly just looks entertained by it. She's not someone who cares all that much about respecting the institution of marriage, nor does she think it's Jaskier's responsibility to stay away from married women. Their fidelity has nothing to do with him, unless he is a very different man than Julie believes him to be. ]
Yeah, and those were the ones who weren't in love. Those were the ones miserable enough with what they had to be lookin' for somethin' else. It's when you don't want anyone else that makes you weak. Gives 'em the upper hand.

It's like bein' on a tightrope all the time, with no net to catch you, and you know you're gonna hit the ground eventually. You can give a man your whole world, and he'll throw it back in your face without a thought, 'cause it was never gonna be good enough for him. Men, most men, don't want a woman to be a person. They just want mommies and maids they're allowed to fuck, too. So you cook and clean up after him, you listen to his problems, you raise his brats, you lay there long enough for him to get off and fall asleep, all 'cause you love him, right? You love him, so you don't ask for any of that for yourself. Because the second you ask for anythin' more from him, need more, he'll disappear. I remember readin' this statistic once, that if a woman gets cancer, there's a seventy-five percent chance her husband leaves her while she's sick. Doesn't matter how old they are, how long they've been married, nothin'. Seventy-five percent. When the man gets cancer, the woman stays more than eighty percent of the time.

Inhale right after the hit, don't let it sit in your throat. That'll irritate you, make you cough. [ He coughs and she takes the joint back, takes another long pull. She has to think about her answer, eyes cast over the vineyard, the sun beginning to lower in the sky. ] My story... my story ends with lightnin'. Love's not anythin' I'll ever need to worry about.
princessvegas: (039. have you been spending)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-02-01 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Well, she did come from Tinder culture and then die, so it's enough to jade even the dreamiest of romantics. And she recognizes that she's lucky, that she didn't come from a world where a woman needed a man to survive. It's new even for them. But it doesn't mean that she hasn't seen, lived through the aftermath of men's selfishness, their failures. She grew up learning that the worst thing she could make a man feel is anger, because he might beat her or else find another woman. That the price of love was turning a blind eye to betrayal, to abuse. She watched her female relatives and friends endlessly pick up the shattered pieces of themselves while the men who broke them pretended they couldn't hear the pained cries.

Julie doesn't care for most people, as a general rule. Views others first and foremost as tools to provide her with what she wants. That goes double for men. The walls that surround her heart tower twice as tall for anyone with a Y-chromosome. The risk they bring is so much greater than any woman.

She laughs a little, takes a sip and another hit before she passes the joint back. ]
If I want a man dead, I'll do it myself. Hell hath no fury and all that. [ There's a pause where she looks at Jaskier from the corner of her eye. ] No, he wasn't struck by lightnin'. There's no one "him". It's all "him"s.

[ The sky takes on a purple cast, and she stands, offers him her hand. ] C'mon, I'll show you fireworks.
princessvegas: (081. and i don't give a damn)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-02-03 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ "Songs about women killing men" is basically a valid musical genre unto itself, as far as Julie's concerned. She can build him a whole playlist to listen to on repeat while he practices emojis.

She snickers and barely restrains from calling him a baby, because she is a child in an adult's body, but the joint disappears after she breathes out a final cloud of smoke. With a wave of her arm, the sky goes from dusk to midnight, stars twinkling against the indigo field that ends at the limits of the vineyard. A second thought turns their seats instead to a large blanket spread over the grass. It's blue gingham and quite worn, because that's the blanket that Julie remembers best, from Independence Day and Memorial Day celebrations, the blanket that she would fall asleep under in the back of her father's truck after the show was over. The wine sits in a corner, a fresh bottle, and she feels a pang in her heart looking over the scene. This exact setup, it's not something she ever gets again, not for real, and it had once seemed so reliable. Something that would be there for her every summer.

She slips her shoes off at the edge of the blanket, then lies down to look up at the sky, a halo of pink spread around her head. ]
Get comfortable. It's the only real way to watch.
princessvegas: (134. kicking both my heels off)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-02-07 07:36 am (UTC)(link)
Remind me to teach y'all about tents. [ Honestly, everything she hears about traveling a lot before the advent of the automobile sounds truly awful. At least being stuck in a shitty medieval town comes with a bed.

There's a bang and several whistling noises as the first fireworks launch from somewhere near the edge of the domain. They sail into the sky, disappear for just a second, then begin to explode into glittering dandelion displays of every color. Thunderous noise becomes a constant drone as more and more fireworks take up the sky, some spreading wide like flowers, some remaining in tightly clustered balls, some shooting further up like streamers. Music plays around them as if on speakers, mostly because that's how Julie's recollection of it works, timed to vaguely patriotic country songs. The fireworks drown most of it out anyway, though they remain coordinated with the rhythm.

Her face begins to hurt from beaming so much. She really thought she'd never see fireworks again, not after the superflu. Maybe it's the American in her, maybe it's just the girl who's spent the past year and half almost completely devoid of simple joy. She turns her head to watch Jaskier's reaction. ]
princessvegas: (042. we are the new americana)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-02-08 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ He does know he's allowed to cuddle Geralt without sleeping on the ground, right? Or like, in some form of shelter. A lean-to, even. She's going to get them a tent. They can spoon in their horse blankets without bugs landing on their faces all night, at least.

She touches his shoulder gently when he jumps, because this is what she was warning him of, but he so quickly falls into the same enchantment as children seeing fireworks for the first time. The bursts keep coming, overlapping each other in rainbow-colored balls, then they switch to hearts and stars. Julie's pretty sure that, if she concentrates hard enough --

A series of music notes bloom across the sky. They don't actually mean anything (Julie can't read music), but the symbols are there. ]
princessvegas: (025. survival of the richest)

[personal profile] princessvegas 2022-02-09 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's a finale of sorts, a sequence of flares and showers, then she lets it end, leaving just the dark sky above them. The sudden quiet is almost piercing, but soon enough, the sounds of the vineyard -- crickets, wind, the horses -- return.

Fireworks are so ancient in Julie's world that she can barely conceive of one where they're not present. She knows that there are guns in the Free Cities, albeit rare, but does that mean that they don't function on gunpowder? If there's one thing she's pretty sure of, it's that humans will find a way to make entertainment out explosions far faster than they'll find a way to responsibly use such power.

She rolls onto her side, props her head on her hand as she considers the idea. ]
I mean, I don't think fireworks would be very hard with magic, probably easier than regular fire. But with the way they feel about magic out there... [ She shakes her head a little. ] I can't wrap my head around havin' magic and then hatin' it like that.