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[chaoticbeauty]

Player Information
Name: Emily
Age: 25+
Contact: hoopskirts
Other Characters: none!

Character Information
Name: Yennefer of Vengerberg
Canon: The Witcher (Netflix Series)
Canon Point: 1x08 towards the end of the Battle of Sodden when Tissaia tells her to let her chaos explode.
Age: approximately 71/72
History: wiki

Personality:

CW: Suicide attempt, hysterectomy, infant death, violence, dubious consent, ableism/discrimination

Yennefer is a complexity, to say the least.

The calm exterior shouldn't be trusted because the exterior serves a purpose in the larger scheme of things. Yennefer was born with a 'twisted spine' due to her being a quarter elf. By conventional depictions of beauty, she didn't meet the societal standard. Bullied, abused, and unwanted, she'd grown up with no self worth or confidence. Kindness hadn't been something she'd ever really experienced without expecting a shoe to drop or there to be a catch. There had been many injustices against Yenn from early on, including her stepfather selling her to Tissaia, the Rectoress of Aretuza, for four marks because she'd caught the woman's attention with a magical display. At her lowest point, Yennefer had tried to kill herself during her first night at Aretuza. It had been her attempt to regain control over at least one aspect of her life - how she died. After being saved, it took what she believed was a genuine act of kindness for her powers to begin showing through the wall she'd built to protect herself. She'd met Istredd, a Sorceror who was studying the Aretuzan ruins, and he'd helped her focus her abilities and be in a safe environment to try and fail without the fear of ridicule or worse.

As she continued to study, that attempt to grasp at some sort of control grew more and more as her confidence began to blossom, despite the repeated scolding by Tissaia. But again, even moving towards a positive outlook... Enough ridicule lead to another breaking point. When trying to bottle lightning in Aretuza's windmill, Yennefer had thrown the lightning back at Tissaia - a dangerous and selfish maneuver on her part.

She confided a lot in Istredd and had taken him on as a lover. He'd been able to reign her in at times when her desire for payback or her jealousy of the other students grew to be too much - a calm focal point in her personal storm. As she'd gotten closer to initiation and the end of her studies, she had been presented with the opportunity to go through an enchantment process to fix anything she'd like with her body. Another chance to take control over something she'd been unable to change. She'd initially chosen not to change anything, expecting to be assigned to Aedirn as the court Sorceress - the capitol city of Vengerberg, where she's from. She'd wanted to return to the home that had rejected her, showing she could be better in her current form as anyone who'd undergone the transformation. But, her assignment is quickly overruled. Instead, told she'd be going to Nilfgaard because of her elven blood.

Through this discriminatory revelation, she'd figured out how the Brotherhood learned the truth about her -- the only other person who'd known being the Istredd. When she'd seen him the first time, she'd been able to portal using a Feainnewedd that Istredd had given her. Feainnewedd is a flower that only grows where Elder Blood has been split, confirming her heritage without her having to say it.

She had trusted him and he'd betrayed her -- just like everyone else in her life. Only this time, he'd betrayed her in a way that created a barrier between her and her perceived idyllic future. And through their fight, some facts come to light about both of them -- intentions not fully honest for either of them. She'd been refining a skill set -- how to use a man's desires against him. She saw people, especially men as nothing more than pawns for her to move around the board in the name of her own path to power. And she'd thought she had him in her pocket, but she hadn't been the only one on a quest for power. He'd just played her first.

Istredd: You know, victimhood is not your color.
Yennefer: Nor heroism yours.
Istredd: You're just angry because you lost your chance to be beautiful!
Yennefer: I want to be powerful
Istredd: Seen and adored with everyone watching.
Yennefer: It is what I'm owed.
Istredd: No amount of power or beauty will ever make you feel worthy of either.

After her argument with him, her stubbornness to not be outdone shines through. She returned to the enchanter and demanded he transform her - not wanting to wait for the sedative to help with the pain. She endured an inhumane amount of pain in the name of vengeance to sate her need to prove a point to everyone who didn't believe she was worth anything. The only things she keeps from her old self is her violet eyes and the scars on her wrists from her failed suicide attempt.

The cost of the transformation is a hysterectomy, revoking Yenn's chances of ever having children.

While she doesn't regret it at that moment, the regret catches up with her later as she begins to realize power and beauty aren't everything. At this moment, though, she has no interest in letting others stand in the way of her success. Yennefer is ambitious and manipulative and able to push herself beyond her limits with no concern for her own personal safety.

It's addictive in a way, fueled by her need to win. And she does, technically. She crashes the initiation party after her transformation and wins over the assignment she'd originally wanted - already weaponizing her new looks and using them to her advantage. But, that all comes with a cost and her disrupting the chain of events sets off a butterfly effect that will eventually lead to the death and oppression of many. Her selfish choices come back to bite her in the ass threefold.

After 30 years at court in Aedirn, she'd been escorting the Queen of Lyria - Yennefer clearly miserable and disappointed in her current existence as a Court Mage. She'd believed in an idealistic view of how her future was going to be and the reality had been harsh and far more bleak than she'd imagined. They're attacked and after portaling both the Queen and her infant daughter to safety, she eventually makes a choice to save the child and let the Queen die - the assassin sent by the King due to the Queen not giving him a male heir. Yennefer tries to run with the baby, to save it from execution just for being born the wrong sex... But she fails.

She rationalizes the child's death with dry sarcasm -- one of her defense mechanisms from before the transformation, laying out what she believes would have been its bleak future. Her assessment is pragmatic and cold, reflecting her view on the world and how it has treated her so far.

Yennefer: So count yourself lucky. You've cheated the game and won without even knowing it.

After abandoning her position at Court, she went into business for herself - selling potions and enchantments in towns and exploiting political turmoil to her advantage. Her slogan was "correctives quite effective, whatever the objective". Tissaia came to visit her again, calling her out for her true reason she was roaming -- a hunt for a cure to restore her ability to have a child by seeking out mages who'd been rumored to have a cure. When the first idyllic result of her actions hadn't worked out, she'd set out for the next best success -- a solution to fix her lonliness and desire for unconditional love. Tissaia had come with a warning, once again trying to reign in Yennefer's chaos as she self-destructs and offering her a way out. Before the Brotherhood comes after her for abandoning her post while also upsetting the status quo and she finds herself dead or worse. And in Yennefer's truest form, she questions the intent, not trusting that her former teacher actually wants to help her, to save her. She believes there's an ulterior motive, some greater moving piece she can't quite understand yet.

Tissaia: Only you can be thrown a lifeline and think you are saving me.

It further proves nothing will ever truly be enough to sate Yennefer's quest for ultimate power. Even the highest successes won't do it because there will always be something else just beyond the horizon equally impossible and tempting to achieve or conquer. She wants for everything without realizing that nothing will ever sate her. And despite the illusion that she's helping the town by curing them of their ailments, she also is using the townsfolk for her own amusement, charming them into an orgy for her to watch and more. It just goes to further prove how easily she walks the gray area between what some would consider good and evil - cementing that magic itself is neutral, but the intent of the caster makes the decision on what side of the line it falls. It also shows how fluid the ideas of good versus evil really could be depending on perspective.

A source of power and a possible solution for her childbearing issues presents itself again almost immediately when Geralt walks into her life asking for help. He and his bard companion, Jaskier, had tangled with a Djinn and Yennefer had the power to save the bard's life after the attack.

Except she does more than that.

She tries to absorb the power of the Djinn for herself with no care for her own life - an expansion of her lack of self-worth from her youth. Geralt saves her and starts them on a path of possible tied fates. He becomes a returning constant in her life and someone she allows in as a trusted confidant of sorts -- showing a softer side of herself and letting the walls she'd built crumble again. She shows she has the ability to be compassionate and even love again after a life of constant pain. She continues on her quest towards motherhood, paths crossing again and again with Geralt.

He'd become a source of somewhat consistent love, but it still wasn't enough and it certainly wasn't unconditional. She'd been content enough with it for the time being, though. At least, until a dragon they'd been hunting and end up helping to save reveals a truth she wasn't ready to hear... She'd never recover her ability to have children. The dragon quest also sparks a fight between her and Geralt about her ability to become a mother and the revelation of Geralt's child surprise. They may hold love for each other, but they also know which buttons to push to make their tempers flare and Yennefer has no issue being ruthless when it's a matter of hurting someone before they can hurt her emotionally.

Something he was running away from when motherhood is all she'd ever wanted to run towards. Or at least believed that would somehow solve all of her issues. She'd confessed to Geralt of her dreams of becoming important to someone one day and he retorts that she's important to him, making the perceived betrayal hurt more. Her insecurities revolving around love and trust spark again, fanned further when she interprets what she learns of Geralt's last wish of the Djinn being to tie their life forces together in order to save her. It just fuels the idea that the love she'd felt for him wasn't genuine and the void of loneliness within her only grows deeper.

Once again, she's broken back down and knocked off of the glass pedestal she'd placed herself atop. She returns to Aretuza to help Tissaia. Her jaded perspective is forced on the students, Yennefer having to swallow her pride and face the pushback fromt he new students she'd given Tissaia all those years ago. That pride is pushed further down as she steps in to help battle Nilfgaard forces, the post she was originally supposed to be assigned to. But, because she'd forced her way into Aedirn, Nilfgaard had received a court mage that was the niece of one of the Brotherhood members and Fringilla had allowed them to grow into a power-hungry country keen on conquering all they deemed weak. It was a monster Yennefer, through her selfish actions well over 30 years ago, had unleashed and she needed to help get it back under control. That ever-present illusion she'd been trying to attain her entire life.

The Battle of Sodden was long and arduous, emotionally and physically devastating for her. She'd watched fellow mages betray her and her companions through magical manipulation. Yennefer had tried to be in command, but their efforts weren't enough and she'd learned a valuable lesson about her inability to control everything and the power of sacrifice for the greater good. Wounded and at a loss, she finds her former instructor and finally shows humility and gratitude in the face of true mortality. An injured Yennefer confesses that Tissaia saved her and it was now Yenn's turn to save the continent. Tissaia advises her to let her chaos explode as a last-ditch effort to stop the Nilfgaard forces. It teaches Yennefer to empower herself through her past rather than trying to fight it and mask it - a lesson she'd been running from her entire magical career.

Her entire life had led up to this battle, another transformation... More painful than the one before. She'd moved from believing in the good of one at the cost of all to her own sacrifice being worth it if it meant saving everything and everyone else. And in that moment she'd learned a lesson about her personal value, the importance of the people in her life, and the shifting her perspective to the big picture.

Tissaia: Forget the bottle, let your chaos explode.

Abilities & Skills:

Abilities:
Yennefer is a skilled Sorceress, trained in the art of magic. She is able to extract magical energy from the four elements, create portals to transport herself over long distances and heal, as well as kill, in the blink of an eye. She is trained extensively in the fields of science and politics, having been set up to take over the post of Mage and Advisor to the King in a royal court.

Skills:
Manipulation
Intelligent
Witty
Trained in formal conversation and politics with 30 years of Court experience
The gift of long life/extremely slow aging.
Combat skills - competent with a blade against multiple opponents
Extremely high pain tolerance
Resilient/able to hold focus in just about any situation

Inventory/Companions:

her outfit from the battle, stained with blood and dirt/soot from the fire/torn from her injury and her choker that she had on beneath the neckline of the dress.

Choice: Witch

Reason: She is an extremely skilled Sorceress back in her world and has fought through adversity and unforgiving circumstances to gain the power she'd had before. Yennefer had also gone on an emotional and mental journey working towards really learning how to control and channel her abilities, including helping to teach the next generation of stubborn Sorceresses at Aretuza.

Sample:

from the 4th wall event with her at an earlier canon point.

Additional sample from current canon point:

[ Adrenaline was a tricky thing. It could fuel someone to achieve great victories in the heat of the moment, or send someone crashing down to their lowest depths. Yennefer had been running on adrenaline through most of the fight, her body giving her the last of its reserves to keep her moving forward. And she'd done just that, falling into the glimmering sliver in the pool on the rock she'd tried to climb overlooking the battlefield.

And then she was being rushed to an infirmary, no one answering her questions with definitive answers or letting her go. This had to be some sort of master level illusion created by Fringilla to keep her from making a last ditch effort to crush the opposition. There was no other logical answer. And the longer she entertained said illusion, the more her chances of somehow turning the tide faded.

Well, fuck.

She tries to call for her power, to even just create a portal... But nothing comes of it. Panic fuels her reaction, lashing out at the closest person and ignoring the flare of pain from her side. Yennefer vaguely registers someone telling her that her rapid movements will only worsen her condition, but she doesn't care. She couldn't willingly stand by in a prison world of some sort while the few people she'd recognized as holding importance in her life died -- while the continent she'd chosen and promised to protect falls.

Cornered and reeking of intense amounts of pain and fear masked by her angry bravado, she attempts to make her last stand before they can get her into a bed or she loses consciousness. Her pulse pounds in her ears, drowning out the calls to calm down. ]

No... No. I will not comply with this illusion. I have to get back. And once I break this enchantment, you will live long enough to regret the decisions made today. Cut the bullshit and take me to her. [ Nothing. ] Take me to Fringilla. [ And when again, no one moves or shows a change of intent or recognition, she attempts to emphasize her point - loudly barking out the single syllable. ] Now!