In the mid-2000s there was a brief fad in Australian government messaging where they went out of their way to insult the public as much as possible.
This fad eventually died out after the tourism board attempted the same style of messaging in the UK, causing a minor scandal which led to the head of Tourism Australia, Scott Morrison, getting the sack.
The first time we drove past the “don’t drive like a cock” sign, my mum looked at it was immediately SO confused - after all she’s a good semi-conservative Christian woman. My brother and I knew it right away but for the next half hour she guessed literally EVERY other word for cock (don’t drive like a rooster, chicken, hen, chick, bird, fowl, poultry) trying her goddamned hardest to make the sign make sense until my - at the time - eleven year old brother got fed up and yelled COCK at the top of his lungs from the back seat.
My mum was FURIOUS - we weren’t even allowed to say “heck” - until she realised he’d just been telling her what the sign was, and for the rest of the three hour trip our good semi-conservative Christian mother proceeded to amuse herself by muttering “cock” under her breath and giggling like a teenager every time she did.
We still bring it up every now and then. So that particular advertising campaign has been making my family laugh for over a decade.
Okay okay okay,,, but what if what if Radovid marries Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount of Lettenhove and he doesn’t know it’s the same person as Jaskier the bard, whom he is a huge fan of. He catches his husband running off sometimes late at night and he follows him to the nearest tavern to realize HE MARRIED THE BARD.
Hang on, hang on—I GOT THIS
Prince Radovid of Redania had a reputation for being something of a useless, drunken playboy: both unsuited to the martial pursuits of warfare and the cutthroat nature of political intrigue. For most of the continent, this would suggest he lacked “leadership qualities”, but it seemed to him as though what his brother did on the throne most often was to sign death warrants en masse. Radovid, by contrast, wanted to surround himself with beautiful things, like art, music, good food, and happy, smiling people. And most importantly, very little responsibility for any of their welfare. Radovid was a bit of a pacifistic bleeding heart, and while he was neither stupid nor unfit, he knew that the closer he got to the seat of power, the more he would be forced to make choices that would break him. So, he pretended to be a brainless lush. It was easier that way.
It didn’t afford him much choice over his life—he was told what to wear and when, where to be and when, and evidently, who to marry and when. It wasn’t that he’d had much illusion that he’d have an ultimate decision over his spouse, seeing as these things tended to be for political alliances moreso than comfort or love, but he thought they might ask for his input, at least. Or give him more than the morning’s head’s up that the banquet he’d been attending fittings for over the past few weeks was going to, in fact, be his wedding. Of course they didn’t bother hiring the right bard. They never hired The Right Bard. (There was only one.)
His husband, Julian, to whom he had just been married with surprisingly little fanfare for a royal wedding, was a bit of an enigma. The man was undoubtedly attractive: chocolate waves and piercing blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face on a lean frame with some of the longest legs Radovid had ever seen (and he’d seen a fair few sets given his lifestyle choices). Julian was a mouthwatering vision in embroidered silk and fine lace, perfect poise and courtly graces, at once demure and charming, mask only slightly slipping when he was suffering proximity to the horrid hurdy gurdy bellowing in the musician’s corner (for which the man could hardly be blamed—it was objectively terrible). He made it through the banquet festivities, being paraded around court like a doll without complaint, introduced to snake after snake after snake without flinching, and while demonstrating a alone of steel making it through that, showed absolutely no indication that he would be the type to sneak out of the palace immediately after being given a gracious out of performing “marital duties” that night by his new spouse pretending to be unconscious in a drunken stupor shortly after the festivities. Radovid was intrigued.
Jaskier is Hanna Montannaing his way through life and Radovid is the only human alive who has put two and two together. Yennefer has no idea. His Oxenfurt buddies are clueless.Djikstra is unaware.
*Side note that Geralt could have, if he didn’t run brusquely away from every remotely courtly and thus doesn’t realize the Viscount of Lettenhove/Prince Consort of Redania is a person worth noting because they’ve never met.
