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laurelnose · 4 years ago

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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in

re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me

hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.

The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!

However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!

Some important background facts:

Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.

Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.

An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.

Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.

Now, here’s my Hot Take:

The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.

The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!

But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)

* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.

…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.

Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.

should monsters be hunted to extinction?

So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.

(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)

However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”

“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”

–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6

This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?

I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.

Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!

And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:

“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”

–Eternal Flame, ch. 2

If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.

* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao

Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.

So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!

Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.

So let’s talk monster ecology.

what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?

So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.

Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!

What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”

And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.

Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—

…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!

Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.

> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans

I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.

For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!

We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).

And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.

So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!

> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?

Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).

However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!

Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.

(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)

For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:

food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.

illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.

mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔

territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.

natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)

Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)

First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!

Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.

So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.

(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)

When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.

Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!

* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.

So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!

(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)

…whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #and a bit of #witcher book blogging #asks #anonymous

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cats-obsessions · 5 years ago

Text

Mark Your Love in Ink Part 2

A Geraskier soulmates au

Part one - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Rating: T

Chapters: 2 of 5?

Notes: I decided to split this up into 5 parts, but on ao3, I posted parts 2-4 in one chapter. So, if you want to read ahead, read on ao3

It turns out, Geralt can run from ‘fate’ but not Jaskier. Somehow, Jaskier worms his way into his life. Forcefully. And deeply. What he expects to be shared milkshakes and parted ways turns into Jaskier following him to the warehouse, determined to set his eyes on some monsters- lucky for them, the ‘monsters’ weren’t werewolves or noonwraiths like he had expected. Nope, they were elves. Angry elves that captured Geralt and Jaskier, bashed the starving artist’s guitar and kicked them both in the gut. Geralt was able to reason with them, and Jaskier was given a lute for his troubles, but he didn’t get any money for his troubles.

As the sun began to rise over the city, bright lights reflecting off of the buildings, they parted ways. The younger man smiled at Geralt with sunshine in his eyes and said “I’d offer you my number, but I suppose you already have it,” which was true- even if it weren’t on his body, Geralt’s had it memorized for years. He was surprised, though, when the musician added “This was fun. Let’s do it again sometime,” with a genuine warmth that told Geralt he wasn’t lying. He was sure that misadventure would have driven the boy away, but he didn’t seem deterred. If anything, he seemed more interested.

Geralt practically passed out once he got home, eager to sleep rather than focus on the situation. He was more alarmed to find the familiar number texting him once he awoke. How did he even get his number?

It didn’t seem to matter much. The next thing Geralt knows, he’s getting roped into going for coffee or drinks, then just hanging out doing things he’d never bothered spending time on before, like playing video games. Then, Jaskier starts showing up at his apartment whenever he wants. Geralt tried to argue, but Roach, his cat, loves Jaskier almost as much as she loves Geralt, which is odd considering she scratches up most strangers.

Every step of the way, he tries and tries to push back against this odd little human that seems set on getting close to him, and every battle he picks, he finds himself losing. When Jaskier starts following him to jobs, he knows he’s gone too far to turn back.

That he was not fond of, but Jaskier is the most persistent thing he’s ever met- like a weed. At first it was just local jobs, things he knew Jaskier could watch without getting in the way, but then he started following him on longer jobs. And, well it’s kind of nice to have someone to camp with, especially when he can convince the musician to stay at the camp while he hunts. He even proves to be useful once or twice. Six months later, Geralt finds himself with an intrusive friend with blurred lines and a lack of respect for personal space.

But it’s not bad, surprisingly.

Geralt finds himself smiling more. Jaskier is tactile and unafraid to show emotion in a way that’s almost frightening after so many years of being a loner. And Geralt, he puts up with it- at least that’s what he says. In reality, he does his best to keep his emotions from spilling out of ‘friends’ and toward something more.

Because he doesn’t believe in fate or destiny.

A soulmate bond is a social concept made up to explain magical connections that only go skin deep.

That’s all it is.

So, he doesn’t fall for Jaskier as if he could prove how fake Destiny is by refusing to feel.

Geralt hums some song that’s been stuck in his head for days- certainly not because the dumb musician had been playing it last time they saw each other. He’s cooking dinner one late evening when he hears his apartment door handle jiggle followed by several knocks. Does he really expect it to be unlocked for him all the time?

As soon as he unlocks the door, it’s being opened by the musician on the other side. He’s a little flushed and his hair is messy as he complains “If you gave me a key, this would be easier.”

“If I gave you a key, you’d never leave me alone.” Geralt rolls his eyes. “Did you bike here in the middle of the night?” he asks, noticing the helmet in one of his hands, a duffle bag in the other, and his lute thrown over his shoulder “and what’s all this?”

“My stuff- for our trip.” Jaskier answers as if it were obvious. He throws his bag down, slips off his shoes, and begins to make himself at home. Geralt watches as Jaskier moves to the living room, stopping to pet Roach on his way. The brown tabby shoves her head into Jaskier’s palm, meowing happily to greet him. Geralt does his best not to smile at the sight.

Their trip. Geralt had tried to convince him to sit this one out to no avail. It will be a week-long trip at the least- granted he can even find the beast. He got reports of a possible griffon terrorizing an isolated town a few days north of them. They’ll have to drive part way, then hike through the forests and camp there for however long it will take to find and defeat it. But Jaskier hasn’t seen a griffon yet, and he’s enamored with them- that’s probably Geralt’s fault, though.

“We don’t leave for two more days, Jaskier.” Geralt reminds him.

“It’s better to be prepared early, isn’t it?”

Geralt lets it go, turning back to his cooking. Jaskier can entertain himself if he’s so set on showing up unannounced. Though, Geralt throws an extra pork cutlet on the pan; the gods know the boy doesn’t eat enough real food.

He can hear the musician talking to Roach in the background. He’s almost surprised Jaskier hasn’t pestered him about his day yet. But, he doesn’t refrain from taking advantage of the momentary silence. With the meat on the pan, crackling and popping while it cooks, there’s nothing to do but wait. So, he pulls out his phone and scrolls mindlessly through the local news. He doesn’t care much for politics, but occasionally things will pop up that point to creatures, monsters, and jobs.

‘Local YouTuber Dies in Attempt to Catch Kikimora’

A dark figure can be seen in the background of what he assumes is a screen shot from the recording. “It’s an Ekimmara, you morons.” Geralt scoffs under his breath. Typical. Mankind has been chasing after monsters since the dawn of time. The widespread use of cameras only made things worse. He scrolls down further, and another headline pops out to him.

‘Local Dive Bar Found to be Drug Front: Shoot Out Between Owners Leaves Renters Evicted’

Also not terribly surprising; humans are always doing these kinds of things. Over his near century of a life, he’s seen more deaths from greed than monsters could ever cause. But, wait… he looks closer, picking up the details of the image provided. Isn’t that-

“Jaskier, what the fuck?” he barks, turning to face the man now sprawled out on his couch.

“What did I do?” he asks innocently, though the cringe he’s trying to hide tells the witcher he knows exactly what he did.

“You didn’t think to start with ‘Penellie’s had a shoot-out.’!?”

“Ah,” Jaskier starts uncomfortably. “Right- well, you know, it didn’t seem like the most important thing.” he looks down to fidget with his nails- a telltale nervous habit.

Geralt bites back his urge to press for more information “Are you okay?” He asks, finding himself out of his comfort zone.

“Of course! I’ve seen a lot worse.” Jaskier shrugs.

“Wait, were you there when it happened?”

“No, no, dear witcher. I was in my apartment. Apparently,” He starts with renewed energy, “the whole building has drugs in the walls! Those possums that were always making racket- Probably thugs shoving drug packets into our shared walls. I guess Penellie and James had a disagreement about how to split the funds. It wasn’t so much as a shoot out as shooting each other in the close confines of their office.” Jaskier makes a gun shape with his hand as he says it, pretending to shoot at Geralt. “Guess renting from your boss isn’t that good of an idea, huh?”

“Who woulda thunk.” Geralt murmurs flatly, remember the exact words ‘don’t rent from your boss’ coming out of his mouth when Jaskier moved to that dump six months ago. Of course, Jaskier was working as a bartender, and Geralt expected him to get fired and evicted in one go rather than an unknowing renter of drug lords. “They didn’t make you ID the bodies or anything, did they?” he pushes. He’s not sure why it matters to him.

“Oh, come on now. It’s very nice of you to think you have to protect my innocence, but like I said- I’ve seen worse. Specifically, I’ve seen you do much worse. You know, most people have never seen the intestines of anything much less helped dig a liver out of a cave troll or pull teeth from a foglet while brain matter is splattered around them. You’re quite lucky I’m so well adjusted.” Jaskier rambles, accentuating his words with wild gestures of his hands. Geralt ignores it, though.

“You’ve never seen me kill a human.”

“Well, you haven’t recently, right?” he says nonchalantly like he wouldn’t be bothered if the answer were yes.

Geralt shakes his head “Not supposed to, though I’m tempted often,” he grumbles, shooting Jaskier a glare. The musician sees the fondness behind it though and chuckles a little. Somehow, he seems to know Geralt’s only so exasperated because he cares- against his best efforts not to, of course.

Geralt finishes up in the kitchen and pops the caps off two beers, handing one to Jaskier along with a plate of food.

“Oh, thanks! You don’t have to, though,” Jaskier smiles, a little blush tinging his cheeks. Geralt pretends he doesn’t notice.

“Had extra,” he murmurs, shoving Jaskier’s feet off the couch so he can sit and eat as well. After a few bites of food and a long drink of beer, he finally asks “What now?”

“Well, the place across the street will probably have a drop in price,” Jaskier smirks.

“Seriously? Should live somewhere safer.”

“I would, but you know I can’t afford that… I suppose I could get a roommate” Jaskier says, biting his lip as he stares at Geralt.

The witcher grunts. He knows exactly what Jaskier is asking even without the words leaving his mouth.

“Come on, Geralt! It’d be fun!” He pesters “You live in a dump, too. Roach deserves better than this! Don’t you, Roachy?” he coos, the cat mewls at him as though she’s agreeing. Traitor. “We could afford something a bit nicer together. And I promise I won’t get in your way more than usual. No jam sessions late at night or early in the morning. I’ll even cook sometimes. Please… Unless, you want me to find some stranger from Craigslist to live with me… But hm, isn’t that how the Craigslist killer found his victims?”

Geralt grimaces. “No- he killed a masseuse he hired through craigslist.” Is Jaskier even old enough to remember when that happened?

“Ah, I thought he asked them on dates,” Jaskier muses.

“No, you’re thinking of the Grindr- no, the Tinder killer.”

“Ah, so Grindr is a safe app to find roommates with then?” Jaskier asks, tilting his head as if it were an innocent question; he bites his fork as if he were thinking- fucker even flutters his long eyelashes. Geralt does his very best not to stare at his over obvious flirting. He knows exactly what Jaskier is doing, yet that doesn’t seem to prevent it from working.

Geralt groans, pinching the bridge of his nose “Mac n’ cheese doesn’t count as cooking. No unannounced guests, and do not touch my swords when I’m gone.”

“Really?!”

“Don’t make me regret this, Pancratz.”

“Yes! You won’t- I promise.” Jaskier beams.

A silence falls over them while they eat before Jaskier pipes up again “Wanna watch the Monster from Brokilon? it’s the one with the Leshen!”

“Witchers don’t even know that much about Leshens; I can only assume what kinds of inaccuracies are in this movie.”

Jaskier smirks, “You can lecture me about it afterwards.”

It has become somewhat of a past time for Jaskier to find various old and horrible horror movies to force Geralt to watch. At first, he was simply curious if there was any truth in them, but once he found Geralt ranting about their atrocious and uneducated portrayals of even the simplest beasts, he seemed determined to put the witcher through more.

For some reason Geralt puts up with it. Jaskier usually ends up talking over it half the time anyways, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy having someone to share his monster facts with. There’s something that lights up in the musician’s eyes whenever they talk about creatures and adventures; he doesn’t shy away from it like other humans.

So, he hums contentedly as Jaskier sets up the movie. When it starts, Geralt rests his arm on the back of the couch as he always does. It’s not his fault if somewhere in the night, Jaskier scoots closer and closer until he’s pressed up against the witcher. He’s just like that. And if he falls asleep, his head drooping to rest on Geralt’s shoulder, the witcher only lets him because Jaskier’s had a rough day.

#geraskier #geralion #geralt x jaskier #geralt x dandelion #soulmates au #tattoo au #oh gosh I hope the read more button works #fic #geraskier fic #fic rec #fluff #modern au #geralt of rivia #jaskier #my stuff #roommates

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whumpernickel · 5 years ago

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so, i finally actually wrote something. i already posted this on ao3, but i was too nervous to share it here until id also finished this other fic i was writing, cuz i like that one a lot better than this one. and since i finished that second one, i figured id share both!

so heres the first work ive shared probably since i was thirteen: some needlessly angsty and sappy post episode-6 witcher fanfic because i have no shame (thats a lie) and zero self-control

Jaskier and Geralt had gone for much longer than this without seeing each other, but this had somehow felt like their longest time spent apart ever. He'd been anxious to see Jaskier – eager, almost. But... their greeting had been awkward, tense, brief- nothing Jaskier ever said was brief -and Geralt felt no small amount of fear at what any of this meant. It made the hairs at the back of his neck rise like a stalked animal's.

It was wrong.

There was so much unspoken, unaddressed, and hanging in the air over them, Geralt could feel it nearly tangible. For once, Geralt broke the silence first.

"What I said... before," he began, noting the way Jaskier tensed. "I know it was wrong."

Jaskier cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No. No, it uh..." he swallowed, "it wasn't."

"It was-"

"No," he insisted more firmly. "Trust me, I've had a lot of time and space to reflect on this, and you weren't wrong – I was stupidly selfish. With the djinn, with the betrothal celebration, with Yen, with... just everything, every one of those times. I was acting only for myself, and no one else, and bad things happened to good people for it. You wouldn't be in such a horrific fucking mess right now if not for- if I had just thought first, for one fucking second in my life. I never think, and..." He took a measured, steadying breath. "Well, I can't imagine I could ever deserve your forgiveness, but, at the very least, you deserve my apology." He met Geralt's eyes now. "And I am sorry. I truly am, Geralt."

Geralt expected to feel some kind of relief at the eye-contact, at the sound of his name spoken once again in his friend's voice, a blessed familiarity after months without it. And it was still there, that vague feeling of home in each other when neither of them really had much of a home otherwise, but it was tainted. The burdened remorse in Jaskier's words turned any sweetness Geralt might have found in them sour. He frowned.

"You... Jaskier, you don't deserve my forgiveness."

Jaskier winced and turned his attention purposefully to the floorboards.</p>

"I know-"

"No, I don't think you do know." Geralt grabbed Jaskier by the shoulders and ducked his head to intercept the man's averted gaze. "You've done nothing that warrants apology."

Jaskier gave an uncomfortable laugh and fidgeted under the attention. "...Okay, I think we both know that's not true – There are reasons- and some admittedly valid ones -that I'm banned from certain taverns, villages, kingdoms- I mean, no amount of lute-playing-"

"You know what I mean."

"Well, yes, but I don't understand it."

Jaskier met his eyes evenly, now, as if daring Geralt to try to rationalize it to him and certain he was placing a bet he couldn't lose.

Geralt felt his chest ache – guilt, confusion; worst of all, pity. He hated seeing pity thrown his way, and so he hated pitying others, especially anyone that meant something. But he couldn't help the twinge of pain at the realization that some part of Jaskier had believed Geralt up on that mountain all those months ago. Geralt knew better than anyone that the only way you could so comfortably and unquestioningly accept the poison fed to you by others was if you were already drinking the same poison from your own hand and calling it "water." He couldn't bear to imagine his so-spirited, so-confident friend doing this, but the evidence was there.

"I shouldn't have said the things I said," Geralt asserted. "They're not true."

Jaskier's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he started to shake his head.

"Jaskier, I'm sor-"

"Please don't."

It was fragile and small, and Geralt almost questioned if it had actually been spoken aloud at all.

"Jas-"

"No, you- you can't take it back now," Jaskier said more audibly, shoving at Geralt's arms in a weak attempt to force some distance between them, "I was just starting to get over y- to... to get over what happened. And, if you take it back, now, then- then... Just don't take it back."

"I can't do this without..."

"Yes, actually, you can." Jaskier's face lit up hopefully, desperately. "You have."

"I don't want to."

"Then find someone."

Someone.

Geralt hadn't just meant he couldn't do this alone. Though he couldn't, of course – but that didn't matter, because he wasn't alone, anymore. Yet, even as not-alone as he was, he still didn't feel whole.

A huff of frustration forced its way out of his nose. How was he supposed to say any of that?

"Who?" Geralt intended it to be rhetorical, but Jaskier took the question at face-value and barreled on.

"Yennefer!- What about Yennefer?" he offered eagerly, "Of Vengerberg?" as if there were any question as to which Yennefer he meant, "Surely you two have made up by now, I mean even I'll admit you're somewhat of a power couple – but, y'know, extra emphasis on 'power.' Or- Or if not, then Téa? You seemed to like her and her man-killing prowess, yes?- I mean, I sure did, her and Véa, whoo, they are... terrifying. I'm sure they must take some time off from Borch-guarding, no? No, you're right, probably not. Then how about the child surprise- they are your destiny, after all, you're welcome for that – Or, if you're looking for a bard, specifically, there are plenty of others – not as good as me of course, but decent enough- I know a guy who-"

"Jaskier."

"What? No good? I mean, I suppose you could always put out an ad-"

"Jask."

Jaskier's nervous rambling died off in a shaky breath that sounded like it was meant to be a laugh, and he turned his full attention back to Geralt cautiously. His forced smile wavered at the soft sobriety in Geralt's expression.

Geralt dropped his hands from Jaskier's arms and took half a step back, ignoring his fear at giving the man enough space to walk away again.

"If you really mean it," Geralt stressed, "then I will leave you alone." A selfish something inside of him twisted at hearing the words out loud, but he let them hang in the air anyway, committed to respecting whatever answer Jaskier gave next.

"...Alright."

"Do you mean it?"

The silence that followed was more stifling than any yet that Geralt had had to endure in the bard's absence. Heavy and air-stealing.

Despite the uncertain pause, there was a sudden sureness on Jaskier's face that scared Geralt, and he instinctively braced himself as Jaskier opened his mouth to answer.

"No."

Geralt exhaled in silent relief. He hadn't noticed the breath caught in his chest until the moment he released it. He composed himself quickly; a show of weakness could probably help his case dramatically in winning back Jaskier's companionship, but it was tough enough showing as much vulnerability as he already had. Unlearning such a habit as ingrained into him as this one was like tearing a security blanket away from a homesick toddler, and the homesick toddler in Geralt was already veering dangerously into tantrum territory.

Despite the vulnerability of all this, he felt a noticeable lightness in his chest. Jaskier didn't hate him enough to never want to see him again – that was something. He'd take what he could get and he'd take it gladly.

He was trying to figure out what to say next – Geralt felt cursed, sometimes, with only being lightning-quick with his response if it was a wounding insult or a wordless grunt – but Jaskier figured it out before he did.

"Did you mean it?" he turned Geralt's question back on him.

Geralt blinked. "Did...?"

Jaskier looked at him pointedly.

"Oh."

Geralt felt shame and regret draw his shoulders up toward his ears, and he looked away.

"I... I thought I did," he admitted.

"I thought you did, too."

"I'm... sorry, Jaskier, I... You..." The words still wouldn't come to him.

Geralt didn't do words, but even he could see that there weren't many he could use to fix something that clearly went deeper than just some hurtful accusations thrown carelessly about on a godsforsaken mountaintop somewhere.

He shut his mouth, frowned.

Caring was so much more complicated than he always feared it would be. It wasn't just kill the monster, claim the reward, and go on pretending it didn't matter to him what happened after he left, anymore. The stakes were higher, more personal. This kind of care wasn't the kind that was a whole town of faces where none grabbed his attention long enough to be committed to memory, it was individual faces that he knew and recognized, faces that meant something – and this face was Jaskier's, one of the faces that meant the most. He wanted to reach out and erase the worried furrow between his brows, the tired shadows under his eyes, the modest handful of scars he'd amassed over the years traveling with Geralt.

But he'd leave the crow's feet – those held mostly happy memories.

Jaskier was one of those few people he so desperately wanted in his life, but wished didn't have to experience the hurt of it all.

"Jaskier, you..."

The concept Geralt was still trying ever valiantly to skirt around was family. And his was so very small and fragile, he couldn't bear to lose one piece of it, not for anything...

"You should really meet Ciri," he decided.

Jaskier brightened at this, a small smile crinkling his eyes. "You found her," he said.

Geralt nodded, a smile of his own taking shape.

"Alright. Lead the way."

#the witcher #the witcher fic #jaskier #geralt #angst #this is just #more angst than im even comfortable with lol #but here take it #witcher spoilers #wrudy writes #im not sorry for that tag

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hdgewitch-a · 5 years ago

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meta meme: keira's attitude towards romance. is she the type that likes to be courted, feelings towards commitment, etc? anything you'd like to talk about!

send me a topic to write keira meta on! | ACCEPTING.

OK THANK U FOR SENDING THIS IN.... this is gonna be a lot of scattered unsorted thoughts because i just think and shit happens

anyways there was a discussion i had with some other excellent writers in the witcher sphere about the culture surrounding magic and the nature of extended life, and thusly how it shapes young mages! betrayal being something that’s.... fairly expected and perhaps even respected, looking to see who can stab someone in the back in the most elaborate way. so really, getting yourself involved with someone in a romantic way is just looking to get yourself killed, and maybe you get bullied a little bit for it too.

even if that culture didn’t exist, and even like... before keira’s transfer to aretuza, she wasn’t necessarily interested in the concept of romance on its own? she’s always fantasized about living a princess-like fairytale, with a charming prince who’d hold open doors for her, kiss at her feet, treat her the way she believes she should be treated, but it’s more for the actual... luxury of it, rather than the want of companionship? she’s never really thought about it too hard, she tries not to, partially as a result of some unresolved childhood trauma (being left alone causes one’s thoughts to wander, so keira has a lot of weird feelings about her ability to love someone seriously in the way that other people describe it) ofc the best way to combat this is...... lots and lots of gratuitous sex! :^) if she’s desirable, then naturally, she’ll never need like, actual companionship. serious companionship. nah just call homeboy up by like sending some magic signal over airwaves or whatever the fuck and be like “wyd u up? ;)” u kno..........

she jumps into a lot of “serious” (for the other party) relationships on a whim, and doesn’t expect anything. she used to get too comfortable and after she got dumped a couple of times (naturally, for her impulsive nature), she’s basically flipped around. SHE wants to be the heartbreaker now! which doesn’t necessarily like. stop her from feeling random bouts of infatuation? and she. god she rly gets infatuated easy. like. she fell on top of geralt, dude wasn’t even trying to catch her and she basically went niagra falls ITS REALLY FUNNY BUT ALSO KIND OF SAD LMAO.... if she acts on something or not depends on her relationship with them. for example she did get like puppy crushes on every single sorceress she’s come into contact with but did nothing about it bc It Would Be Kinda Weird, Right? with geralt she just wanted to see if she could get geralt to sleep with someone other than yennefer, because she’s a roach of a woman and i hate her (but i love her so dearly.......). she absolutely did not feel bad about this afterwards because it’s a testament to how weak-willed geralt is and not how bad she is for wanting this in the first place etc etc, whatever she’s willing 2 tell herself to justify it you know.....

id also like to think though that eventually she gets to have a happy relationship! ofc she still has the wriggling feeling in the back of her mind that well, it won’t last forever but at least she’ll be able to learn to stop fixating on the concept of foreverness. she’s very much the kind of person who wants to enjoy something while it’s good!! but it takes a while and she starts it off completely casual, like she’s really only interested in sex or “conquering” them in some sort of way, but feeling attached after that and being like Lol What The Fuck? Is This Normal? I’d Kind Of Love It If This Would Stop and then................... ;_; idk eventually keira and her partner r lovingly bullying one another and she likes being held and hthbhthbthbtht . im soft for soft things!

#tldr: shes a tsun.#* journal — ( replies. )#* journal — ( headcanons. )#hopewrought

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eggoreviews · 6 years ago

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12 ‘Unpopular’ Viddy Game Opinions

I’ve seen this topic floating around a lot, but didn’t think I had enough ‘unpopular but maybe not’ opinions about games to make a post. Turns out I do! So if you see this and I say something blasphemous, remember it’s just my opinion and my personal experiences with the games I list. Hope you enjoy or hey, maybe even agree with some of this!

Note: Can’t stress enough. This is just me. Also, spoilers under the cut!

12. The opening of Kingdom Hearts II isn’t as terrible as everyone says

Okay, so it’s not brilliant, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s the worst. For those not in the know, KH2′s opening is a basically a massive slog where you play as a character you don’t know or care about with seemingly no real link to the events of the previous game. The general consensus is that there’s some interesting stuff in here, but it’s buried among endless dialogue that really doesn’t mean much. And they’re right, but I really think there’s some great stuff here that people tend to gloss over. The music and the motif of Twilight Town is atmospheric, there’s some genuinely intriguing plot elements that are woven into Roxas’ story and believe it or not, the stuff that happens here is intrinsic to the rest of the game. So yeah, it drags on a little, but I don’t think KH2 would be miles better without this opening.

11. I loved Breath of the Wild’s final boss

One of the problems I see talked about with Breath of the Wild is that the boss fights are fairly mediocre, especially the very last one, Dark Beast Ganon. And I couldn’t disagree more. I think every boss in the game is wonderfully crafted, intense, challenging and great for testing you on what you’ve learned throughout the game by encouraging you to make creative use of your slate powers and the flurry rush technique. And while Mr. Pig Man at the end here is sort of easy and short, it serves as a brilliantly epic finale to damn near perfect game. While the difficulty is mostly gone after the mammoth fight with Calamity Ganon, it’s still just as intense as you frantically fire off arrows into the massive beast in front of you. Plus, the design of this thing is one of the best looking monsters in the game, so I really don’t understand the dislike for this ending.

10. I really like Crash of the Titans

Okay, so maybe childhood nostalgia has something to do with this pick, but every Crash fan I’m aware of seems to hate this game. But I don’t really know where the hate comes from! I played the PS2 version of this and I thought it was a genuinely fun 3D platformer with a variety of locations, good visuals, well-designed boss battles and even a vague story you can sort of follow! The game’s main gameplay feature is also brilliantly integrated, as using Aku Aku to possess various monsters throughout the game keeps everything interesting. One thing I will say though, that tiger dude you have to fight about halfway through is the most annoying thing I’ve ever had to endure in a game.

9. Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is BAD

I loved Life Is Strange when it first dropped, so I was beyond excited when they announced a prequel from Chloe’s perspective. But I really think they dropped the ball and they dropped it hard. But everyone else seems to adore this game! For me, this wasn’t a touch on the original. For a start, they dropped out one of the main mechanics of the first game, the time travel, which they then replaced with a much less interesting ‘Backtalk’ feature, which was then only used about twice throughout the game. Instead of interesting, developed characters reacting to genuinely dangerous or heartfelt situations, it felt to me like a bunch of one-dimensional teenagers who are edgy for the sake of being edgy. Chloe spends the majority of the game being a dick to her mother and bunking off class to spend time with Rachel, who she has literally known for like a day and their sudden relationship drops out of nowhere. Not that I didn’t enjoy the emotional moments of their relationship, it just didn’t feel like it stemmed from anywhere, unlike Max and Chloe from the first game. And the game’s attempts at villains were also rubbish compared to the first, with Damien (random scary knife guy who doesn’t really tie into the plot that much) and Eliot (who doesn’t appear for the whole game and suddenly goes full incel on Chloe when she breaks into Rachel’s house). Yeah I think you can tell I had some problems with this one.

8. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider was also a hot mess

I LOVE the Dishonored series. The first game and its DLCs are amazing, the second game was arguably even better. And then this happened. In this one, you play as Billie Lurk, a character I love, and Daud comes back, a character I also love. But both of them are incredibly badly written and it doesn’t feel like there’s any development to them or even much reason for them to do what they’re doing. This entry took the mystery surrounding the Outsider and basically did a big poo on it, giving us the revelation that he was apparently HUMAN this whole time. I think that was the nail in the coffin that made me sort of think this was a bit rubbish. While the combat and side missions were as brilliant as ever, the level designs felt less creative than other entries in the series and lacked variety or colour, all the side characters were entirely forgettable and to wrap it all up, they killed Daud offscreen. Out of nowhere, they just killed him, mentioned it offhand in a cutscene and that was that. If you like this game, fair enough, but it kind of baffles me that more people don’t see this in the game.

7. Mario Galaxy 2 is good. It’s just sort of good

Some people cite this as being one of the best 3D platformers of all time, and that’s fair enough, but I just kind of see this one as ‘good’. Sure, it has a good, satisfying control scheme for the most part, the level design is creative and the bosses and puzzles are pretty standard for a Mario title, but still enjoyable. However, sometimes, the floaty physics and weird knockback effect from jumping into walls led to quite a lot of unfair deaths, especially if I’d been punished for messing up already by losing a life, only to then immediately be punished again by falling into the void. Plus, I found Yoshi near impossible to control at some points with the motion controls. So yeah, this one is genuinely enjoyable, but I don’t think I’d personally put it with the best of all time.

6. I LOVE Dragon Quest IX TO DEATH

This is a game in a legendary franchise that consistently almost always see ranked at the very bottom of the pile in the series. But I really don’t understand how or why. Okay so your protagonist and party are basically silent and don’t have a lot of character, but I don’t see this as a reason to totally write off the game! The side characters, villains and story are all amazing and well-developed, the world is huge, colourful and interesting, the monsters are brilliantly creative and Dragon Quest’s signature lame sense of humour is gratefully carried through the whole game. The music is always brilliant and atmospheric and the bosses are just as memorable as each character you meet. What was everyone’s problem?? This is genuinely one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played and if you haven’t had a chance to pick it up, it is so, so worth it.

5. Sonic Adventure is a broken mess

So before I kick this one off, I’m not someone who hates Sonic and I’m not here to slate the whole franchise, but considering this game is often considered to be one of the best in the series, I thought it was definitely worth addressing. When I first played this, I literally couldn’t believe this was made in 1998, AFTER Mario 64 and yet it’s so broken! The physics and control scheme are totally wonky and hard to control, the unending amount of glitches make a fair amount of the stages almost unplayable, the voice acting and facial animation is cringey and oddly broken and yet, this was all on the Dreamcast. The most powerful console of the time. And I don’t think I even need to mention how boring some of the later stages get, with Big the Cat’s fishing section being the main offender. I can’t vouch for Adventure 2 as I haven’t had a chance to play yet, but I really hope it isn’t like this.

4. Dragon Age Origins is the best Dragon Age

Dragon Age has always been a popular RPG series, but I think it properly shot to fame once Inquisition dropped in 2014. And don’t get me wrong, I liked Inquisition! The world was colourful and expansive and the characters were fairly memorable, but I still think the best experience you can get is in the series’ first entry, Origins. While it’s pretty easy to see that it’s slightly dated considering it’s ten years old now, the best characters and story in the series I think is here. Each companion you recruit is varied and developed and the story wraps up brilliantly in the end with each companion and army you meet playing a different role in the final battle. Plus, I kind of can’t forgive Inquisition for making Leliana lose her sense of humour and making her kinda boring.

3. Oblivion is better than Skyrim

Okay so I’m not sure exactly how unpopular this is, but I just thought Oblivion was miles better than Skyrim ended up being. Just to clear it up, I still love Skyrim and I thought it built on the series’ combat system and variety of enemies really well and still provided an enjoyable experience. But Oblivion feels like more of an adventure you feel at home in. The story is dense and full of twists and turns. The soundtrack has some of the most atmospheric music I’ve ever heard, the world is full of bright colours, each city is vastly different and has its own lore and I found some of this to be absent from Skyrim. I’d go into more detail, but I think the simple fact is that Oblivion had so much more I liked than Skyrim.

2. I don’t think The Witcher III is all that amazing (in some regards)

This by no means says that I don’t like the game, because I do, but I think it has more flaws than people let on. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of the stuff people praise about this game is true, the quests are in-depth and masterfully crafted, the characters, especially Geralt, are extremely memorable. In fact, Geralt is one of my favourite game protagonists. But most of the problems I had were in terms of the gameplay. The combat, while fast-paced and satisfying, can sometimes feel a little finicky, so a lot of precision is needed. However, I felt that the world itself didn’t particularly interest me and the music is often ambient but outside of combat, isn’t anything special. Mostly though, the leveling system I found to be a bit wonky. I did absolutely everything I could in the first area of the game; all the side quests, treasure hunts, killed a whole bunch of monsters etc. And then I arrive in the second area and find I’m too underleveled to do literally anything. The majority of the quests have too high a level cap, a lot of the monsters kill me very quickly. And because the bulk of EXP farming is in the quests, I’m sort of stuck in an endless loop of constantly not being strong enough to do anything. On top of that, all my equipment keeps breaking and I’m finding that repair kits are extremely few and far between and that makes me even WEAKER. It’s something I’m gonna need to persevere with I think, but hey, this is just my experience with it.

1. Ocarina of Time, as amazing as it is, may have overstayed its welcome as best game of all time

I reckon this might be the most controversial, so it’s number 1. Let me preface this by saying I really like Ocarina and I agree that it was innovative for the RPG genre at the time. There’s a hell of a lot in this game that we have to thank for the games we have today. But considering how far the gaming industry has come since then and the sheer amount of high quality games we’ve been getting year after year, is still fair to call this the best game ever? When more recent games have taken what Ocarina started and built upon it? Games like Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption II, God of War all gave us expansive, beautiful worlds and a story you can really get stuck into. And all the time, more and more games of this caliber are coming out. So yes, of course Ocarina of Time deserves a place in the hall of fame, it was revolutionary and still holds up really well today! I just can’t help but think there have been plenty of games since then, as flawed as some of them may be, that have improved upon the formula tenfold since Ocarina’s release.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Just to reiterate, these are all just my opinions and my experiences with the games I mentioned, so pls don’t attack me. Got any viddy game opinions you think are sort of not popular? Drop them down below if you feel like it!

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