#i have spent a lot of time playing gwent in game

[immortalinspace]

best card in my Gwent deck is definitely the cow 10/10 would recommed

[eljackinton]

Every Game Jack Played in 2022

Once again it's time for me to talk about all the video games I played. A lot of time was spent playing Hunt Showdown and Gwent, which I've talked about previously, but I still got few a fair few games, so let's talk about them now.

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye

After a game as with such high concept heights as Outer Wilds, how do you follow on from where the story leaves off. Echoes of the Eye takes such a challenge in it's stride, taking the game to even more fantastical, stranger places. Never before have I seen a more worthy expansion.

Back 4 Blood

It's probably fair to criticise Back 4 Blood when comparing it to it's obvious progenitor, Left 4 Dead, and while the game definitely lacks that Valve spark in it's characters and it's level design, it's still a well put together game that has an identity in it's own right, that brings a few new interesting ideas to the table.

Sunless Sea (Again)

I spent a lot of time playing Sunless Sea in 2020 but something about it just drew me back. This time I played through more of the strange sub-plots and got more into the trade sim side of the game. Enjoyed it even more this time around.

Quake

I also finally got round to playing the mission packs for the new edition of Quake. While some are definitely more enjoyable than others, it's a testament to the engine that it can still come out with some surprises all these years later.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

I FINALLY finished HZD this year, and while I can say I've really grown tired of huge open worlds, and this game is no exception, I still spent a lot of time thinking about it. Far from perfect, with gameplay with is serviceable at best and janky at worst, it still looks gorgeous, has a magnetic cast of characters and a really involved story of twists and turns. Can't wait for the sequel to be released on PC in like 5 years time.

Superliminal

In a just world, Superliminal would be as big as Portal. It mechanics are as inventive and creative, and it's humour is as witty and dry. Alas, sci-fi stories about evil computers is always going to be more popular than avant-garde dream spaces. Still, the game has well earned it's accolades, and I'd love to see it's ideas extrapolated further.

A Hand With Many Fingers

A very short but sharp narrative game that involves piecing together a political conspiracy that actually happened. Feels more a proof of concept than an actual game in it's own right, but I'd love to see it's mechanics and ideas used in a larger project. Imagine a Deus Ex game just stopping the action to have you rustling through boxes of files.

Cultist Simulator

Better in idea than it is in execution. Cultist Simulator is most enjoyable at the beginning where you're just piecing together how the mechanics work and what resources are used for what purposes, giving you a little eureka moment each time. The further you get, however, the more it feels like you're hitting a brick wall. At 34 hours in I'd had enough of still trying to figure out how half of the mechanics worked.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

The previous COJ games have always passed me by, so I went into Gunslinger as it's own thing. An absolute love letter to Western cinema at it's most overwrought, with every trope and cliche on display. I only wish it had been longer.

Disco Elysium

Whatever I have to say about Disco Elysium has probably already been said, but I'm kind of glad I held off from the hype period and experienced it on it's own merits. A true successor to Planescape: Torment that also manages to dethrone it's own inspiration.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Fireteam Elite gets almost everything right. The gameplay is paced perfectly, the sound and visual design apes the Alien's films to a t, and the game draws just the right amount from the Alien's expanded universe to feel authentic without being fanservicy. It's one big flaw? The game is just too damn short and the campaigns are far too small to keep drawing players back in the way Vermintide or Back 4 Blood can. Updates have mitigated this somewhat but it's in dire need of more maps.

For the Warp

A really fun space travel rogue-like that can be a little frustrating at first but once you begin to understand the deck building mechanics the whole thing clicks and getting that perfect run feels well earned. I really hope we see a sequel that can expand out to a Darkest Dungeon sized campaign.

Tell Me Why

A Life is Strange game in all but name, Tell Me Why really feels like Dontnod really hitting their stride with the tone and style of games they really want to do. Deeply personal and uncompromising, at three episodes it's never at risk of outstaying it's welcome. Highly recommended.

The Stanley Parable ULTRA DELUXE

Playing a new Stanly Parable in 2022 feels weird. There's also a part of me that wants to gripe about the re-release not having enough new content, but then I'd feel like the game itself would be judging me for doing that. I think my actual opinions on this game will need another half decade to formulate.

Deus Ex Revision (with the Lay-D Denton Mod)

So I finally got an excuse to play Revision with the added bonus they included the new female player option, which is a great and seamless addition and kind of wild how ell it was pulled off. As for Revision itself? It's a fine, alternative way to play Deus Ex and a good excuse to do so, but I don't really think it works as a superior version of the game. Some of the map changes just complicate it way too much. Worth checking out but the original is still superior.

Eponymous

An extremely short game that is, in brief, about the nature of playing games. If nothing else it did get me to finally read House of Leaves.

Not Tonight

This Brexit themed Papers Please-alike is absolutely brilliant as satire but just a touch too long for an enjoyable game. While it does a good job to communicate the pressure of thankless contract work like that of a doorman, the game drags it's increasingly difficult gameplay mechanics along far too long for the story to justify. Clever but should have been shorter.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada

A fun, high stakes space combat game that is just a little too overly complex for the gameplay mechanics to allow for. Didn't outstay it's welcome but I'm hoping for big improvements with the sequel.

Warhammer 40'000 Armageddon (DLC)

So I finally went back and finished the DLC campaigns for Armageddon. They're really just more of the base game, for better or worse.

Titanfall 2

Well worth it's reputation as a top-tier story based FPS and also for being shorter than it should have been. Not a real moment is wasted and yet I'm crying out for a sequel that will likely never happen.

Darkest Dungeon (DLC)

With the DD board game launching this year I decided to go back and play the DLC that I missed the first time round. While the gameplay is as slick and tense as ever, I can't help but feel the DLC pads things out more than is necessary just to make it fell like they add more content than they actually do. Far from essential but they add some interesting concepts.

Lair of the Clockwork God

It's weird to think this series started as a throwaway gag. Lair of the Clockwork God is an impressive return to the Ben and Dan series in terms of scope, and I had my fun with it, but ultimately, I think too much of the platforming elements were frustrating for the sake of it (and not in the moments where this was deliberate.) Here's hoping any potential sequels return to being simple point and clicks again.

We'll talk about Deathloop this time next year, as I still have yet to experience the multiplayer aspect. Until then, my new years resolution is to finally finish Divinity Original Sin 2.

[the-resurrection-3d]

anyway here's what I actually have of onlyfans 2: electric copealoo

Baby has a bit of a headache today, so it’s just me this time around. Let’s see if I can find someone to play Gwent with so I can better read the chat… Yeah, Nick laughs, I’ve spent about 26 hours in this game so far and 3 of those have just been playing Gwent. Baby plays too—he plays on the Xbox. Okay, let’s bet 10 aaand… alright, the first question I saw was when Baby and I first hooked up. So, like I’ve said before, I found Baby on a beach after he’d been attacked. I honestly thought his injuries had been a lot worse since his entire left arm was caked in blood, but luckily all it took was a few butterfly stitches to fix up. He saw that I had a Vespa and – while I didn’t know this at the time—he’d been obsessed with them since forever, so it was actually pretty easy to convince him to sit still and let me help him so long as I agreed to take him on a ride. And that ride just so happened to be back to my house. 

Nick smiles. Okay, fine, we went out to eat first. He’d been eating that seagull like he’d never had food in his life, what else was I supposed to do? So we got some food at some little hole-in-the-wall Italian place– aka, the best kind – and I asked him if he had any place to go home, and he tried to play it cool then he finally fessed up that he had nowhere else to go. 

A shrug. What a happy coincidence, Nick says. 

I tried giving him a lot of space since I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but, I mean, you guys have all seen Baby, he’s gorgeous, of course I wanted him right then. But I didn’t want to come on too strongly and scare him. I didn’t even know if he was into guys.

So that night, all we did was have dinner and show him around my house. He didn’t actually know TVs could work, it was—it’s fucked up, but it’s also pretty funny. So, his dad had this broken TV that he’d – no, I’m getting off topic. Point is, he had no real idea how they worked. Obviously, that whole adjustment period took some time. But that first night—hang on, let me lose this round real quick—so, backing up a little, when Baby first agreed to stay with me, I got out an old air mattress and got him some curtains to hang over this little nook I have on the first floor of my house and made him like his own little bedroom, just so he’d have some privacy, you know? So I did that, but that first night, I guess he had a nightmare or something, because around 2 am, he crawls into bed with me, and that’s really where things started. Because I was basically still asleep, and I’m in just my boxers, I pull him to me and kinda snuggle up to him and go back to sleep. But what I didn’t think about was that my cock was right up against his back. 

Nick smiles. So if my body is, let’s say, running a few sound checks at any point during the night—yeah, exactly. But in the morning, we wake up, he seems fine, doesn’t mention anything, except—and here Nick smiles again, large and thin-lipped—except he asks if he can start sleeping in my bed from now on.

Like I said, I was trying not to come on too strong at first, but I’ll be frank: I still was coming onto him. Just lighter stuff, you know, being flirty, a little touchy, just nothing too overt. Nothing he couldn’t easily back out of. So, one day, I think that weekend,—because I’d picked him up on a Tuesday— we get a little drunk, and Baby has never had alcohol before but he really wanted to try it, and … he kissed me, and I kissed him back, and we made out for hours like we were both teenagers. It was wonderful. After that, Baby starts acting kind of shy around me again, until a few days later, we’re watching a movie together, and I’d thought Baby was asleep. He had his head in my lap, I was rubbing his back, his face was turned towards me, as in he was staring directly at my crotch, and then out of nowhere he starts nuzzling his face against my dick and I just sit there, trying not to spook him, and he’s looking up at me with those big green eyes of his, and he slowly pulls my cock out of my pants and says, “This is what you wanted, right?” I swear, my dick swelled up like a balloon animal—as if it wasn’t already. Of course, I told him yes, that really I wanted him, all of him, and, well, I’m sure you can imagine how things escalated from there. It wasn’t until his heat started a little while after, though, that we actually had full penetrative sex. Baby’s sex ed up to that point had been pretty fucking nonexistent, so I didn’t want to freak him out by trying to dick him down before he even really knew what that was.

“Do you ever wish you had met Baby when he was younger?” Nick leans back in his chair, hands folded. Sometimes, he says. Obviously, the more I hear about his actual father—and I’m sure you guys have picked up on this, but I’ve spared you a lot of the really bad stuff—the more I hear about this guy, the more I want to just beat the shit out of him. If I could have taken Baby out of that situation sooner, I absolutely would’ve. In terms of starting a relationship, though, no, because I would have had to wait anyway. As much as I like walking Baby through all these big changes—and not just in his body, you know, but through learning about how technology works, getting better at reading, because Baby’s reading level was really, distressingly low when I found him, so we’ve been doing a lot off-camera to try and get him up to a more, uh, age-appropriate level there—you know, all these life things, I really do enjoy it, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed having to do all of it for him. Like, with sex, he already had those feelings, he’d even had a full-on heat before, but he just didn’t have the vocabulary to really express those feelings. That’s a lot different from being with someone who’s so young they literally lack the cognitive ability to understand what’s going on. Do you know what I mean? So, even if I’d rescued Baby at, say, age 10, I still would’ve ended up waiting until he had his first heat at age 14 before starting that sexual relationship with him. I want to guide him and help him learn how to express himself and his sexuality, not just force it all on him before he even knows what boners are. Does that make sense?

“Aren’t there people who start masturbating at ten or younger?” That doesn’t count. That’s all mechanical, it doesn’t count. 

Nick takes a long draw on his vape pen, sighs out a cloud of thin smoke. The chat crawls up the screen, and Nick says, if there’s no intention behind it—well, maybe a better word would be eroticism. If there’s no eroticism involved, then it doesn’t count. It’s basically like getting an oil change for your car; it’s all mechanical. Like, I have a friend, who’s gay, but has been so desperate for sex that he’s gone out and picked up girls and fucked them—no attraction to them at all, anal only, it’s literally just to get off. That’s not erotic for anyone involved. You could have just fucked a watermelon and had basically the same experience. And if all you’re capable of is watermelon-fucking because you’re 6, 7, 8 years old and all you understand is that my peepee feels funny when I rub on it, I don’t see how that’s at all comparable to someone who can experience sexual attraction and just doesn’t have the words for it yet.

I’m seeing a lot of coping in the chat right now. Guys, I never said your pets don’t love you, I’m just saying they aren’t sexually attracted to you. If your pet likes fooling around, that’s great, but they’re probably only doing it with you specifically because you’re the adult and they trust you. And, let’s be fucking honest here, it was your idea first. Posting weapons-grade cope in my chat doesn’t change any of this.

“But that doesn’t make it harmful.” Nick pulls down his glasses just enough to stare right into his webcam, holding its gaze for a solid ten or so seconds. 

He shoves his glasses back up his nose with his middle finger. Nick turns back to the screen; his opponent is up by 15.

Anyway, like I’ve said before, wait for their heat if you want them to become attracted to you.

 Nick looks at his cards and passes his turn.

“Love how much you forget that female sex monsters exist.” That’s true, he says with another drag of his vape. Can you imagine how fucked up it would be if women were real? 

[firefly-in-darkness]

Lost and Found.

Pairing → Geralt of Rivia x Reader

Characters → Ciri, Jaskier, Priscilla, Yennefer (mentioned)

Summary → Geralt left with Yennefer for months.

Word Count → 5k

AFG Square Fill → Geralt @anyfandomgoesbingo

Warnings → 18+. Angst, heartache, jealousy, swearing, happy ending

Betas → @wonder-cole // all mistakes are my own.

A/N →  Well this ended up being a longer story than I expected… I’ve only written for Geralt / The Witcher fandom once before and will have used content from the series, the books and the games as I have watched, read and played everything based on our ashen haired babe

The tavern was full of locals that had escaped from the cold night air. Farmworkers caked in mud with a distinct stench of sweat, merchants drowned their sorrows or celebrated their successes. A shadowy corner for the gamblers prayed for their Gwent decks to fare better than their opponents. There were even some families gathered by the large fire with bowls of broth and torn pieces of bread.

You had taken a seat at an empty table, slightly out of sight from the group you were meant to be with. You weren’t ready to be confronted with that situation until you had at least two tankards worth of ale in your system. In all fairness, you had debated about coming here in the first place, but it was Cirilla’s twenty-first birthday, and you would have felt awful if you hadn’t shown your face, even for the briefest of moments to wish her well.

It had absolutely nothing to do with avoiding a certain witcher, nothing at all.

A few years ago, Ciri marched into a small school on the outskirts of Rochdale, a quaint town in Velen, and stated that she wanted to continue her studies. Even if it was only for a few days a month. When her family visited. The matron was sceptical at first, not knowing who this child was or where she had come from but when Ciri produced a large coin purse, there were no qualms of fitting her into the roster of students.

You took Ciri under your wing the moment she’d stepped into your classroom. Ciri’s love for history and mythology strengthened the bond between you. Many evenings were spent talking about the world and all its wonder. And particularly, the monsters that lurked in the darkness.

In the space of a few weeks, you learnt a lot about Ciri and her adoptive parent. She confided in you about her hardships of trying to find Geralt. He was someone that her grandmother had told her to go to when Cintra fell to the Nilfgaardians. Your heart had clenched at the thought of such a sweet young girl wandering this world alone, with no family and in search of someone that she did not truly know existed.

It was one evening when Ciri unravelled the rope attached to her horse outside the school, waiting for Geralt to arrive, that you first met him. While you loaded the saddlebags with books, the sound of hoofs on the cobblestones caught your attention, and a majestic mare appeared from the side of the stone wall with a man astride her. He silently nodded to Ciri, no further expression or acknowledgement was made.

It looked as if there were no more than fifteen years between Geralt and Ciri, and he was not what you had expected. You had envisioned an older man, a farmer or merchant perhaps, with a family of his own. Not this handsome man, in a black cape, luscious white hair that curled over his shoulders.

He had caught you off guard, enamoured as you watched him dismount the horse. Your bodies almost touched in the tight space between you both. You stared at his chest, the wolf head medallion indicating his occupation. A Witcher. He towered over you; amber eyes glared down as you froze to the spot. Your legs felt like lead as you were held in his gaze. He should have frightened you, a slayer of monsters but, regardless of his stoic appearance, his presence provided a sense of calm.

The first grunt that he expelled went unheard, you snapped out of it when he did it a second time and shifted from his path so he could collect the books from Ciri. You could have sworn that, even though he seemed gruff, a small smirk twitched at your flustered state.

“See you next week Miss,” Ciri called after you as you lifted yourself into the saddle and gave her a small wave.

The awkwardness heated your cheeks and your mind spiralled at the way you’d reacted to Geralt. You had never frozen in front of a parent or guardian before. A cough brought you to your senses and a groan rumbled through you unexpectedly as you turned to him, eyes wide with embarrassment and a wish for the ground to swallow you whole.

You waited for Geralt to say something, but no words followed, and he seemed to be in just a flustered state as yourself, but you tried to shake that thought. There was no way a man like him would ever think of a teacher in any way other than a guardian should.

Ciri popped from around Geralt’s horse, a mischievous look on her face, “He’s trying to ask you if you’d like to join us for dinner or would like company back to your lodgings.”

You smiled to yourself at the fond memory, the sound of music and laughter lifted your spirit in the small tavern. Until you glanced to the side; the seat beside you was empty, and its presence was a reminder of what you had lost. 

What had happened between you and Geralt was a friendship that had developed into secret sparks of lust. But your burning flame of love was extinguished the moment you saw him with Yennefer. After two years of tiptoeing around friendship and the late night trysts, you’d lost him to the most beautiful and powerful woman of the continent.

Your heart ached when you caught several glimpses of Geralt throughout the evening; either talking to the innkeeper or with Ciri and Jaskier as they attempted to get him to dance. He hadn’t seen you yet, you were sure of it, and you hadn’t made your presence known to anyone either. As much as you wanted to keep it that way, you would have to see Ciri at some point and that time came sooner than you expected as your eyes met across the tavern and she ran towards you.

In a flash of light, she teleported to your table and wrapped her arms around you. You would never get used to that. You returned the hug, clinging onto her as tightly as you could because it was likely this would be the last time, you would see her.

Nobody knew about your job offer at Oxenfurt Academy, that you were strongly considering the move to Redania, bags packed and ready at the door. It was what you needed, a fresh start. Plus, you knew that the matron was going to start looking at reducing the staff numbers after the drop in births in the town so you might as well get out before you were penniless.

You let Ciri go and caught another arrival to your side; Jaskier. His beaming smile was infectious, and he made you giggle as he dramatically bowed to you. Geralt was behind him, no expression on his face and not that you dared to look at him properly in fear for how much it would hurt you to do so. 

Completely unaware of the awkward tension that was filling the space between you and your former secret lover, Jaskier instantly took a seat opposite you and tipped his tankard upside down, “Oh Geralt, it looks like it’s your round!” 

Geralt grunted and left the three of you on your own. You relaxed ever so slightly as you watched him walk away and turned your attention to the birthday girl, woman.

“Oh, Y/N, it has been a while, three months at least!” Ciri said as she clasped your hands in hers.

“It has indeed, I heard from many merchants about your birthday celebrations, and I had to make sure at once that I was here to join in!” You beamed at her and shuffled along the wooden bench for her to join, “How long are you staying in town for this time?”

“I’m not sure, it depends on Geralt as always.” Ciri shrugged.

Priscilla, a beautiful blonde bard that caught Jaskier’s attention many moons ago in Novigrad, appeared at this side and pulled him away to perform a duet on the makeshift stage. In her excitement, Ciri jumped out and followed them. Even though they didn’t notice you had stayed behind, you didn’t mind and chuckled at their antics as they coaxed the patrons to gather around.

“Guess this is for you then.” Geralt slid into the seat opposite and gestured to the tankard, the foam spilling over the edge as you took it from him.

You were sure he could hear your heart thumping in your chest, choosing to give a small smile and a nod as you sipped the ale. The bittersweet melody filled the room, and it took you back to another time. To one where Geralt held you in his arms and filled you with so much hope for a future together.

It was your first visit to the Skellige Isles, and you loved every second that you spent with Crach an Craite and his clan, celebrating his daughter, Cerys, becoming Queen. You had been surprised when Geralt had asked you to accompany him, thinking that he’d ask Yennefer or Ciri to join him, but you didn’t let the moment pass you by; it was the first time you’d been on a ship and travelled the seas, let alone attended a coronation.

The banquet hall was full to the brim of Jarls and their clans from the many islands that formed Skellige. Enormous amounts of food were laid out on the tables and wine was on a never-ending supply. The revelry continued long into the night, you and Geralt clapping and laughing along to the guests dancing the Cèilidh.

You brought the goblet to your lips, now stained red from the wine, and sipped slowly as you felt the alcohol taking effect. Warmth filled your cheeks and you felt like you were floating with Geralt at your side, his arm securely around your waist.

“Drink up, because we are going up there any minute.” Geralt whispered in your ear.

Once more, Geralt had surprised you, thinking he’d never do such a thing and proving you wrong in an instant. Or, just, maybe, you shouldn’t believe everything that Yennefer tells you. He whisked you up into his arms and you skipped into the throng of bouncing and twirling dancers.

After a few stumbles and the odd miss turn, you found the rhythm and began to enjoy yourself. It was like you were in your own little world with Geralt. Your heart was beating so fast you thought it might burst from your chest. Together, you rounded the dance floor, twirling between other people and joining them for the group segments of the dance before returning to Geralt to skip through a human archway.

The music hit its end, you and Geralt both collapsing onto a bench, still giggling through the pain of being out of breath. He leant forward, his hand firmly on the nape of your neck, and pressed his lips to yours. You kissed him back with no inhibitions.

Your fingertips skimmed along your bottom lip, the memory of Geralt’s kiss still lingering there. After all this time, the memory had you brimming with hope and desire, or maybe it was the ale that was clouding your judgement. Without a second thought, you turned towards Geralt to find that he was looking straight at you, and he was too slow to hide his staring. You choked out a laugh as his eyes went wide and his cheeks tinged pink. Never in a million years did you think you’d see the witcher blush.

“I’m sorry but your face.” You giggled into your palm, swaying from side to side and clutching your belly. “So-sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He tried to sound angry, but his smirk betrayed him.

Your fit of laughter tapered off and allowed you to regain your composure. The awkward silence filling the space between you once more as you resigned to not pursuing the conversation. A wave across the room caught your eye, Ciri beckoning you over but as you turned to stand, Geralt placed his hand atop yours on the table.

He hardly touched you, and you were staring at his hand, uncertain as to what he was doing. You lifted your head to find his softened gaze and immediately dropped back into your seat, nodding for him to say whatever it was that was on his mind.

“What were you thinking?” He whispered.

“When?” Your brow furrowed, the weight of Geralt’s hand growing as he relaxed.

“Just now. It looked like you were daydreaming.” He asked.

Your heart raced; you were silly to think he wouldn’t notice. He notices everything, and you couldn’t lie to him, he would catch you out, even if you were good at it. Stalling for time, you picked up your empty tankard and tried to catch the remaining droplets for some courage.

“If you really must know,” You paused, waiting for him to shut the conversation down but he didn’t and you felt the heat rising up your neck, “Erm, well, I was thinking about when we danced at Cerys’ ascension.”

Geralt smiled, a full beaming one, one that was like the moment he pulled away from your kiss all those years ago. It hit you with a force, and you couldn’t hold back all the feelings that you had packed away when he left with Yennefer not even a few months ago.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled and then sipped his ale. You weren’t sure what was happening and why he was looking at you like that. As if he was happy that you still thought of him fondly. Before you could question him, Ciri was at your side and tugging at your arm to join her, exclaiming that there would be dancing. You unfurled her hand from its grip and shook your head.

“I’m sorry Ciri, but I have to go now.” You gave her a sad smile as you stepped out from the table and pressed a light kiss to her cheek, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your celebrations little sparrow.”

Ciri’s face softened at the old nickname, “Thank you, do you need someone to walk you home.”

You chose to ignore the glare that Ciri was giving Geralt as you pulled the cloak around your shoulders. Geralt wouldn’t fall for her tricks but she was stubborn and from the huff and scrape of the chair, you knew she had gotten her way.

“Ready?” Geralt asked and you nodded, following him through the door into the night.

It was freezing, the air bit into the exposed skin of your cheeks and neck. Suddenly Geralt was in front of you, pulling the hood over your head and bringing it tighter around you.

“There’s a storm coming, you don’t want to catch a cold.” He explained.

You were dumbfounded at his care and the way he weaved an arm across your shoulders, guiding you back to your cottage. Unable to do or say anything more than put one foot in front of the other, or thereabouts, in your slightly merry state.

Geralt was warm, and smelt of ale, sandalwood, and leather. You were unable to stop yourself from sinking further into his hold, relishing the moment. Even if it meant that your heart would shatter once you reached your home, and the loss of his warmth would bring tears.

Silence remained between you, yet this time it was comfortable. It was as if this is where you were meant to be; walking side by side in a small town, surrounded by the multitude of stars and nothing but the beating of your hearts.

The cobbled path wound around various shops and cottages, culminating in the town square. It was empty, a distinct comparison to when you visited earlier in the morning to see if the visiting merchants had anything new or different to sell.

“Would you have liked to dance?” Geralt whispered, if the square was alive with the traders and merchants, you wouldn’t have heard him, but it was clear in the open air.

“I’m sorry?” You uncurled from his hold and stood in front of him, looking up at his glowing eyes.

“Back there, did I stop you?” He asked with a neutral expression that you had long ago realised was a mask to hide his true feelings.

“No,” you shook your head and wrapped your arms around yourself, “I did think it was time to leave though.”

“Because you were daydreaming about me?” Geralt asked, a lopsided smile on his lips as you continued down the path.

“Yes, because I was getting caught up in our past.” You ducked away from his sight, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I was thinking about the same thing, well more specifically what happened afterwards.” Geralt stopped at the gate to your cottage, “And I think you were too.”

You looked up at him, knowing you couldn’t lie, with a sad smile “You know I was Geralt. Don’t play games with your thinking. Thank you for walking me home.”

Geralt’s words rushed out, “Can I come in?”

Once again, Geralt was full of surprises, he’d never invited himself round and usually, he would just enter without question. Then you thought of how different things were now that you had gone your separate ways. When he chose to be with her.

“What would Yennefer think?” You asked, the jealousy not missing from your tone no matter how hard you tried to be nonchalant.

“Yennefer is not my master.” He grunted, “Why are we even talking about her?”

“Because you left with her. That day.” You bit down on your lip in a hope of tears not making an appearance. “I didn’t realise you had feelings for her until Jaskier mentioned the djinn and the wish you granted.”

“That fuckin’ bard.” He growled, “I do not have feelings for Yennefer, my wish was about you, but it didn’t work. You didn’t want me near you.”

You recoiled at his tone, “excuse me? You’re the one that left in a carriage to god knows where for months without a single word.”

“I left a letter.” Geralt pushed through the cottage door and gestured his hands towards the candles dotted around the cottage, causing a flame to ignite at their wicks.

You followed him into your bedroom and watched as he pulled at the drawer that you’d put aside for him many moons ago, and atop his tunics was a piece of folded paper. You stared at the letter, now in Geralt’s hand. 

It had been too painful to open the drawer, you hadn’t been in it since he left. It had taunted you enough just by being there, a reminder of you welcoming him into your home. Let alone being able to feel the fabric or take in his scent, it would have filled your heart with more pain.

“As it’s still in the drawer, I’m guessing you didn’t find it.” Geralt sighed, placing it down on the furniture and leaning back against, folding his arms. “And that explains why you didn’t turn up the other night.”

“I didn’t, why would I have gone in there?” You whispered as you began preparing the fireplace, anything to keep you busy.

He mumbled, “Because you sleep in my tunics when I’m away.”

“Okay, and what about the other night?” You questioned as the flames caught on the logs, “Where was I supposed to meet you?

At the lack of response, you turned to look at Geralt and he was scowling at something behind you, the trunk at the door and a collection of bags. You watched him taking in the rest of your home. There were no ornaments or trinkets on the walls, no books on the shelves or stacks of parchment dotted around. It was all packed away, ready for you to leave.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asked, the neutral appearance back on his features.

“Yes.” you nodded.

“For how long?” His arms dropped from their hold on his chest.

“For as long as I have a job.” You stated.

“Where?” Geralt was quiet and looking down at the floor.

“Oxenfurt Academy.”

His head snapped up, amber eyes glinting in the dim light of your cottage, “Why are you going to Redania?”

“Because I have nothing else here.” You shrugged as a tear fell from your cheek, you knew that not saying goodbye was hard, but this seemed a lot harder.

“What about Ciri? Or Jaskier? Priscilla?” Geralt asked, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he waited for your answer.

“I’m sure I’ll see them again. Ciri and I will likely cross paths if she pursues her education, and I’m sure she’d track me down the second she finds out about me leaving. I already made a promise to Jaskier that I’d see Priscilla’s shows wherever I am.” Before Geralt interrupted, you sat on the edge of your bed and continued, “He doesn’t know, it was an old promise, and you know what I’m like when it comes to those.”

Geralt silently moved across the room and sat beside you, taking your hand in his, “What about me?” 

You shook your head, “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Geralt looked at you, a softness in his eyes, “So, Oxenfurt Academy?”

You were unable to look at him, ashamed of deciding to leave in haste and without talking to him about it at least once, “Yes, I leave in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere.” He promised and before you could counter him, he continued, “I asked you to meet me at the docks because I wanted to give you this.” 

Geralt opened a pouch attached to his hip and pulled out a delicate silver chain. He held it out so you could see the side profile of a wolf’s head with an amber gem for the eye. You weren’t sure what to say as you marvelled at the beautiful gift, lifting your hair away from your neck for Geralt to clip it in place.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” You whispered.

Your fingers glided along the chain and you held the wolf away from your chest, twisting it in the glow of the candles. A stray tear fell down your cheek but Geralt caught it with the pad of his thumb. You leant into his warm touch, his calloused palm a welcome feeling that you had long missed. Geralt lifted your face and pressed his forehead to yours before he softly kissed you.

The kiss was tentative at first, light pecks making way for harder pushes and pulls, swipes of tongue until your arms were wrapped around Geralt’s neck. You adjusted until you were straddling his lap. Geralt pulled at the lacing of your tunic until it loosened around your shoulders and exposed more of your chest. 

He brought his lips to yours again, the kiss was more heated than before. Tongues swiped and teeth nibbled along each other’s lips with him pulling your body into a tight hold, his erection hardening and pushing against your core. 

At the spark of pleasure, you pulled away in shock and lifted your body from him. You held the tunic in place and backed away, sitting further down the bed from him, his head hanging down as you tried to make sense of why you pulled away and were still protecting yourself when it was clear that he wanted you.

“I’m sorry Geralt, I- for the longest time, I thought you were with Yennefer, I-” You sobbed, hand cupping your mouth as you let the emotions flow freely.

You felt the bed dip and you turned to find Geralt laying back against the pillows, an arm open in waiting. You scooted up the bed and curled into his side, sinking into his warmth, and being soothed by the fingertips that swirled up and down your arm in nonsensical patterns.

“As I said before, I will follow you anywhere that you go.” He murmured and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

With the tears no longer falling, you tipped your head up to look at Geralt to find his eyes closed. You rested your head onto his shoulder and began to trace the shape of the medallion on his chest, sleep finally taking you to the world of dreams as raindrops began to patter on the roof.

A new home: it was on a quiet street quite close to Oxenfurt academy, only a twenty-minute stroll until you were in the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a lot busier than you had prepared for, especially compared to your small town of Rochdale. 

Your colleagues had told you that you’d been lucky to find the lodgings in the area and for such a good rental rate too. The ground floor consisted of a kitchen and seating area and the upstairs hosted two bedrooms. It was just the right size for you, but you hadn’t fully unpacked yet. Satchels half-emptied and trunks open but still full to the brim with trinkets and books.

You were settled in the chair by the fireplace, the warm embers glowing as you read the book in your lap. It wasn’t late but your eyes were feeling heavy after the most hectic month of moving to the city and settling into your new role at the academy. 

A knock at the door made you jump; the book fell to the floor with a thud. Tentatively, you approached the entrance to your home and glanced through the frosted pane in the wooden door but could only make out two figures. Ciri and Geralt stood before you, your mouth dropped agape as their arrival was unexpected and you weren’t sure what to say.

“Surprise! I’ve enrolled at Oxenfurt Academy.” Ciri laughed and wrapped her arms around you.

You held her close and rested your chin on her shoulder, looking over at Geralt, shock and happiness coursing through you. In the dim light of the torches that lined the street, his mouth twitched into a smirk. Your heart fluttered and you couldn’t wait to have his arms wrapped around you once more.

“I cannot believe it; I wish you’d let me know beforehand so I could have prepared for your visit.” You beckoned them into the warmth of your new lodgings, picked up the fallen book and attempted to tidy away the pots and pans on the table.

“Oh, come on Y/N, it’s only us, I’ll start making a pot of tea.” Ciri headed over to the stove and filled the kettle.

Geralt entered your home, he filled the space with his height and broad shoulders, the atmosphere was tense, and you weren’t sure what to do. It had been a while since you last spoke to him; the morning after he returned and discovered you were moving away.

“Hello,” you squeaked, unable to keep the excitement from your tone, “erm- how long are you staying? Where are you staying?”

“Ciri mentioned you had spare beds.” Geralt murmured. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes, of course, right this way.” The steps creaked underfoot as you both ascended the staircase, and your nerves began to bubble as you felt his eyes on your back. You opened the first door to the spare room with two single frames and a small chest of drawers, “sorry it’s not much. My bedroom is just down the hall and there is a bath in there.”

Geralt placed a couple of satchels on the bed and removed his armoured plate. You couldn’t help the way you stared at him in the tunic and the dark hair across the exposed part of his chest. He pulled out a small bag from a satchel pocket and turned back to you with a small smile.

“I-We brought your favourite biscuits from Rochdale.”

The stutter did not go unnoticed, but you did not react to it, instead offered a smile and a whispered thank you as Geralt placed the bag into your outstretched hand. Instantly, you opened it and raised it to your face to inhale the sweet scent of the treat.

“This will go lovely with the tea, we should-.” You gestured back to the stairs and spun on your heel.

“Wait,” Geralt huffed and caught the crook of your arm to turn you to face him, “I should have done something else when you answered the door.”

A frown etched on your features until his hand cupped your cheek and you caught the way his amber eyes glowed as they flicked down to your lips. Your mouth parted and your eyes fluttered closed as you slowly edged towards one another, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss.

Your body tingled in Geralt’s hold, as your lips melted into his chapped ones. Knees grew weak as he invaded all your senses. It was as if he knew and wrapped an arm around your waist, holding you flush to his hard chest.

Both of you pulled away for air, his fiery gaze drank you in and sent a wave of pleasure through your body. He claimed your mouth once more with hunger, your hands carded through his ashen locks, and you tugged him closer still. Geralt lifted you into his arms and carried you to your bedroom.

Too consumed in your reunion and that Geralt had kept his promise to follow you anywhere, neither of you heard the door close behind Ciri’s hasty exit.

The tea and biscuits were long forgotten.

Everything Tag List: @kitkatd7 / @fandomfic-galore / @writerwrites / @thefridgeismybestie / @wedonttalkaboutitenough​ / @courtneychicken / @persephonesinfernos / @miraclesoflove​ / @lizzarooni​ / @queenoftheunderdark​

[vael]

Black Book is a near-masterpiece.

"I give it a 9.5" -- IGN

Black Book is a narrative card-battling/deck-building game based in Russian Slavic folklore. You play Vasilisa, a young woman whose lover has died. She seeks to break all seven seals of the black book in order to make a wish to bring him back, as legend tells she can. I spent 43 hours completing the game.

The Good

Black Book does a great job of presenting Slavic folklore to the player. The proper Russian words are used for many elements: the zagavor, the izba, chorts, rusalka, banya; these are words I'll remember, and it was good for the developers to stay true to the roots. I never felt like I was confused by the usage of these words, or traditions that were evident on-screen. It was clear that the developers spent a lot of time researching lore and mythology. Black Book isn't the type of game for the player to skip dialogue. You're often presented with questions and riddles that test your knowledge of the mythology, and everything they'll ask has been delivered to you prior. The book contains entries for anything you've learned, given as you learned them. I read every entry; the ones in the final chapter are some you don't want to miss.

The game is surprisingly long. I typically trust How Long To Beat and go by the completionists' reported times. I played on hard difficulty and typically took my time, exploring "every nook and cranny" as I always do. I clocked in over 8 hours more than the other completionists.

But there's good reason to replay: while you will get the same linear journey each time, the details of how you played are important. Which characters were by your side, who's alive and not, who shows up later at a bonfire; the game never lets you forget that your actions had consequences, both good and bad.

Black Book delivers. It's fair to say in gaming, I've gotten used to being unable to sock it to some jerk boss, or conceivably unconquerable foe, with the game handling their demise in some other way. In Black Book, you're always given the chance to say: nah, your deal sucks, not compromising, time to die. The player's reward is a tough boss battle that also fits thematically with the boss; all I will say is Chapter 7's bosses were some of the more memorable boss fights I've had in years. They were entirely optional and allowed me to skip a short set of trials.

The ending also delivered. I'll admit by 35 hours my interest was starting to wane, but I was absolutely hooked with the end sequence of chapter 6 and beyond.

It keeps itself fresh, introducing periodically introducing new mechanics both via new cards, and in-battle mechanics such as koldun and puzzle fights.

The Bad

Durak was a miss for me; I appreciate that they wanted to include a card game from their culture, but the rules were confusing and I found it to be more of a distraction in an already long game. It didn't have the up-front enjoyment of Witcher 3's Gwent. It actually subtracted from the experience because there are items and skills built to allow you to cheat in it.

I didn't feel connected to the lover at all. He was clearly a plot device, despite a short segment where we experience Vasilisa's pain of losing him once again, where she reaffirms her dedication to him. Honestly, I thought Alexander was a fine chap and would have liked to spend eternity with him.

Often enough, the (excellent) narrator and words on screen don't match up. You can tell the English-speaking voice actors offered some direction upon delivery of their lines. It was a bit distracting, but my understanding is the game is best played in Russian and the writing was solid enough that I could forgive it.

There's an investigation segment which could have been done better. It was slightly buggy and a little hard to follow. My pick wasn't even an option in the end, and the person I least expected was it. This was a system constraint; they just needed a better system for this chapter.

Money became irrelevant around the 4th chapter. As a completionist, it's not uncommon for me to accrue resources and become overpowered, but I felt like some end-game gold sinks would have been warranted. I was disappointed that in the final dramatic chapter, no new items were offered (that I could tell).

Damage calculation could have been done better. The game requires you to calculate accurate damage any time you're doing AoE because it sums that AoE damage. This is a common complaint with the game and I'm not sure how they released a battle-focused DLC without addressing this!

Chort management seemed annoying; I ended up going for a sinless playthrough, so I didn't have to assign them constantly, but I can imagine how annoying it would have been to do so.

All in all, I would still say it was nearly a masterpiece. It achieved what it set out to do, imperfectly in small ways, but it was everything it had to be. The Russian voice acting cast is about three times the size of the English one, and I can only assume the story was delivered better in proper Russian. I would recommend any Russian gamer to play it, and if you like the good points I described, give it a shot on sale. I personally got it through a Humble Bundle.

[jaskierswolf]

My dearest darling Wolfie, I saw your idea for game gerlion friends to lovers in @thewitcherbog horny chat and I am here to ask you to write the fic. Pls 💜😘

Tada!! I can't remember if this was exactly what I had planned... but it's what we're getting. Lovingly beta'd by @comfyswitcherblanketfort.

CW: probably rated M? Briefly mentioned masturbation more horny than smutty.

____

A retirement at Corvo Bianco had never been what Geralt expected of his life. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told a young Dandelion that witcher’s never retire, but in recent years between looting caves and haggling for contracts, he’d managed to save quite a bit of coin. He was, objectively, rich. He had the best armour on the Continent, the most deadly swords and crossbow bolts, and thanks to B.B., his house was beautifully decorated, with the exception of the rather garish portrait of his most loyal friend. Yet, he was still gaining more money than he knew what to do with. He’d started investing in merchants and refusing payment but the vineyard brought in a steady income and Geralt had to admit that his life was pretty luxurious these days.

So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when Dandelion had turned up, in fine, brightly coloured silks and the elegantly decorated elven lute from so many years ago. Geralt sometimes wondered whether Toruviel had enchanted her lute. There was barely a scratch and Geralt couldn’t even recall Dandelion ever having to change the lute strings in all the years he’d known the bard. Geralt was no expert but he was pretty sure that you were supposed to change the lute strings.

The sun was shining over the fields of Corvo Bianco, and Geralt felt at peace. Perhaps that was why he was feeling so nostalgic, pondering over the events that had led him to this moment. His life had always been so busy, but with Ciri off touring the multiverse, and Yennefer doing whatever Yennefer did these days now the Djinn wish had been broken, he was… well… bored? He had every Gwent card currently made, and no one would play him. It was just him and the bard, living the bachelor’s life in Touissant.

So was it any wonder that Geralt had started to develop feelings for his friend? Perhaps they’d always been there, clouded by the wish that tied him to Yennefer, or perhaps their newfound domesticity had awoken something in Geralt that he had never expected. Dandelion spent a lot of time in the makeshift study, working on his latest book, but they always ate together and sometimes the bard would even accompany Geralt on his contracts in the fields, for old times sake. After long nights of drinking too much wine or vodka, it wasn’t unusual for the pair of them to fall asleep together, curled up in one bed just like they used to in their youth. Those were Geralt’s favourite nights, because despite his protests of being better alone, he enjoyed the familiar warmth of another body pressed against his, and Dandelion had always been a cuddler.

And as if on cue, the bard burst through the doors onto the patio where Geralt was watching the world go by.

“Ah, Geralt, old friend, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you!” Dandelion announced with a flick of his wrist. “I was just in town.”

“Dandelion,” Geralt groaned. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Dear Henrietta will forgive me in time, my friend,” Dandelion winked, his tongue flicking out between his lips, “and until then I have plenty of friends who will offer me shelter if the guards are around.”

“You look like a man sized peacock,” Geralt scoffed. “How the hell does no one see you?”

“Ah, dear witcher, you forget that I used to be a spy,” Dandelion laughed, putting one hand on his hips. “Now, stop interrupting, Geralt, or do you not care about the gift I picked out for you in town today?”

Geralt hummed, knowing that it didn’t really matter whether he cared or not. Nothing would stop Dandelion once he was in the middle of a story. Some things just never changed. “Go on.”

Dandelion beamed, and from behind his back he produced a wooden box. The poet cocked his head as he opened the lid, revealing a set of tiny vials neatly lined up. Geralt almost choked, his breath catching in his throat.

“Oil?” he spluttered. A man such as Dandelion had to know of the more promiscuous uses of oil. Whilst Dandelion had never explicitly said as such, the way he talked of his lovers had always led Geralt to believe that he was rather flexible in his tastes, much like Geralt himself.

The poet blushed as he pulled a single vial from the box, his long lutist fingers wrapping around the glass. “Bath oils, Geralt.”

“Oh, of course,” Geralt cursed internally. Dandelion had bought all sorts of expensive oils and lotions when they had been on the path together, neither of them were shy with their bathing habits and the poet was a highly skilled masseur.

Which was not helping Geralt’s sudden rush of arousal as he remembered the feel of the poet’s hands on his skin. They’d laughed off awkward erections in the past, it was just a thing that happened… but Geralt was starting to wonder what would happen if, for once, they let it happen.

“This one will probably be a bit much for your witcher senses, my friend, but I rather like it,” Dandelion continued, oblivious to Geralt's inner turmoil. “This one,” another vial was plucked from the box, “however, I think you will like, and I managed to buy this,” Dandelion pulled a scroll from his pocket, “from a local mage. It’s supposed to move the water around the tub, like a massage!”

“And you’re telling me this, why?” Geralt sighed, rolling his eyes. As much as he adored his old friend, the man could take his sweet time getting to the point. It was even worse when the poet and Regis got together, Geralt honestly thought he might never know peace again.

“Because, Geralt, I am treating my dearest friend to an extravagant bath time experience!” Dandelion exclaimed with wide arms, almost knocking off his own hat in his enthusiasm. “Friendship and love, art and wine, Geralt. What more could you want in life?”

Love.

No, friendship. Geralt needed to focus on that. How many times had Dandelion called him his friend? Too many to count.

“Assuming you have wine, what’s the art?” Geralt smirked, enjoying the offended noises Dandelion made.

“Geralt, I’ll have you know that-”

“Relax, Dandelion. I’m teasing. So how about this bath then?”

The two men made their way upstairs, peeling off their outer clothes as they strolled past Geralt’s bedroom, and picking up a robe each. Dandelion had filled the room with candles, and there was a soft floral scent hanging in the air, roses, the oil vial that Dandelion had initially held up.

“I thought this one was too much for my ‘witcher senses’?” Geralt scoffed, peering at the magically bubbling water.

“Well, yes, but I did also say I liked this one, and I’ll admit that I got a little carried away. You don’t mind, do you Geralt?”

Geralt shook his head as he stripped off his final layer of clothing and settled into the tub. Dandelion sat in a chair, still wrapped in his robe, and picked up his lute. He plucked idly at the strings until he was seemingly happy that they were in tune, and then he began to sing. Geralt sighed as he sank deeper into the hot water, the enchantment really did feel like a sort of massage as jets of water pulsed against his skin, but he couldn’t help but wonder. The oils, the candles, the romantic ballad…

Was his friend trying to tell him something?

It was time for Geralt to test the waters as it was. He trod the water with his hand, gently splashing to the beat of Dandelion’s song. Normally, he would close his eyes and let the poet’s music fill the room, but instead he was mesmerised by the way Dandelion’s finger caressed the lute strings. Geralt could feel his cock harden as he pondered what other uses his friend’s delicate hands could have, the way they found their mark with such precision. The poet could make any instrument sing to the gods in his hands, Geralt was sure that he was no exception.

“Practicing your fingering?” he asked Dandelion with a tilt of his head.

The strings twanged unpleasantly, making Geralt grimace as the sound reverberated in his head. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Geralt smirked. “On your lute.”

“Right, yes, of course,” Dandelion muttered. “I’m just trying to figure out the next verse. I could use a hand, or an ear if you’d be willing to help.”

“I have a hand you could use, or two,” Geralt muttered not really intending for Dandelion to hear him but the poet had sharp ears and he spluttered incoherently as he set down his lute.

Geralt hummed and let his hand drop beneath the water, stroking his cock lazily. He wasn’t really chasing any real pleasure, but it was a good feeling, sending warmth across his skin. The bath, the candles, the song, they had to mean something even in Dandelion’s subconsciousness. The man was an insatiable flirt, and yet never seemed to notice when others’ affections were cast upon him, not unless it was blunt in its honesty.

So Geralt would be blunt.

He closed his eyes as he continued to stroke the length of his cock, the motion causing the water to ripple slightly, but not yet enough to draw Dandelion’s attention. The poet was too busy wittering on about his rhymes, only noticing when Geralt’s breath hitched as he cupped his balls.

“Geralt?”

“Dandelion,” Geralt grunted softly, his pleasure beginning to build from a warm ember to a roaring blaze that burned through him. The poet’s cornflower blue eyes were on him, dark and hungry. His cheeks were flushed rosy, and it seemed his dear friend was finally catching onto what was happening.

“I- I can leave, my friend, if you would prefer…”

“Stay,” Geralt insisted. “This not what you had in mind?”

“Well,” Dandelion laughed. “I had hoped, but I never thought it would actually happen, and well, really I thought it might take a little more convincing. Who knew all I needed all along were a few cheap candles?”

“Just get in the bath, Dandelion,” Geralt growled.

“Okay, okay,” Dandelion said with a roll of his eyes but shrugged out of his robe, allowing Geralt to admire his slender form. The poet’s cock remained soft as he stepped into the water. “So… how long?”

“Hmm?”

“How long have I been more than just a friend to you, Geralt?” Dandelion asked, settling into the water with a soft moan. His hands resting on Geralt’s thighs, fingers drawing patterns on Geralt’s skin under the water.

It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Could he even pin it down? Geralt wasn’t sure.

“Hard to tell, our friendship has never exactly been normal, Dandelion,” Geralt admitted.

Dandelion laughed, leaning forward in the tub, his hands stroking up Geralt’s thigh, the movement forcing the air from Geralt’s lungs. “You know, you’re right, and I think we should celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“Mhmm, and how about we start with a kiss?” Dandelion winked, before falling into Geralt embrace with a splash.

[wolf-and-bard]

The Geraskier dark academia AU of my dreams (because writing these up keeps me sane; TLDR at the bottom because this escalated):

-Jaskier is so ready for college. Like, the readiest he's ever been for anything in his life. He couldn't wait to get out of his stuffy family home, away from his narrow-minded hometown, he is ready. He signs up for a Liberal Arts major, moves into a dorm, drinks his brains away during the first week. He makes an archnemesis, he makes friends, he live-documents the whole affair on Snapchat for his friend Triss who lives across the country, but is always with him in spirit. Life is good.

-Jaskier doesn't think twice when his roommate Zoltan invites him to come along to a party at the Kaer Morhen fraternity house because hello? Orientation week was last month, high time he goes to an actual frat party full of guys like wardrobes that eminate sexual self-assuredness and hopefully some sexual flexibility as well. He puts on his most revealing shirt and too tight jeans and joins Zoltan. The fraternity house is old, red-brick with sandstone pillars and iron-wrought gates which would seem rusty if not for the ivy that curls around them. It's chock-full with people of every kind of major and age, most of them drunk beyond reason by the time Jaskier and Zoltan arrive. Zoltan disappears in a tangle of rugby-players and leaves Jaskier to his own devices. He befriends a group of Archeology majors, their leader being a cute blond called Filavandrel, and they share a bottle of red wine, round and round. He meets his archnemesis, the one he spent all orientation week bickering about music with, Valdo or some nonsense, and they do tequila shots. It’s a nice party and Jaskier has the time of his life until he returns from the bathroom to find a god of a guy standing in the hallway.

-"Oh hello," Jaskier mutters under his breath. Before, his evening was aimless, he let the wave of the vibe take him wherever, let the alcohol blur the world around him. But now, he has an objective. And that objective stands all by his lonesome, scowling down the hallway. Man, does he brood well. Jaskier usually goes for people that are easy to read if some casual fun is what he has in mind -and it's not out of his mind just yet - but this guy intrigues him; there is more to him than simple dudebro-ness. He has shock-grey hair and startling amber eyes and seems to cast the longest shadow. Jaskier wants to ride him. Jaskier also wants to serenade him on a starlit wooden bridge and collect all the guy's deepest secrets and desires to keep under his pillow and draw divine inspiration from. Okay, that may be the Tequila shots talking. He scurries over to the bar, downs another two, then approaches the guy.

-"Hi," Jaskier says as he sidles up to him. The guy half-heartedly raises his beer in greeting.  Taciturn, dark, dramatic. Jaskier decides to go for it. "I absolutely adore the way you just stand here and brood." (Jaskier will only learn much much later that he accidentally used some weird Kaer Morhen frat code and set off a chain of events that changed his life forever). "Lamb," the guy calls out instead of answering, something that makes Jaskier think he's so far gone that he's actively hallucinating. But no, seconds later a guy with equally lush red hair and equally thick arms appears from the crowd. He wears a scowl which has Jaskier's throat tighten. "What is it, Wolf?" Wolf, huh? "Go collect Goat and Kitty-Cat. I found him." And Wolf-Guy grabs Jaskier by the back of the neck and hauls him through a door, down some stairs - is that marble? are those torches? GARGOYLES? - and into pitch blackness. Jaskier squeals. This is what he imagined when he dreamt of college. Well not exactly this, but close enough.

-They bind him with silk scarfs and put a blindfold over his eyes which, okay. Jaskier knows he shouldn't find this as sexy as he does, but he can't help it. He has no sense of self-preservation and this will just be the best of fuel for the first assignment in his screenwriting class. "Oh, this is fun," he murmurs when someone tugs off his boots and someone else smears a fatty paste onto his lips. It smells like... okay it smells lot like his uncle Matthew's pigsty. Weirdly disgusting. "Who are you guys anyway?"

-They don't speak at all that night, don't take off the blind-fold until way later. All night, Jaskier can hear them rustling around him, chanting in some language he doesn't understand. They give him several drinks, most of which honestly taste like asphalt, but make his insides go fuzzy. When the blindfold comes off eventually, Jaskier finds himself on the front-seat of a pick up truck, Wolf guy behind the wheel. They are parked behind the frat house. "Look, I don't think you're a suitable candidate. The guys all said they want to keep you, but my friend recognized you from the freshman introduction party and we usually only inaugurate sophomores." Jaskier blinks. He has absolutely no idea what's going in anymore. His friend Triss is probably worried sick because he hasn't checked in all evening. The faint taste of burned rubber clings to his lips and all Jaskier can think is: Fuck, is this man hot. "Go out with me," he blurts. "Go out with me, I'll show you how suitable I am."

-Over the course of a month's worth of introductions, preparation and inauguration traditions (which, among other things, have him dropped butt-naked in the middle of the forest, requiring him to find his way back to campus; have him spend more time learning long-dead languages than he is comfortbale with; have him getting thoroughly intimate with Eskel's (Goat) helper syndrome, Lambert (Lamb) and Aiden's (Kitty-Cat) ostentatiously loud fucking, Coen's (Hawk) frequent absences and Geralt's (Wolf) quiet, but passionate idealism) Jaskier learns the truth at the core of Kaer Morhen. It is more than a fraternity, it is a brotherhood of students that spend their free time in rituals to protect the college, its city, likely even the whole state from supernatural creatures that threaten to cross over into the world. The existence of these is no surprise to Jaskier who's come out of an adolescence of escapism and coping through fiction and song, but the fact that there are handsome tough guys who work to banish him is too much of a dream to be true. It is true. Unofficially, the call themselves Witchers. They catch wraiths in cricles of runes, they re-direct necrophages into Kaer Morhen's basement and slay them with blades of silver. They brew potions and cast minor spells to get rid of mutated insectoids. And Jaskier is to be one of them. They call him Lark.

-His first ritual goes bat-shit wrong. Jaskier is reasonably sure he did everything right, but the wraith doesn't stay contained after they bound it . "Fuck," Geralt growns after, pressing a cloth to the gaping wound in Jaskier's shoulder while they wait for Eskel to whip out the first aid kit. Jaskier shudders, can taste blood. "There shouldn't be fireflies here, right?" - "Ah, nope," Lambert says. He keeps snapping his fingers before Jaskier's eyes. "Hey, Lark, stay with us, okay?" - "He's fine," Aiden says, inspecting his nails. "If anything, it's Geralt we should be worried about. He's about to have a full blown panic attack." Geralt grunts and holds Jaskier closer.

-"Does this mean I can ask Priscilla to let me copy her homework," Jaskier asks later. He's in bed, bundled up in one of Kaer Morhen's bedrooms. Portraits of alumni line the wall and a hearth crackles away. Geralt sits next to the bed, a pretense-book on his lap. His eyes bore into Jaskier, wide, haunted. "Jask," he breathes out shakily. - "Hello, big guy. How are we doing?" - "Better now that you're awake. We... we had to call in Vesemir. He will want to talk to you." - "Alright, okay," Jaskier says. He knows who Vesemir is of course, but he has no idea what exactly his job entails or what having to talk to him means. "Geralt?" - "Hmm?" - "What did I do wrong?" - "Nothing. You were uncharacteristically precise... but it turns out I was right all along. You're not suited for this kind of work." - "Because I'm not big and buff like all of you?" Jaskier asks, pouting. Geralt has the audacity to laugh. But he also takes Jaskier's hands and kisses his knuckles and huh? What? Jaskier's brain short-circuits. Fuck when did he fall so hard for Geralt? "No, Jask, you're perfect. I mean, uh, ah, perfectly annoying." That bastard. "The wraith went crazy because it turns out you're an amplifier. That means supernatural creatures are pulled to you and can draw from you to manifest easier in our world. You wouldn't have noticed this unless you ever passed by a spot where the spheres overlap significantly. As it is, your participation in the ritual poses a danger." - "TLDR: I'm fired?" - "That's for Vesemir to decide... truth be told, I don't want you to go. But I can't stand the thought of you being in danger. Because of me, this." - "Go out with me, Geralt. Please. One coffee," Jaskier practically begs. Yes, his shoulder is minced meat and he feels exhausted from the blood loss but Geralt has never been this open and honest with him. "...fine."

-Jaskier heals up under the diligent care of his friends. Priscilla is allowed over too, practically drags him though his classes with tutoring and copies of her homework and sugar-coated emails to his various professors. Triss video-calls him three times a day. Eskel's med school expertise leaves Jaskier with the most neat scar he is ever going to get out of this, Lambert and Aiden hang out to play Gwent with him, a strange card game they invented and custom-painted, Coën even pops in to bring Jaskier his guitar and a venti Matcha Tea Latte even though the nearest Starbucks is miles away. Geralt... Geralt is there almost all the way. He sleeps in the chair at first, then - on Jaskier's stern insistence - in the bed with him, though careful to keep his distance. He helps Jaskier into the shower, something so strangely intimate without feeling innately sexual, he takes him out on slow walks. Geralt doesn't talk much, but Jaskier knows he feels responsible. It's fine. Sure. Absolutely fine. Jaskier is so far gone for this man by the time he moves back into his own dorm that he considers getting injured again just to have Geralt by his side. They never do go out for coffee.

-Vesemir doesn't so much invite Jaskier as have him called out of his choir session by a girl about Jaskier's age. She has the same hair color as Geralt and Jaskier thinks he's seen her around Kaer Morhen's bigger parties. "Hello, Jaskier," she says sweetly, but one look at her tells Jaskier she's deadlier than any of the frat boys. If his drunk memory serves correctly she also does a phenomenal keg stand. "Ves sends me to collect you." Which has Jaskier even more impressed with her. None of the boys dare to call him anything but Vesemir or Sir, even when he's not around. - "I've been expecting this," Jaskier says, shouldering his bag. The girl laughs and grabs his arm to guide him out of the building and across campus. - "You are cute," she says. "Geralt said so, but I thought that was just because he's so infatuated with you. I'm Ciri, by the way, his younger sister." Infatuated, huh? Jaskier has just enough brainspace left to save her name. Ciri. They will have to become very good friends. Infatuated.

-It turns out, Vesemir isn't half as scary as the boys made him out to be. He's closer to sixty than fifty, has a stern face, but a kindly voice and the first thing he does after dismissing Ciri with a meaningful glance is offer Jaskier a glass of whiskey. Jaskier sneaks a photograph of the bottle's label when Vesemir stands at the window and glances down at the campus, hands clasped behind his back. Triss will never believe this. It's the sort of alcohol that exists only in myth, at least to college students. "So, Mr. Pankratz. I'm afraid apologies are in order." - "Please, I prefer Jaskier." - "I know," Vesemir says and turns. "I would kindly ask you to delete that picture, my office and its contents fall under the terms of the non-disclosure agreement you signed when entering our brotherhood." Jaskier gulps heavily, the whiskey suddenly sour on his tongue. But he's quick to paste over a smile. He's gotten this far with the mysterious Kaer Morhen fraternity, he can pull all the way through. He deletes the picture. "Good," Vesemir says. "Now down to business." Vesemir gives him two options. Jaskier can consult a local magical artisan and have his memories of Kaer Morhen's true purpose removed. It is an easy procedure, won't cost him anything. Except for his new-found friends and the love he feels for Geralt. Except for the only place he's ever truly felt at home. Jaskier chooses the latter option which is to become the fraternity's chronicler.

-After that, things are supposed to calm down and they do, for a bit. Geralt still dodges any and all attempts Jaskier makes at flirting even though it's evident his resolve is thinning out. Jaskier observes and documents the rituals, begins to collect old notebooks. He's planning to go above and beyond his job and compile a comprehensive history of Kaer Morhen and its members before he's graduated. He may not be able to partake in the rituals or help the guys protect this city from monsters, but he can play his part. Leave behind a legacy.

-Between that and his normal studies, hanging out with his theater group, meeting Triss on alternate weekends and throwing epic frat parties, all of Jaskier's time is consumed. There are several instances in which Geralt and him almost manage to have their coffee, but then they have Eskel on the phone because Lambert and Aiden managed to give themselves poisoning over a simple Endrega job, or Priscilla needs an emergency stand-in for her weekly performances at a local bar, or Jaskier is simply too tired and falls into bed, sleeping over Zoltan's aggressive snoring. Jaskier doesn't mind so much. They catch glimpses of intimacy, Geralt's hand on the small of his back as he guides him downstairs for another ritual, a good night kiss on the cheeks once it's done, a spot of quiet homework-doing in Kaer Morhen's common room together, their legs pressed close under the table. One of these days, Jaskier will find the courage to close the last bridge between them. He just wants to wait until Geralt seems absolutely comfortable with it.

-All is as well as can be until Vesemir comes up with an idea. Because more and more creatures have been getting through and they are unable to hold off all, he wants to capture one of them, an Archgriffin, to bind in their world and act as guardian against lesser creatures. "You're mad," Aiden says. "That's fucking brilliant." - "It's a good idea," Eskel and Coën agree. Lambert keeps exchanging grim glances with Geralt because they both know what this means. They will have to use Jaskier to lure the beast. Which is why they both protest the idea heavily and Geralt gets into a fight with Vesemir. Jaskier is not there for it, but Aiden and Lambert tell him later, once he's back from theatre rehearsal. He watches them fight over it too and then it's only him and Lambert. Jaskier steals one of Zoltan's bottles of spirits and they get stupidly drunk, wandering around campus all night until Eskel collects them and tucks them into bed at Kaer Morhen. "I will not stand to lose you," Lambert slurs, arm dragged over Jaskier's chest. "You're like, almost my best friend. Plus, Wolf would be devastated." - "Aiden seems to think it'll be fine," Jaskier says, snuggling up to Lambert. - "Yeah, fuck him." They fall asleep like that and the first thing Geralt does when he finds them is kick Lambert all the way down the stairs.

-In the end, Geralt and Lambert are outvoted, not that they can stop Vesemir. Geralt is more silent than usual throughout prep and Jaskier can't seem to cheer him up. He knows his life is likely on the line, but he wants to help so badly. These guys are his family after all. If he can make their lives a little easier by doing this... well, he wants to. He needs to. Being in Kaer Morhen is the first time he seems to have a purpose other than writing angsty teenage songs. Eskel keeps checking up on him. Vesemir writes preliminary excuses for all Jaskier's exams which leave him with only A's, something Priscilla does not appreciate in the slightest. Lambert and Aiden fight and fight and won't stop fighting over this whole affair until Jaskier sits them down and makes them talk. Geralt... remains quiet. Jaskier can tell he doesn't sleep. Can tell he rarely eats. He decides now is as good a time as ever.

-It's the night before and the others have all returned to their dorms, but Jaskier stayed in Kaer Morhen under the pretext of Zoltan having his girlfriend over, and Geralt rarely ever goes home. He has a flat off campus, but Jaskier suspects it's drab and lonely. He gets it. Kaer Morhen has soft fluffly beds and fire places and wards and books. Currently, it has the two of them, bundled up in one of the upstairs rooms. They share an armchair before a low fire, not an unusual sight for them, not anymore. And still, Geralt pretends they're just friends. It's ridiculous. "You know I'll be fine, right?" Jaskier says. He has his head tucked under Geralt's chin and has been humming show tunes under his breath for the last half hour, something that usually puts Geralt right to sleep. Not so now. "I can't know that," Geralt replies. He lifts Jaskier's hand which he's been holding and traces the veins on the back of it with his thumb. "You've no idea how dangerous the ritual is. Even more so with you being an amplifier." - "So protect me." - "I will. I promise, I will." - "Geralt, when are you going to finally give in?" Jaskier sighs and pulls back a little. Geralt stares at him, a little cross-eyed and Jaskier gives a shaky laugh. "I'm going to kiss you now. Pull back if you don't want to, but allow it and I'll never let you go." Geralt allows it, kisses back. It's the first night they indulge in a love that has been growing for almost a year and it's gloriously sweet, blazing, beautiful. It leaves Jaskier with faith that, even if things go sideways, Geralt will get them both out of it alive.

-The ritual goes well thanks to the Witchers' meticulous preparations, the dozen or so warding spells they put on Jaskier and Geralt's reflexes that save him from a swipe of the Griffin's claw. They bind the creature to one of the basement holding cells and celebrate with excessive amoutns of vodka and cake. "All is well that ends well, huh?" Jaskier asks from where he sits on Geralt's lap. Strong arms hold him and his chest is full of nightingales that flutter and sing. He watches Eskel drunkenly dance-offing with Coen in a corner, watches Lambert and Aiden make out in another. Vesemir took off, but Ciri is there, lounging next to them on the couch, nose buried in her phone. "I will never put you through such danger again," Geralt grunts, his nose buried in Jaskier's hair. "Of course, love." Jaskier relaxes into the embrace. All is well, though it is not nearly the end of this story.

-TLDR: Kaer Morhen is an occultist fraternity that keeps supernatural beings away from campus. Jaskier, unable to participate in the actual rituals due to a genetic predisposition, becomes their chronicler. Geralt worries a lot. Jaskier tries for the longest time to get him to go on a coffee date or something. Lambert and Aiden are a disaster couple. Eskel keeps them all together, literally and figuratively. Ciri is the one who got all the brain cells.

[jaskiersvalley]

Hello!! 💕 Just wanted to let you know that I love your "Jaskier has always smelled of blood" au. It means a lot to me 💛 I feel like it brings some kind of awereness to the issue and I'm really gratefull for it. Thank you 💕

Nonnie, thank you so much for your kind words. That AU is one that I spent a lot of time mulling over and debating whether to write it or not. But given the fact that it means a lot to you, it was most definitely worth it. There is actually another topic that has been on my mind a fair amount that is as heavy as that AU, which is what happens when a suicide attempt doesn't succeed. Hopefully you won't mind if I write that as a little thank you for your lovely ask.

CW: Suicide attempt (overdose of Witcher potions)

Love wasn't meant to be part of a Witcher's life. That was what Eskel had always been taught and he accepted it as his lot in life. When he was younger, he had raged against it, tried to defy the truth. He attended parties, wooed and seduced wherever he went. Love never stuck but at least his lust was sated. Then Deidre happened and Eskel had a new reality to get used to, one where he was seen as monstrous, hideous and repulsive. Those were just Lambert's teasing words, trying to exaggerate and poke fun at the situation. Not that it helped. Suddenly, Eskel could only attend masquerade balls where his face was hidden from view for fear of upsetting humans. It was either that or finding hungry and desperate succubi who valued his Witcher enhanced attribute more than his visage. It didn't stop Lambert from cracking jokes.

"You don't have a succubi problem, you just have a succuebae. Get it? Before anyone else!"

It was easy for Lambert to say, brothels still took his coin if he wanted it. Though, by the sounds of stories, he didn't need to frequent such places, not when he had a Cat Witcher travelling with him and eager to share all aspects of the Path, not just the pay for contracts. Still, Eskel couldn't begrudge Lambert, he'd always had a shit lot in life. If he could buck the rule about love, good for him, he deserved that slice of happiness.

Then Geralt had to go and find himself a bard who was devoted to him. Eskel could smell the pining on Geralt over winters and then love when Jaskier finally spent the winter with them. That was fine too. Much like Lambert, Geralt also deserved someone to love and share his life with. Even multiple someones when Yennefer arrived and had no need of a room of her own.

It was fine. Eskel could be happy for them. He wasn't jealous, didn't feel like he'd been cheated out of anything. Those were thoughts he turned away from every night when he pulled his covers tight around him and pretended he didn't wish it was the warm embrace of a lover, probably much like the other two had.

Things got worse when Eskel started getting left out of things. There were games that the happy couples played in the evenings, something about how well they knew each other. It was raucous and fun by the sounds of it. Eskel stayed in the kitchen, cleaning because it wasn't a game he could play. The double dates looked fun, going out on rides. Once Yennefer even opened up a portal for them to spend a night away for some romantic getaway. The bard about Eskel bringing Lil Bleater had stung more than he cared to admit. Slowly, Eskel was forgotten. Vesemir had his books, was content with those and the letters he seemed to send. If Eskel was lucky, he'd end up like him. But Eskel didn't want to become Vesemir in his old age. Not even Vesemir really, not when Eskel didn't even have friends to exchange letters with.

The bleakness of it ate away at Eskel for years. Each time he returned to Kaer Morhen without a travelling companion, without someone to write to, he felt like a failure. To the point that he tried drinking, tried fisstech, anything to forget, even if just for a little while. Nothing worked though, every time reality caught up with him. There was only one solution he could see, one where there was no tomorrow to wake up to. It wasn't a rash decision, Eskel didn't immediately act on those thoughts. But his mind was made up and with that came a sense of relief. He had a few things to get in order, to figure out but there was now an end in sight, a way out and on his own terms.

One last winter he made the trek to Kaer Morhen. He had a tidy pack of coins, some truly excellent Gwent cards and a large stash of potions he had brewed up. All in all, he looked like he had a good year on the Path. Nobody needed to know that all his external riches were a façade for the poverty of his heart.

His plan was a simple one. It wasn't like a Witcher left a will or anything like that, his measly belongings got scavenged when he didn't return from a contract. That wasn't what Eskel wanted, he was going to make sure all his belongings were going to go to the person he wanted them to end up with. Which was why he started with Gwent. He played Geralt and, slowly but surely, lost all his best cards. Eskel prided himself in how he could play so well that they others believed he was having a bad run. Couple it with drinking some of Lambert's brew, it was an uproarious night full of laughter, friendly slaps to his back and loudly declared sympathy for his poor, alcohol addled brain.

Once the good Gwent cards were gone, Eskel switched out, claiming he needed someone lesser to play because Geralt was just too good. As predicted, Lambert took great offence at being called a worse player and shoved Geralt out the way. Eskel bet money, a nice pair of gloves and, in an almost unheard of turn, Scorpion.

"I needed to leave you with things to barter with for the rest of winter," he told Lambert with a smile. "Because I'll be winning it all back in the coming weeks, with interest on top."

The laughter that went up at that was nice. Eskel was satisfied all the worthwhile things in his possession had found good homes. Vesemir had already taken the spices and seeds he had returned with, along with the small mountain of foods that would keep them well fed over winter. What Eskel didn't expect was the hugs and pats to his back as they got ready to get to bed.

"It was nice to see you smiling and laughing again," Jaskier commented.

"This was like the old days," Lambert agreed, rubbing his knuckles over the top of Eskel's head viciously.

Aiden clasped his shoulder and gave it a squeeze with a smile. "Good to have you back."

It wasn't like Eskel had ever left, he had been there all those years, it was the others who didn't want him. It didn't matter now though. They'd had one final night together, it all went well. Eskel waved goodbye to them all, heart heavy but also light. He couldn't have asked for a better final evening.

Back at his room, he sat down on his bed and looked around. There wasn't much left. The furs and throws were all down in the communal areas, he'd migrated those down over the last couple of weeks. His armour wouldn't fit anyone and it wasn't suitable for reworking for the others. It would be the perfect thing to wear to his funeral pyre so he pulled it on one last time, taking a deep breath as the familiar scent of worn leather enveloped him. All the potions he'd brought back with him were lined up on his bedside table. He knew what he was doing. The others would understand, maybe even take it as the gift he meant it to be. He wouldn't be the odd one out anymore, the loner who brought the group down by hanging onto their coattails. They could have their double dates, their romantic getaways without having to worry about him or feeling guilty for leaving him behind.

The first potion was Cat, he downed it, feeling the world shift into larger clarity in the darkness of his room. It didn't sit heavy in his stomach, three potions were fine to take, four was when the toxicity began to affect him. Though Eskel was a large man, he could probably deal with about six potions before he became ill. It was why he had fifteen little bottles lined up, one worse than the other in terms of toxicity. Next, a Maribor Forest slid down his throat, followed by a Lapwing. They were all conflicting potions, making his body shake. Brock tasted foul but it was still better than Rook which made Eskel's heart pound. Taking a break, Eskel settled back on his bed, head spinning. He could feel his whole body shaking with unspent energy the potions teased out of him. It felt horrible, his stomach roiled. Without his attention on some creature and the fight for his life, Eskel couldn't help but focus on the way his joints seemed to itch, his muscles tingling.

Five potions weren't going to be enough. Reaching for another bottle, Eskel knocked back two Thunderbolts in a row. He gagged but pushed on, head swimming. Virga at least tasted a little better. It was wiped out by the Nekker Warrior Decoction. The world was fuzzy, Eskel whimpered a little as his muscles seized and cramped and his stomach ached. He'd rarely taken enough potions to even flirt with the edges of toxicity, to deliberately do it was agony. This wasn't how he'd expected it to go, he thought he'd take them, lie back and go to sleep. Pain was not part of the deal but he would shoulder it, this was his choice. A couple of the empty bottles clattered to the ground as he reached for the next one. Most of the Black Blood went down his chin as he spluttered. Leaning against the headboard, he closed his eyes, willing the wooziness to go.

Maybe to took more potions, maybe they were dreams, he didn't know. What Eskel did know was that he woke up in his bed, the sun shining bright in the sky. Head pounding and stomach churning, he could smell stale vomit in the air. Rolling onto his side, he threw up over the edge of his bed. Breathing shaky, Eskel coughed miserably and spat to clear the bitter taste from his mouth. Judging by the state of his floor, it wasn't the first time he had thrown up but it was definitely the only one he could remember. Flopping back onto the bed, Eskel covered his face with his palms and choked back on a howl of frustration. He couldn't even kill himself properly.

The problem was, Eskel had no plans for what to do if he failed. He'd been so certain that he would go to sleep and never wake up again. At a loss, he fell back onto habits and routine. He was already dressed in his armour which was acceptable clothing to go downstairs for breakfast. Nothing heavy, he couldn't face the idea of eating anything. But a drink of water would do him good. Stumbling into the kitchen, he grunted a greeting at the others who seemed to be having lunch. Of course they didn't notice he hadn't gotten up for breakfast. Either that or they just didn't care.

"You're dressed ready for war," Lambert joked but the smile on his face froze when Eskel looked at him. "Woah. You look like shit."

Geralt was out of his seat and grabbing Eskel by the chin, giving him a close inspection and a less than subtle sniff. Whatever he detected had him tensing up and glancing to Lambert who looked alarmed too.

"Let's get a bit of food in you," Geralt rumbled and guided Eskel to the table where Aiden's face turned stricken. Even Jaskier and Yennefer looked solemn, their usual rivalry nowhere to be seen. In fact, everyone seemed intent of giving Eskel the attention he didn't crave.

From the doorway, Lambert called, "Geralt" and stepped back. But the clink of bottles in his hand and the hushed, hurried conversation gave away the fact Eskel's dirty secret had been found out.

"I'll go clean the room but he's not going back there. Not alone," Lambert growled. The others around the table didn't even bother pretending they weren't listening in.

Vesemir's footsteps approached and Eskel wished fervently that the potions had done the job. Especially as he listened to the conversation.

"What's going on here?"

"It's Eskel he-" the clink of bottles followed again, Lambert no doubt showing Vesemir the evidence of Eskel's shame.

"I see." Vesemir rumbled softly and walked into the kitchen. He sat down next to Eskel, not saying a word. However, he squeezed his shoulder and swapped out the tankard of water for a warm tea, adding a dash of honey to it. "Geralt, get a Golden Oriole from the cupboard."

Eskel could only watch as it was added to his tea, heart sinking. Nobody said anything. Not even when Lambert returned, looking a little green in the face. He sat down, squirming in the silence.

"Are we not going to say anything about it?" He asked in the end. "We can't just pretend it never happened."

"We won't," Vesemir replied, voice warm but also full of warning. "But there's a time and place for everything. Right now, our priority is the physical. The Golden Oriole will help. Then Eskel will go and have a lie down in front of the fire to sleep and let his body heal."

It was so much easier to follow Vesemir's instructions than have to think for himself. Eskel hadn't thought he'd see the sun again, hadn't thought he'd have to worry about things like daily chores and ways to spend the long hours of a day. At some point he must have finished his tea because the mug was empty but Eskel didn't remember it. He was ushered towards the pile of furs and throws from his room and he sank into them, exhausted already. He was only half awake as he heard the conversation around him while a throw was carefully draped over him.

"How could he do this?" Geralt hissed, sounding angry for the first time. "Why would he do this to us?"

"I'm sure we'll find out." The reply from Vesemir was soft and calm. "But what we need to focus on is helping him realise it was a good thing he didn't succeed."

"What if he tries again?"

"We have to hope he doesn't. He won't be alone for the next few weeks, we'll take turns keeping him company. And hope that we can do enough to make him want to stay." Vesemir was oddly calm and resigned. "I've seen others do this before. We can only hope to counter the darkness that has befallen his mind."

Lambert joined the quiet conversation. "But he seemed so happy last night. In fact, he's been the most at peace in years. I thought he was getting better."

Even half asleep, Eskel could understand the words, appreciate the thoughts behind them. But he didn't know if the plan would work. He doubted the others would understand or would be able to do anything to help him. After all, they still had their partners, lovers and each other. All Eskel knew for certain was that if he tried again, he'd do something with an assured outcome. He just hoped the others would understand.

[bicount-de-lettenhove]

Preferences are a privilege that Geralt doesn't get to have - Part 3: Toussaint just ain't the same without your bard

Not really any trigger warnings in this one, apart from drinking and a bit of self hate from Geralt

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After spending a long summer winding their way across the continent, Geralt and Jaskier find themselves in Toussaint as autumn sets in. It’s only a few weeks before the festival of the vat and the harvest is in full swing, the women and men of Toussaint out in the vineyards as long as the sun will allow it, the sweet smell of crushed grapes filling the air. Much to Jaskier’s surprise, Geralt agrees to stay for a few days. It’s only because Roach could do with the rest, especially with the long journey North looming, and so when Jaskier mentions the word ‘holiday’, Geralt shoots him a warning glare. Surprisingly, it isn’t mentioned again.

They quickly fall into the rhythm of life in Toussaint, and the bard is a bad influence and encourages Geralt to overindulge in women and in fine wine. Each night when he returns to his room he finds his coin purse a little lighter. On their sixth night, Jaskier plays his last set for the people of Beauclair and steps off the stage to riotous applause. Geralt is deep in a game of Gwent and before the round is up Jaskier is singing again - this time, without his lute, he’s leading the inn in a rowdy and seemingly neverending version of fishmonger’s daughter. Geralt wins the game and they start another, and Geralt can feel the comfortable warmth of the wine settling in his shoulders and knees, Jaskier’s songs fading to background noise as he concentrates.

Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and then a yelp and Geralt finds himself with a lap full of bard, Jaskier sitting sideways on him, one hand braced on his shoulder, the other making a mess of the deck of cards on the table.

‘Oh, Geralt!’ he sounds slightly slurred, and Geralt can immediately feel the heat of him through their breeches, even in the warmth of the inn. ‘Thank Melitele that was you! I think…’ Jaskier turns his face towards Geralt. He trails off, his gaze dropping to Geralt’s mouth. Geralt suddenly realises how close the bard’s face is to his, their wine-sweet breath mingling in the space between them. Jaskier’s pink tongue darts out and wets his bottom lip, then he blinks rapidly and shakes his head minutely. ‘I think, my dear Geralt, that I am drunk.’

‘Hmm’ agrees Geralt.

‘And therefore, I think.’ he prods a finger into Geralt’s chest, frowning as if the coordination is taking all his concentration ‘that I am going to bed.’ The bard stands up with surprising speed and Geralt reaches out to steady him. ‘And furthermore,’ he adds, now facing away from Geralt and projecting more than is necessary. ‘I am going to your bed, because these people tip in wine, and hence I am penniless.’ He frowns again, like he’s forgotten something. ‘And drunk,’ he remembers. Then he adjusts his doublet and sways his way towards the stairs, gone as suddenly as he arrived. After Jaskier has left, Geralt continues his game, but his opponent is no longer playing as well as he was and he finds himself losing interest. It’s not long before he’s packing up his deck and climbing the stairs himself.

Inside their room it’s dark, but Jaskier has opened the windows onto the balcony so it’s cooler and a thin strip of moonlight is filtering through the thin curtains. The air is hardly moving but the thick scent of jasmine has filled the room from outside. Jaskier lies strewn across the bed as though he’s been dropped from a height. He’s taken his doublet and boots off and his shirt is open down to his navel, exposing his chest to the moonlight. Geralt carefully doesn’t look as he strips down to his smallclothes and climbs into what’s left of the space in the bed. He lies on his side, facing away from Jaskier, carefully arranging his limbs so he doesn’t risk taking advantage, but once he’s in the bard makes a soft, contented noise and folds himself around Geralt, throwing one arm over him and hooking his knees into the back of Geralt’s. Geralt stiffens slightly. It’s far too warm to lie like this, he thinks. It’ll take hours for him to sleep with the bard pressed up against him like some kind of lover.

It doesn’t.

The next morning, Jaskier complains tirelessly of sore feet and a sore head as they climb up through the vineyards. Geralt is trying to reach a mountain pass he last used several years ago.

‘Really, Geralt.’ the bard complains, each phrase punctuated by a dramatic huff of breath. ‘I don’t see why we can’t take a path that’s less hilly. Do you want me to pass out?’

Geralt grins. ‘There is another way. We could go through the flooded caves under the mountains and avoid the hills completely.’ Jaskier reconsiders - actually stops walking for a moment as though his brain and his feet can’t both be in use at once - and then has to jog to catch up.

‘Actually, you make a very good point.’ he concedes. ‘But at least we would be out of this relentless sunlight. I feel like someone’s used my head as a battering ram.’

‘Your hangover is your own fault, bard. You know the wine here isn’t watered down.’ Jaskier grimaces, as though the mention of wine physically pains him further.

‘Ah, well. One can’t say no to one’s adoring fans.’ He stops talking as he squints around at the view, his boots and Roach’s hooves scuffing on the dusty track. ‘How was your evening anyway, Geralt?’ He asks, lightly. ‘How was your Gwent game? Did you win?’ Geralt didn’t. But as they reach the mountain path and look back down on the lush green of Toussaint, he finds he really doesn’t mind.

----------------

Geralt leaves Kaer Morhen early that year, heading South under the misapprehension that the weather has broken. The path through the mountains is treacherous and Velen, when he reaches it, is as sodden and miserable as he has ever seen it. One night, the wind howls as he huddles under the bare branches of a long-dead tree, knees drawn up into his travelling cloak to preserve any semblance of warmth. His clothes are already soaked through and caked with mud, rain dripping off the hem of his hood where it dips over his face. His breath forms plumes in the freezing air. Roach stands by the tree, huffing her own breaths into the cold, her mane plastered to her neck by the unrelenting rain. He offers her a conciliatory grunt.

‘I know. We’ll head South.’ As he says it Geralt realises exactly where he’s heading. He’s not expecting to rest in Toussaint - the year is still new and he hasn’t earned the luxury - but there’ll be contracts in the area; work he can take up. The days he spent there last year have taken on a hazy, dreamlike quality and the thought of returning fills him with warmth, despite the freezing rain.

It takes him around a month to reach the feet of the Amell mountains. He’s skirted wide around Oxenfurt, knowing that if he stops then Jaskier will find him and the bard will slow him down. As he climbs the mountain pass, he’s glad of the quiet.

Geralt spends a month in Toussaint. It’s nothing like he imagined. The grapes aren’t ripe and the vintage from last year isn’t as sweet as he remembered. The working women fuck convincingly but they’re cold and impersonal afterwards. Geralt understands that it’s a contract like any other, and so one evening he pays one of them double to stay and hold him. He sends her away before an hour has passed, filled with hot shame and frustration. After she’s gone he opens the balcony windows and lies stiffly on the bed, willing himself not to cry. Pathetic, he thinks. What made you think you deserve that? The wind rustles the plants outside, but the jasmine isn’t flowering and all he can smell is the woman’s thick perfume on the pillow. He leaves the next day, and this time, he doesn’t look back at the view.

Much of the year passes as normal, and Geralt accepts contracts that take him further North. He’s drinking alone in a dingy tavern in Novigrad when he meets Jaskier again. The bard, as ever, is full of stories of his winter, and questions for Geralt, and he keeps flitting back and forth between the two as though he can’t decide which is more pressing.

‘So Geralt, tell me, where have you been? I must say I was a little disappointed when you didn’t pass by Oxenfurt on your way South, but I assume you left the mountains late this year? The snows didn’t ease for a long time, even in Velen! You should have seen oxenfurt in the snow, it really was beautiful! Little Eye found this sledge, and- No, I’m getting distracted.’ He really doesn’t even stop to breathe, thinks Geralt, smiling gently. ‘I’m sure you have lots of exciting tales just begging to be woven into ballads. Where have you been?’ The bard finally stops and takes a swig of his ale, watching Geralt over the rim of his mug.

‘Went down to Toussaint.’ Jaskier gulps down his mouthful of ale.

‘Oh! So early in the year; you’re finally learning how to treat yourself. Was it as lovely as ever?’

‘No.’ The disappointment of his wasted trip rises in Geralt again, and he swallows it down.

‘Oh.’ Jaskier sounds unsure now, and there’s a glint of something in his eyes. ‘Well I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you liked Toussaint.’

Geralt grits his teeth. He had thought so too.

‘Or the time we spent there, anyway.’ adds Jaskier, very softly. Geralt knows the bard is watching him for any reaction, but he can’t stand to look at his foolish, earnest face. Instead, he swallows hard and stands up from the table.

‘No.’ he grits out, and then he turns away before he can see Jaskier’s face crumple, and goes out to fetch Roach. He should be on the road. When he leaves the city gates that evening, he lets Roach choose the direction; it makes no difference to him.

She picks North anyway.

----------

I'm sorry for the no comfort ending!! Nothing felt quite right as an ending for this but Jask will find him again I promise!

This is part of a freeform series of short and unconnected drabbles based around Geralt denying that he has preferences, and Jaskier’s reactions. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.

[puppy-prose]

Possible fic prompt: Jaskier at Kaer Morhen learns about axii. Whether it is just Geralt or Eskel and Lambert too is your call. He wants them to use axii to turn him into a doll, where they have total control of his body. They can move him into any position, relax or tighten his muscles, make him feel any sensation, and he can't mentally override their control. Whether he can come on his own is up to you.

Thoughts?

I decided to change it juuust a little bit, hope that’s ok!! I just tweaked it so that Geralt & Jaskier have used axii before, to make it easier on worrywart Geralt pffft but thank you for this!! I loved writing it!!

——

Geralt has only been back at the keep for two weeks and he’s entirely over the way his brothers keep making faces over his scent.

“Stop it,” he growls one day, narrowing his eyes at Lambert. “Don’t make me remind you of what happens when Aiden stays here. The both of you make the whole keep smell like sweat and sex all winter, not just yourselves.”

Predictably, the youngest cub rolls his eyes, pretending he’s not flushed at the reminder of all that, and scoffs. “At least mine was another witcher,” he retorts. “You brought a bloody bard.”

That is true, at least, the words themselves are. The tone Geralt could do without. Jaskier had grown bored of Oxenfurt, didn’t care for the Temerian court, had too many exes in Redania, threatened to gouge out Valdo Marx’s eyes if he went to Cidaris… In short, he had every excuse in the book whenever Geralt asked him where he planned to spend the winter. It had been with a begrudging sigh and a long look that he’d finally invited Jaskier to spend the time in Kaer Morhen with his family—an invitation that Jaskier had almost not waited to hear the full sentence of before he had agreed, enthusiastically.

Geralt had put on a show of how the other witchers might put his head on a spike, but he’d been pleased, really. And Jaskier, well. Jaskier had seen right past his gruff and saw the quiet hope glimmering in his lover’s eyes. So he’d simply patted Geralt’s shoulder, declared, “Then I shall charm them into taking my head from the spike and sewing it back to my body,” and went about fussing and nattering over the long journey ahead.

But Geralt wasn’t going to let Lambert get a word in edgewise. Especially when Lambert listened to Jaskier’s nightly performance just as raptly as the rest of them did.

Geralt folds his arms. “I fail to see how that’s worse than walking in on you being bent over the dining table with Aiden’s cock up your ass.”

“Oh, that’s it!” the witcher cries. He hardly gets to his feet, though, before Eskel’s hand finds the crook of his elbow, drags him back down to the bench, careful not to disturb the game of gwent they have going on. Lambert shoots him a nasty look; Eskel ignores him.

“I don’t care what you two are doing,” Eskel rumbles calmly, only taking his hand from his youngest brother when he turns to pouting and puffing instead of looking for a fight. “But I am curious how you do it. Keep quiet, I mean. Your little bird can’t keep himself from talking or whistling or making some kind of noise for five minutes. And yet I never hear him. Just you.”

Eskel knows it’s not just Geralt. Based on the facts that both of them share a room and they both smell like each other so much that he’s mistaken one for the other on entrance to a room based on scent alone, it isn’t a solitary affair. Plus, having a room only part of a hallway from Geralt’s own ensures that he can hear the two go giggling inside of it at night, hear Jaskier’s bitten off keens, his keens and sighs, just as surely as he can hear Geralt’s rough promises and pleased groans. But the mystery lies in the fact that, once the two hit the mattress, it’s almost as if…

Almost as if Jaskier disappears. Geralt continues on, he knows, but until much later on, until after Geralt comes, there’s no sound from Jaskier. And when Jaskier does eventually talk, all it is is sleepy mumblings and the type of quiet pillow talk that Eskel purposefully tunes out, giving the two lovers their privacy, even though he never can make out those soft words. He just doesn’t get it. A gag would help, certainly—but not that well. Not to the point of complete silence.

Something glitters in Geralt’s eyes, then. Eskel frowns at it. His brother doesn’t often show a mischievous side of himself anymore, but he knows it’s there. After all, Geralt had been the one, so long ago, to help him tie a string to a bee, to keep it as a pet. Vesemir had tanned their hides for it, but while the Trial of the Grasses could take away a lot, they couldn’t take away everything.

“I use axii on him.”

Something bitter and rancid curls in Eskel’s stomach. The same goes for Lambert; he can sense the witcher tense next to him, sit up straighter. But before either of them can get any further, Geralt holds up his hand, placating.

“He asks for it,” he clarified. “Or, rather, it’s a better solution to a… Proclivity of his.” Eskel only frowns harder, so Geralt continues. “Awhile ago, he asked about getting some sort of substance that would take away his abilities to do much of anything. He wanted to be fucked while drugged. But he’s a human.”

“Fucking fragile things, humans are,” Lambert says.

Geralt nods at him, assenting silently. “I didn’t want to risk it. That’s a dangerous state to put anyone in. And even if it didn’t kill him, I wasn’t going to have him addicted to some two-bit hedge witch’s concoction. So I offered axii instead.”

The explanation helped to soothe Eskel. Jaskier had already proven himself to be of eclectic sexual tastes; he was in a relationship with a witcher, for the gods’ sakes. Plus, Geralt was right. Addiction was a horrible thing. If to the wrong substance, it led to a horrible, agonizing, slow death. If to a better substance, one miscalculation was all it could take to bring things to a speedy halt. With axii…

With axii, Geralt would be able monitor Jaskier’s emotions and cause no harm to his body. He could also withdraw the effects at any time—whether that be for something going wrong during sex or something happening on the path, with all the dangers a witcher and their companions faced. Compared to the bard’s request, it was, admittedly, many degrees safer.

“And you’re sure he likes it?” he askes, just once, just to make sure. Their signs are only supposed to be used in a fight. They hurt people, primarily, besides the protective few. It’s only been two weeks, and Eskel is surprised to find himself already protective over the little bird, as strange as it sounds even to him.

“Likes it enough he requests it at least once a week.” Geralt had been more careful than the other brothers after their Trials—after Blaviken. For him to act so blasé, so unconcerned about it, must mean that he’s telling the full truth. That, as improbable as it sounds, Jaskier really does enjoy to be axii’d. It’s a strange thought, but the more Eskel considers it… Well, he’s seen just how fearless Jaskier can be, living here with four witchers, so he probably shouldn’t be all that surprised.

He and Lambert share a look. It seems Lambert is thinking the same thing. For all intents and purposes, Geralt appears to be telling the truth, and they doubt that Jaskier wouldn’t speak up if he really didn’t enjoy it. So he gives Lambert a tiny nod, and turns his gaze back to his cards.

That’s the end of it.

That should have been the end of it.

It isn’t the end of it.

It doesn’t happen that night. No, that night, all three of them get a little more than tipsy, playing their cards long into the night. Eskel retires to his room, Geralt after him, and though he can hear his brother greet Jaskier, there are no sounds after that—from either of them.

No, nothing happens that night. It’s the next night when that something does happen.

Jaskier and Geralt talking, conversing, isn’t unusual. Sure, they’re a little quieter than usual, but—well, Eskel knows that energy fluctuates. He’s even considering that this might be another quiet night when, inevitably, Jaskier’s first moan seems to sneak its way through the cracks in the walls. Eskel sighs. He scrubs his face, lighter on the side with the scars to not aggravate them, and resigns himself to a night spent listening, wondering if he’ll head the little bird sing, or if Geralt will—axii him, apparently. But just as Eskel is turning onto his side away from the closest wall to the other room, Jaskier’s voice comes, plaintive and wanting, louder than he’s been with Geralt since they arrived at the keep.

“Eskel…”

Every nerve in Eskel’s body seems to light on fire. He freezes, then turns his head back, looking towards the far wall, as if it might have an answer for him. It, predictably, says nothing. But it doesn’t take long before Jaskier keens again, sighs, and his name slips from the bard’s mouth once more.

He doesn’t understand it. It’s certainly not him with Jaskier. And Geralt is there, so in all its unlikelihood, it isn’t the bard having some alone time with a fantasy of him. No, this is—

“Eskel…!”

—this is something else.

His brother chuckles, the sound carrying over. And then it gets louder, strangely enough, and a thump, and—oh, gods. Geralt has Jaskier pushed against the closest wall to him. Fuck.

“Like that, little bird?” Geralt said, and well, he was doing this on purpose. Geralt never called Jaskier little bird. That was Eskel’s nickname for him, one not used by any of the others, seeing as they had their own for him. Jaskier’s answering moan had Eskel swallow hard enough for it to click. He didn’t know exactly what Geralt was doing but he thought he could imagine it—his brother lifting Jaskier against the wall, those long legs wrapped around Geralt’s waist, a look of awe on Jaskier’s face.

Maybe his eyes would be a little glassy, a little unfocused. If this strange scenario is anything to go off of, as well as the new information from nights past, Jaskier is under axii’s effects. The thought hits Eskel hard—Jaskier thinks he’s being fucked by him.

And he’s enjoying it.

Unbidden, Eskel’s cock gives a twitch in his trousers. He grimaces; yes, for some reason, Geralt is putting on a show for him. But does that make his interest any less appropriate?

Apparently, propriety doesn’t matter much when Jaskier gasps and whines and starts to moan in earnest, Eskel’s name on his lips, falling in broken stutters and high pitched moans. Eskel tries to resist. He does. But gods, he’s imagining the way Geralt must be filling Jaskier to the hilt, how he must be holding his hips in a bruising grasp as he fucks up into him against the wall, wonders how many marks are going to be left trailing the bard’s throat come morning with Geralt purposefully staying away from Jaskier’s mouth to let his sounds come unimpeded. And Eskel—Eskel may be a witcher, but he is just a man at his core. He can only resist for so long before his hands are pushing the blankets down from his hips and his fingers are pulling at the ties to his breeches.

His cock, swollen and red and hard as hell, comes free. There’s already a bead of precum at the slit; Eskel isn’t sure he’s ever heard anyone but his brothers moan his name like that, and certainly no one after he’d gained his scars. It sets him alight in a way he hasn’t felt in a very long time; he nearly groans as he wraps his fingers around himself, a soft sound that, judging by the barely-there pause and then the uptick in Jaskier’s noises, a sound that Geralt had picked up on.

Eskel closes his eyes. He spreads the precum down his shaft until he’s just barely slick enough to not be uncomfortable. He listens, focuses in; if he pays attention, he can tell the difference in what’s happening. He can hear the whoosh of Jaskier’s breath when Geralt pulls out—can hear the tremble in his voice when his brother slams back in. He sets his pace by that, matching it as best he can. Imagines his fist is Jaskier’s tight body; imagines he can feel Geralt watching the whole thing, pleased by his brother wrecking his lover.

He’s both surprised and not when he finally climaxes—surprised at his short stamina, not surprised by the fact the little bird can wring something so quick out of him. With a few grunts Eskel’s cock pulses, twitches, and he spills into his hand, the sticky white seed making a mess. He can’t find it in himself to care. He feels good—really fucking good—and can’t help but wonder, briefly, if Geralt’s show means that he’d be willing to share.

Jaskier cums not long after, his shouts reaching a crescendo, Eskel’s name a slurred, pleading thing in his mouth. He hears Geralt growl and imagines that, too—his brother’s seed filling his little bird, the copious amount of it, the way it surely drips from Jaskier’s hole and leaves a mess on his thighs. That—and Eskel’s sudden desire to swipe up that cum with his fingers and press them into Jaskier’s mouth—makes his cock twitch again, interested. But though witcher refractory periods rival any human man’s, this is too short a time, even for him.

Instead, Eskel listens to Geralt take Jaskier to bed, the frame squeaking just a bit as they settle in. Soon, he hears Jaskier, too low to understand the words but tired and slow and happy, rumble pleasantly alongside Geralt’s own words. He’s had a good time, then. It makes something… Warm, almost, curl in his chest, like a cat contented with their new owner.

Hmm. Maybe he’ll have to talk to Geralt about this, come the morning. For now, though, Eskel lets sleep take him, pleasant dreams of golden eyes and a sweet singer’s voice soothing him all night long.

——

For all of Eskel’s intent, however, he isn’t the second wolf of the keep to get a bite out of Jaskier. No, it’s Lambert who rises to the bait, who doesn’t wait, doesn’t ask.

Of course, that can absolutely be owed to the fact that, considering Geralt’s room isn’t close enough to Lambert’s to be heard, they have to go somewhere else for it. That somewhere else being the hot springs beneath the main castle.

Geralt and Jaskier are already in the springs when Lambert comes down, always fond of a morning soak to prepare himself for the day to come. He wakes up early for it, to keep out of trouble with Vesemir’s strict ‘chores and training first’ priorities. Winter is the only year he’ll bother to get up this early. He hates mornings otherwise.

But regardless, the two lovebirds are in the water when he comes in, Jaskier sat on Geralt’s lap with his back to the wolf’s chest, his fingers playing absently with the witcher’s hands where they are loosely wrapped around his waist. They’re talking, Jaskier’s head tilted back on his shoulder, but Lambert doesn’t bother to listen in. Instead, he scoffs, rolling his eyes as he strips out of his night clothes and steps into the water. The wolves all lost a good chunk of their sense of modesty around each other decades ago—a close childhood, a communal hot springs, and sparring, and wrestling, and skinny dipping in the cold mountain stream only about a mile from the keep doing quite well at getting rid of personal boundaries.

And that didn’t include the nights that Lambert had spent with one of his brother’s cocks in his ass or the other way around.

If Jaskier was going to stick around, he might as well get used to it—all of it.

To his credit, though, Lambert only sees a glimpse of a flush on the bard’s cheeks as he gets into the water, grunting as the heat warms him up, arms splaying out on the edge of the rocks behind him. It’s better than he was expecting. Though Jaskier had seemed to be full of surprises ever since coming to Kaer Morhen.

“What do you think, Lambert?” the bard asks then, his intelligent blue eyes striking into him, the smile on his face playful and warm. He doesn’t elaborate further though—and Lambert wonders if he should have been paying attention.

“Fuck do I think about what?” he asks. His brow arches.

“Should Geralt and I try to spice things up in the bedroom?” Jaskier asks and Lambert—Lambert isn’t expecting that. He sputters for a moment, eyes darting to Geralt’s face, but his brother seems as unfazed as ever. “Not that things are boring, per se,” Jaskier continues. “But it can be fun to change things around sometimes!”

“The fuck are you—“

Geralt’s growl interrupts Lambert’s startled demand. He bites Jaskier’s ear; Lambert is treated to the sight of the bard’s eyes fluttering, practically rolling back in his head, his throat bobbing and straining as he tries to keep a moan from escaping. “Insatiable,” Geralt says, and Lambert, shifting, internally cursing his body’s reaction to the bard’s obvious pleasure and Geralt’s low accusation, thinks he should probably leave them to it.

He doesn’t make up his mind quick enough.

Geralt’s eyes catch his across the springs. “You need more than one cock to satisfy you, don’t you?” he rumbles into Jaskier’s ear. The bard’s face flushes; he presses his lips together, shivering, and opens his mouth. Before he can get anything out, though, Lambert watches his brother raise his hand, hover it to the side of Jaskier’s head, and trace the form of axii in the air.

“Go on, then,” he says, unconcerned, still watching the other wolf. “Tell Lambert how much you need him.”

Jaskier’s features go slack. Any embarrassment he might have had slides off; his dazzling blue eyes grow glassy and smooth, his hands dropping loosely into his own lap. A shudder passes through him and his brows pinch upwards in the center, like he’s empty and wanting.

Oh, gods, that’s hot.

“Lambert,” comes Jaskier’s breathy sigh, his gaze never faltering from him. “Please. Please, I need you.” He stays loose against Geralt, though—pliant and soft. He shifts up and then makes a noise, bright and plaintive, lashes fluttering. In a startling moment of clarity, Lambert realizes it’s Geralt that moved him. That Geralt has just thrust his cock up inside Jaskier.

Has Jaskier been full this whole time?

The mild interest he had blossoms, Lambert’s prick hardening, growing. “Geralt, the fuck are you—“

Again, his brother cuts him off. “I already told you,” he says, rolling his hips up, Jaskier breathing a soft, ‘Lambert…’ It’s distracting, almost painfully so. “He likes it.” Another thrust up; another keen; another plea. “He likes the idea of sharing, too.”

He can’t fucking say no to that.

Lambert narrows his eyes. “Yeah?” he challenges, gaze flickering between Jaskier and Geralt’s faces. “Fine. Bard, come here.”

To Geralt’s credit, he doesn’t so much as flinch when Jaskier practically tumbles off of his cock. Jaskier is uncoordinated—slow. It’s almost like he’s a little drunk, and Lambert finds himself reaching for him before he’s all the way over, hands on his hips, steadying him the rest of the short journey. Jaskier drops down into his lap;his head rolls from one shoulder to the other, before he leans forward and rubs his cheek inelegantly against Lambert’s shoulder.

“Need you,” Jaskier whispers. He presses a clumsy kiss to Lambert’s shoulder; his hands stay loose at his sides, even as his hips give a short, twitchy kind of roll, his hard cock brushing against Lambert’s own. “Please. Please, Lambert.”

Jaskier is so warm in his lap. He’s decadent; Lambert knows the bard has muscles, has seen them on display the few times he’d watched Geralt train him. But like this? With the magic keeping him calm and relaxed and without tension, he’s soft. It’s intoxicating. It’s incredible.

Lambert looks up at Geralt, just to be sure. His brother had a tiny smirk on his face. More than that, his hand has moved below the water, and Lambert doesn’t need to see it to know that he’s stroking himself, enjoying the sight.

It’s permission enough. With his own grin forming, Lambert glides his hand down Jaskier’s body, over his hips and thigh and then back up again. He presses between his cheeks; the hole there is loose, open. No doubt Geralt’s cock is responsible, of course. It does make this better. Even though Jaskier might not be as tight as normal, he’s already stretched; Lambert doesn’t have to waste any time.

“Come on, bard,” he says again, this time dragging his hips forward. He waves his hand beside Jaskier’s head himself, casting the spell, feeling the tingle of the magic linking them together. It feels good to be in control. “You’re gagging for it, might as well give it to you. Gonna fuck your pretty ass ‘til you’re begging me to stop instead.” Of course he won’t—not unless they talk about it first, when Jaskier isn‘t influenced by magic. But it’s fun to threaten it, anyway.

With a wanting keen, Jaskier doesn’t fight him. His gaze is smooth and untroubled; he lets Lambert lift him, guide him. The witcher’s cock catches on his rim and he shivers; Lambert drags him down, quick and harsh. He relishes in the bright cry that comes from the bard, the shiver turning into a shudder, his fingers twitching but ultimately stilling by his sides once again.

“Gods, look at you,” Lambert crows, pulling out and slamming back in. The poor bard has no choice but to be rocked with it, his muscles loose, his body warm and slick for Lambert to ravage. “Nothing but a pretty little plaything, huh? Bet you’d do anything for us like this.” Jaskier whimpers; Lambert can’t resist the urge to bite at his throat, adding a bruise alongside the ones his brother has left the past few days. Jaskier is not his, not totally, but he’s his for the moment. His until the spell wears off, until the bruises fade. Lambert will take what he can get.

His thrusts get harder. It’s so fucking good. Jaskier lays against his chest, limp and open, taking his pounding without complaint. The pinch in his brow is from pleasure; the pleas that fall from his lips are sweet and sincere. Lambert knows he’ll have to thank Geralt somehow—something big, something precious. A new saddle for Roach, perhaps. Or something else. He doesn’t know—but it’s obvious that being given this opportunity is worth something expensive and important. And that goes for the bard, too. Lambert will have to make sure to bring something good back for him next winter.

He has no doubts that Geralt will bring him next winter.

Lambert can feel himself getting close. Geralt himself is working his cock faster, harder. Feeling a prickle of heat, he smirks. “Bard,” he says, waiting until Jaskier makes a keening sound. “You’re not allowed to cum until both Geralt and I have, understand?” It’s cruel—it’s mean. But Jaskier only sobs and slurs out an affirmative, and Geralt himself grunts in approval. “Good boy.” The title makes Jaskier’s cock twitch against Lambert’s stomach; he smirks and files that information away for later.

Then, he grabs Jaskier’s waist, and rams up into him. He sets a brutal pace, drawing choked sobs from Jaskier, the bard’s body taking the fucking without complaint. He has to help settle his head in the crook of his shoulder again at one point, Jaskier lost to the pleasure, but then he’s back at it, chasing the high, the heat, the pressure.

When Lambert comes, he does so loudly, his grunting and huffing joining the echoes of Jaskier’s moans against the rocks around them. He fills the bard, his cum coating his insides, and he can’t help but rock a few more times up into him, as if to push it all deeper inside him. But Jaskier, like the good boy he is, is still hard and aching against his belly.

“Turn around,” Lambert orders, adding an extra burst of axii for good measure, watching Jaskier’s pupils constrict and then dilate under the magic’s persuasion. The bard’s legs are shaky, weak as a fawn’s as he turns around, only successful because of Lambert’s help. He doesn’t bother pushing his cock back inside him. Instead, Lambert reaches up and pushes two fingers into his mouth, opening his jaw wide. “You’re going to let my brother use your mouth,” he rumbles against his ear, just as Geralt had at the start of this. His other hand reaches down and strokes Jaskier’s cock, slow and even, the weak writhing of the man only serving to make this all better. “And once you’ve swallowed every drop, you’ll get to cum. Got it?”

Again, Jaskier gives a mumbled, slurred agreement. Lambert looks expectantly at the other witcher—and sure enough, Geralt gets up. He comes over, his cock hard and at attention against his scarred stomach, a sight glorious enough on its own. Lambert keeps his fingers in place, holding his mouth open. Geralt takes his cock in his hand when he’s close enough; Lambert pulls his fingers away just as the other wolf presses the head inside Jaskier’s mouth.

It’s a glorious sight. Geralt rocks into Jaskier’s mouth, the sounds the man makes muffled, his glassy eyes adoring up at him. Lambert keeps stroking his cock; his newly freed hand moves to wrap loosely around Jaskier’s throat, holding him still—feeling it when Geralt works his way far enough inside for the bard’s throat to bulge, to press out against Lambert’s fingers. “Look at you,” Lambert smirked, rubbing a thumb over Jaskier’s slit and loving the sob he got in return. “You just needed your pretty little whore mouth fucked too, didn’t you? Needed cum inside you that badly, you’ll take it however you can get it. Filthy fuckin’ slut.”

Jaskier’s cock twitches again and tears well in his eyes. The tether between them from the spell is a godsend in this case; Lambert feels nothing but pleasure and want through the temporary bond. So he lets Jaskier’s tears spill over his cheeks, making the jewels of his eyes that much prettier.

Geralt’s thrusts are turning harder by then. Lambert bites his neck again, feeling the heat of the broken blood vessels bloom under his lips. “Swallow it, bard,” he says, tightening the grip on his throat just a little. “Every drop.”

When Geralt cums, Jaskier doesn’t disappoint. He swallows—and he swallows and swallows and swallows. Witchers arent exactly known for natural amounts of seed, after all. A little leaks out the corners of his mouth and drips down his chin; white tinged saliva connects his tongue in a string to Geralt’s cock when the witcher finally pulls out from his swollen, red lips. It’s a gorgeous sight, made even better by Geralt bending down and kissing him, licking away the remnants of cum, even lapping at his tears.

“Good boy,” Lambert praises. He speeds up his hand, no longer teasingly slow. “So good for us. You can cum now, bard. Good job.”

And Jaskier does. All it takes is a few more strokes before his lax body shivers and his eyes roll up in his head, before his fingers twitch and his mind goes white with pleasure and Lambert feels his cock pulsing in his hand as he spills himself into the water.

As long as Geralt will allow it, he’s going to do this again, and again, and again.

——

The next gwent game is decidedly more interesting.

The three young witchers play, Vesemir gone to bed long before. Jaskier is there, too. He doesn’t play, though. Not the cards, anyway. No, he’s laid out on the table, out of the way of the game, axii keeping him loose and relaxed and soft and slick. Or, well—not slick, perhaps. No, that comes from the witchers.

Two players go against each other. The third spends his break playing with Jaskier, however they might please. The game ends and the players rotate—and Jaskier is never bereft.

Lambert groans at his bad luck against Eskel as Geralt holds Jaskier’s knees up and open, his sounds breathy and small and cute as Geralt pounds into him. Eskel smirks at Geralt’s expense with a weather card as Lambert holds Jaskier’s head over the edge of the table, stuffs his throat full with his cock and makes him swallow just as much cum as he paints the bard’s face with. Geralt pretends to cheat to get Lambert riled up while Eskel holds Jaskier up on the pile of pillows and blankets they’ve put on the ground just for him, the bard’s face to the floor and ass in the air as Eskel lets his rougher nature take hold just for these few moments, fucking him like an animal, growling promises of breeding Jaskier full of wolf pups, their lovely personal bitch taking every drop of cum that he can hold, and more besides.

It’s one hell of a good night. By the end of it, Jaskier is struggling to keep those empty blue eyes open, his belly coated in his own release and bulging a bit from the releases of the wolves inside him, blissed out and fucked out and exhausted. Little changes when they remove the axii from him; besides holding onto Geralt as he carries him down to the hot springs to clean him, and whispers his thanks to all three of them, and eating and drinking what the wolves give to him, he’s just as tired and worn and content as his other self.

And sure, tomorrow he’s going to be sore as fuck. He’s not going to be interested in anything for a few days before giving in to the siren call of the wolves and their pleasure. But he’s also going to wake up happy, and he knows that as he snuggles in between all three of them, the mess of blankets becoming their bed for the night, a pile of witchers that keep him warm both in body and in heart. He’s going to wake up surrounded by his pack, his family, his lovers.

He’s going to wake up, and he’s going to be in his new home.

[mycupoffanfiction]

Wolf of Winter

Witcher!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Jaskier gets you to come to the inn, only for you to find your closest friend Bucky has returned from hunting in Toussaint, resulting in some unspoken feelings coming to light.

Warnings: A bit of mutual pining, some kissing, lots of fluff, soft Witcher!Bucky

Word count: Approx 1700

Masterlist

A/N: Hi loves, this was requested by @sherlocked-bitch​​, I hope you enjoy 💖 Please note this is more based within the video game universe rather than the TV show, though I have kept Jaskier’s original name, but there are hints that he owns the tavern in Novigrad like he does in the latest game when he’s a bit older.

I may do a Witcher!Bucky smut piece if people are interested 😏

Walking through the doors into the tavern, you smiled upon seeing your good friend, Jaskier who immediately waved you over to him. “There you are! You took your sweet time to get here.” He complained as he rushed up to you, too impatient to wait for you to come to him. “It’s five minutes past the hour, Jaskier, I’m hardly late.” You snorted and smiled as you followed your bard friend across the busy tavern floor. “Why exactly did you call me here?” You asked as the bard rather animatedly shoved a tankard of Sodden Mead into your hands. “Drink up!” He diverted, patting you on the back as you glanced down at the mead, noticing it was cloudy and he must’ve gotten it from the bottom of the barrel. “I’ve been reduced to barrel scrapings now, is that it Jaskier?” You teased with a playful smirk as you followed the bard around the side of the counter towards the back room. “It’s all we had left, be glad we even had some mead, or I would’ve given you that Redanian lager.” He retorted and you pulled a face at the mere thought of the bitter drink. “I thought so.” Jaskier giggled, walking you both through to the back of the tavern, away from most of the bustle and drunk folk that lingered near the front.

You paused when you set your eyes on the Witcher that sat at the table in front of you, dark chocolate brown, unkempt hair thrown back into a half bun with the lower layers hanging loose, a few shorter strands framing his strong features. He looked up from the tavern bench he perched on, hand clasped around the half full tankard on the bare wooden surface, jaw lined with scruffy, slightly out grown facial hair. “Bucky.” You breathed out his name in surprise, almost forgetting that other people were around you as well. The Witcher looked up at you with a slight smirk, streaks of white hair becoming more obvious when he leaned forwards into the low torch light. “You’re back.” You whispered, haphazardly plonking your tankard down onto the table as he stood from his seat, opening his arms for you. Throwing yourself against his chest, Bucky stumbled back and grunted softly, a barely there smile on his lips as he embraced you, his closest friend. “Hello darlin’.” He spoke quietly as he held you. “How was Toussaint?” You asked, voice muffled a little against the leather pauldron strapped to his shoulder. Bucky breathed in your musky, floral scent before letting out a hum. “It was good, sit down and I’ll tell you about my trip.” He gestured at the seating next to you both and you reluctantly parted from the warm embrace to settle down opposite him. You talked for hours about contracts he took in Toussaint, dealing with an illusive higher vampire as well as the time he spent staying in a vineyard. Hours passed into the late hours of the evening, Jaskier having excused himself to sit with another well known Witcher who frequented his tavern. Bucky groaned as you placed down your last card onto the table in front of him, empty tankards long forgotten in your game of Gwent. You had managed to win another round, much to Bucky’s discontent and he felt as if he was losing his touch. “I really thought askin’ other people to play Gwent with me while I was away would make me better, but fuck, I think you improved since last I saw you.” He grumbled. “Oh sure, I improved, maybe you’re just getting rusty.” You teased, pointing at him as he gathered up his deck to shuffle his cards, watching as you did the same. The normally stoic Witcher smirked and shook his head at you. He’d improved over the years, learning to allow himself to laugh after he realised it made others uneasy that he could barely even crack a smile and his response to humour had once just been a grunt, which to be honest, was still the common response you got.  Bucky sat back in his seat, picking up his tankard and sipping at the last drops of ale that sat at the bottom. “Y’know,” He paused, voice low and deep before he tipped his head back to get another drop of the ale before slamming the tankard down onto the table. You raised your brow, waiting for him to continue as you leaned forwards on your elbows. “I missed playing Gwent with you.” Bucky admitted, meeting your gaze with his deep blue cat eyes. You smiled as you tapped your deck of cards against the table, lining them up perfectly before you dropped them into the small wooden card box Bucky had bought you from the local Novigrad carpenter for your birthday one year. “I missed it too.” You sighed, though the thoughts that sat in the forefront of your mind didn’t come out, despite you wanting desperately to tell him. The words clung to your throat. I missed you. You wanted to say it, but the nerves took hold, making them feel thick and heavy on your tongue and you sunk back, elbows sliding off the table. Bucky could sense it, he could feel your hesitation, the want to say something you couldn’t muster the courage up to speak. He could feel how uneasy it made you and his intense gaze missed yours by a second as you turned away to get up. “I’ll head upstairs.” You painted on a smile, grabbing your card box as you swung your leg over the bench and stood up. Bucky was too quick for you and circled around the table quickly, stepping into your path and blocking you from leaving. “I wasn’t done yet.” His voice was deep, warningly so as he gently rested his hand on your shoulder. You looked up at the Witcher, eyes meeting his, lips parting slightly. It always felt good to be this close to him, to be able to see all of the details perfectly. Jaskier sang about Geralt, but he also sang about Bucky, the Wolf of Winter, the only other Witcher to have survived the most intense mutation, the whitened hair streaks among his brunette hair to give truth to the legend. “You were going to say something, what was it?” He asked and you internally cursed his observant mind, his ability to practically feel your thoughts and you narrowed your eyes at him, watching as he gave you a questioning look. In truth, Bucky was sure he knew what was on your mind, he’d even asked Jaskier to call you to the tavern for him in the hopes of him being able to admit his feelings for you. And while he was a fearless Witcher, capable of killing monsters and beasts and maybe a damn army of men, he struggled with his feelings. He wasn’t scared of them, but he was afraid to lose you, the one person he constantly longed to see, the one person he wished he had the courage to ask to go with him on his travels, the one person he dared to admit to himself that he might even have feelings of love for. As he watched you fumble about with your words, unsure how to even get them out, he sighed, letting out a soft grunt, your stuttering and beating around the bush ceased when you felt him gently stroke the backs of his calloused fingers against your cheek. Bucky leaned in slowly, lips parting as he met yours, feeling you lean up to him, your hands pressing softly against his chest as he captured your lips in a sweet kiss. The bustle of the cheerful folk at the front of the tavern suddenly seeming so quiet, your entire focus on Bucky. The hand that rested on your shoulder moved down to grasp your waist, tugging you impossibly close as he kissed you, pouring all of the feelings and emotions he could into the kiss, making up for what he couldn’t get across with words with the clear love and gentle passion he displayed to you. Bucky’s lips moved softly against yours as his arm circled your waist, holding you against him, your fingers sliding up into the soft, brown and whitened hair at the nape of his neck, tugging slightly and he groaned, pressing the plush of his lips against yours before slowly pulling away. His eyes met yours, dark and warm, taking you in with a loving gaze. “I um- I was going to say that I missed you, that I always miss you.” You finally replied to his earlier question, feeling the warmth of your interaction creep up your features, blossoming in your cheeks. “I missed you too, sweetheart.” Bucky gave you the warmest smile you’d ever seen from him and you grinned up at him, your fingers still intertwined at the nape of his neck. “I don’t want to be away from you.” He admitted quietly. “Neither do I, Buck.” You replied, voice soft and sweet as you leaned into his touch, his thumb gently brushing across your cheek. “I want to by your side, if you’ll let me.” Bucky spoke lowly, the air quiet and heavy with a loving need as you stood in the back corner, isolated from the rabble. You took in his words, the tension hanging in the air between you was thick, but not uncomfortably so and you smiled up at him, meeting his deep blue eyes as you leaned up on your toes. “I’d love to be by your side, Bucky.” You whispered to him before pressing a soft kiss to his lips, the gentle, slow movement of your lips against his sealing the response and he hummed against you, holding your waist tightly as he kissed you back with the same gentle intensity. Parting, the Witcher glanced down at you, the corners of his lips curving up into a soft smile, knowing he’d do everything he could to make you happy, finally admitting to himself that he loved you and you loved him, even when he had deemed himself unlovable. But to you, he was very much lovable and he was yours as much as you were his.

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[mediaeval-muse]

Video Game Review: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red, 2015)

Genres: action RPG, fantasy, open world

Premise: Geralt of Rivia returns for a third installment in the Witcher series, seeking his lost adopted daughter, Ciri, who is being pursued by the spectral warrior band, the Wild Hunt. Along the way, Geralt runs into some old friends, former lovers, and a whole lot of monsters.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 4/5 stars

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals.

Story: I liked that this game dug more into Geralt’s past. Witcher 1 and 2 have been teasing Geralt’s history with Yennefer, Ciri, and the Wild Hunt for a while, and we finally get to engage with that head-on. About 1/3 of this game is spent pursuing Ciri and checking out all the places she went, so personally, I didn’t find that part of the plot exciting. I may be biased, though - I don’t really like plots which are based on following someone’s trail.

But while I did like that we dove into Geralt’s past, this game also simultaneously felt disjointed from the other two. Things seemed to be dropped in at random. For example, the “Last Wish” quest had no emotional buildup, and we got no hints of Geralt and Yennefer’s magical bond in the previous two games. I would have liked to see more exploration of this bond before players finally deal with it. Also, the other two games had Geralt struggling to overcome his amnesia, but when we get to Witcher 3, he seems to remember everything without any problems. I understand that Wticher 3 is meant, in some ways, to be accessible to players who haven’t played the first two games, but I would have liked to see more continuity.

Main plot aside, I very much appreciated that there seemed to be a lot more folkloric flavor in this game than in the previous two. Side quests had Geralt encounter beasts with a lot of lore behind them, so it was fun to get to learn about the worldbuilding through these monsters.

However, the conflict between humans and non-humans, which was so central in Witcher 2, is completely a non-issue in this game. There are still dwarves, elves, etc. and some pockets of Scoiatel bands, but the game says that the political conflict is more pressing than people’s racism, so everyone’s largely forgotten about how much they hate non-humans (except moments of random brutality). Instead, there’s discrimination against magic-users to deal with, due to the fallout from Witcher 2 and the Lodge of Sorceresses. Honestly, I had to side-eye this change a little, because people don’t just put aside their racism when a new political conflict arises. While I understand the plot can’t encompass everything, this is just another example of the disjointedness between the first two games and this one.

You still have the opportunity to sleep with various women in this game, which was irritating. Most of these chances come up in “meatier” side quests, so they’re woven into the plot rather than random chance encounters. I honestly hate that aspect of the Witcher games, and even though they’re toned down from the first installment, they still are prevalent enough to bother me.

I did play through both DLCs/Expansion Packs: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. I really liked the way Hearts of Stone was structured, with the Frog Prince allusions and heist plot. I did also like that it included some much needed POC, but I was uncomfortable with part of the plot that involves killing a bunch of them. I absolutely hated the part where you have to let a ghost (Vlodomir) possess Geralt’s body for a night. The idea wasn’t a bad one (the ethics of letting a ghost control you is interesting), but Vlodimir is so damn horny and sexist that I despised being forced to spend time with him/act as him for so long. This DLC also had Shani make a reappearance, and I love her as a character. I just hate that she, like so many other women, is head over heels for Geralt, and Geralt can sleep with her. Blood and Wine had the experience of a whole new game, with more maps to explore, diagrams to find, and so on. I enjoyed the characters of this story more than the plot itself; much of the plot involves things happening off-camera and being told of them later. But to its credit, the DLC expands the lore on some monsters that we don’t see much of in the previous games, and has some fun side quests that are much lighter in mood than anything in the base game.

Characters: Geralt is more or less the same as he was in The Witcher 2, but I found him even more easier to like and play as a noble character. Of course, his characterization is going to be largely up to the player (it’s an RPG, after all), but I liked that the game gave Geralt ample opportunity to be a kind-hearted person.

We do finally meet Yennefer in this game. She’s stubborn and assertive without being too over the top or controlling, which made me like her, even if she could be annoying. I chose to romance Triss, so I got an extra dose of that annoyingness when Yennefer wouldn’t respect my boundaries and took some of her anger out on Triss’ belongings. However, I do like that these traits made Yennefer flawed.

Speaking of Triss, she’s back in this game and has an extremely noble character arc. She spends a lot of time fighting to get mages out of a city that wants to destroy them, and willingly puts herself at risk for people who probably don’t deserve it. She’s so kind-hearted and focused on justice that I took to her as readily as I did in the previous game - perhaps more.

Ciri, unsurprisingly, was also a delight. She is headstrong and impulsive without being cold, and players are given the chance to mold her story when she becomes a playable character for brief periods.

Many of the side characters felt fully-realized, so I had no trouble immersing myself in the world of the game. I very much enjoyed the characters in the DLC (save Vlodimir), who were morally grey and complex in interesting ways. Regis is the best!

Gameplay: Like Witcher 2, there are a lot of controls to keep track of (at least on PC) but I picked them up fairly quickly. Crafting is a bit more involved than the previous games, as well as the alchemy. It took me a bit to realize that alchemy flasks were replenished with meditation rather than having to be made manually, but when I figured it out, things ran more smoothly.

I will say that with this game being open-world, there was A LOT of exploration. I do like to wander around in games sometimes, but after a while, I did grow bored. Maps were expansive with hundreds of points of interest, all with rewards that weren’t super beneficial (except to sell) after a certain level. I know I don’t HAVE to explore every POI, but I’m a completionist. Completionists, therefore, might find this game a bit tedious.

I furthermore resented the fact that players could have Geralt sleep around with multiple women and get many sex scenes. It was annoying, but I easily avoided romancing anyone accidentally.

The introduction of the Gwent card game in place of dice was extremely enjoyable. It relied a little less on luck, allowing players to exert some control via strategy, and rewards included unique cards in addition to money. It’s almost like a deck-building game, with some different rules.

Visuals: The Witcher 3 is a beautifully-rendered game. The environment is full of textures and unique layouts, even though much of it is wilderness, and everything from the monsters to the armor appear more visually interesting and colorful than their incarnations in previous games. I especially appreciated the effort put into making the world seem inhabited; inns were decorated with paintings and garlands, homes had personal effects, and peasants didn’t seem to be too repetitive in their appearance.

Although the sexism in this game was scaled way back even in comparison to the previous game, I did still find some of the character designs for women annoying. Kiera, a sorceress who assists Geralt at one point, is introduced while she is taking a bath, and while dressed, her shirt is so open that you can see her nipples - even when you’re questing! It was irritating, but since women’s outfits on the whole were drastically less male-gazey than the previous games, I was able to ignore it and focus on plot.

I will say, though, that I was bothered by the fact that everyone in this game is still white (except for a couple succubi, unless I’m missing some others). There are some POC introduced in the Hearts of Stone DLC, and some of them are interesting characters, but part of the plot involves killing a bunch of POC, so it was kind of uncomfortable. I know the game is based on a Polish novel series, and people will be quick to say that Slavic people are largely light-skinned, but this is a fantasy game, so in my mind, there’s no excuse.

In-Game Triggers: violence, gore, body horror, presence of corpses/blood in the environment, sex and nudity, racism, drug use, miscarriage, domestic violence

Recommendations: I would recommend this game f you’ve played the previous two Witcher games, or if you enjoy fantasy RPGs, games with Slavic folklore, and games with strong father-daughter relationships.

[heavyelectricity]

Recent thoughts

Turns out £700,000 plus whatever they spent on redecoration, renovation and extension buys you a fucking nice house with a main room that’s bigger than my entire flat (which failed to find a buyer at £65,000).

Writing chuunibyou dialogue is brilliant fun.

For some reason, I’m really liking Tager now I’ve got BlazBlue Central Fiction for Switch. I never normally play as bulky powerhouses.

Did you know that BT has a fake voicemail service that it sends unrecognised numbers to? Neither did I until I tried to interview a dude this Sunday. (In the end I spent £3 on a half hour mobile phone call.)

Our new designer brought in a Street Fighter II Champion Edition PCB to test on my Supergun yesterday, and I’m half-tempted to start collecting arcade PCBs. But I don’t have room. Maybe NAOMI stuff, or just more MVS games?

Gwent is pretty good. Really glad I’ve got until Friday to hand it in because I’ve been busy as fuck - working in the day, freelancing in the evenings, even on Saturday and Sunday I was talking to my boss, answering emails and doing interview stuff.

I’m catching up on Mob Psycho 100, and gods, episode 3 with the family of spirits who ain’t doin’ no harm. Mob is a precious child, no harm to him plz.

My friends down here are brilliant and I think I appreciate that now more than ever.

Mum said I sound less pissed off when we were chatting last night, and I think she’s right. The past few days have been good for me to let off some steam, air my grievances and just have some fucking fun.

Will Etrian Odyssey Nexus be the final time I review a 3DS game? I’ve already discovered that you never know when that last one’s coming - I’m sure I’d have remembered my final 360/PS3 reviews if I did.

Royal Mail does a lot to keep you from calling customer service, but when you get there, they sure are helpful. I called yesterday lunchtime and my missing thing was delivered within 24 hours.

[tissaia-turned-me-into-an-eel]

i just accidentally spent NINE HOURS playing Witcher 3 today

(i meant to get some other things done, but i didn’t really get up for anything other than to use the bathroom and chase the kitten up and down the stairs ((he likes being chased when he’s in Energetic Mode and we only have the one cat at our house so a human has to do it)), leave me alone)

anyway i spent a lot of time walking around in circles because i have no sense of direction and no amount of checking the map kept me going the right way, picking herbs, stumbling into areas i shouldn’t have been in yet and running away from enemies that were too high leveled for me to fight, playing Gwent (i’m already addicted to playing Gwent, I was like this with Triple Triad in FFVIII too)

really wasn’t expecting a Pulp Fiction reference in this game, but a pair of random guards was over here going “bring out the gimp” / “but the gimp’s asleep” / “then i guess you’ll have to wake him up”

there was an old dude who asked me to go pick a rare herb and one of the dialogue options was “I’m not going to go pick a rare herb.” Which I thought was hilarious considering that [Geralt, as played by me] is the herb-pickingest motherfucker you ever did meet

found out that you CAN steal shit right under the guards noses, you just have to fucking outrun them and get outside of town and across a river or something for the [thing that makes guards kill you] to reset......... although it’s really not worth it if all you’re gonna get is a piece of junk that’s barely worth anything

the singing rock troll dude is my new favorite character, i lov him, gonna bring that dude some paint (i noticed there was a contract out to kill him, but i did not take that contract)

found a barber shop and paid 5 crowns for the dude to take Geralt’s scrunchie out and let his hair be free XD

the main storyline is really a lot less interesting to me than everything else you can do in this game

last thing i did before finally turning the game off was win Yennefer’s gwent card

[aion-rsa]

Are Cyberpunk 2077’s Bugs Hiding Its Bigger Problems?

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Even with all the Cyberpunk 2077 post-release blowback (which includes reactions to the game’s bugs, the title’s nearly unplayable PS4 and Xbox One versions, and Sony’s decision to delist the game from the PlayStation Store), my mind keeps wandering to this 2019 interview with lead Cyberpunk 2077 quest designer, Pawel Sasko.

While the part of that interview where Sasko says the developers obviously aren’t overworking themselves rings loud following CD Projekt Red’s decision to implement crunch scheduling, the bit that stands out most is the implication that at that time, Cyberpunk 2077 was nearly content complete. According to Sasko, the “year of work” that was left on the game (spoilers: it was longer than that) would largely be spent “iterating [it], polishing it, playing it, making sure it looks and feels the way we want.”

There’s obviously a lot to be said about how “polished” Cyberpunk 2077 is, but the thing I can’t get over is the idea that Cyberpunk 2077‘s content was essentially complete at that time. It’s a claim that we’ve heard the company repeat in different ways throughout 2020 as they insisted that most of their work was primarily focused on optimizing the game’s performance across multiple platforms.

Cyberpunk 2077‘s bugs across those multiple platforms may rightfully be making headlines, but a larger conversation that’s starting to emerge concerns the potentially worrying implication that the bugs are hiding a game that may indeed represent its creators’ final vision.

Shortly before Cyberpunk 2077‘s release, I wrote a piece about managing your expectations for the game. While that story mentioned the almost inevitable bugs, it largely focused on this growing idea that Cyberpunk 2077 was going to be a fast-paced action game set in a thriving open-world that would rival what was seen in titles like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. At that time, my feeling was that Cyberpunk 2077 would likely be much closer to a Deus Ex game with expanded RPG conventions and a slightly larger world.

Is that what we got? Kind of, but even if you view Cyberpunk through a more realistic lens, there are certain things about the game that just feel…off.

I didn’t suspect that Cyberpunk 2077 would have the most elaborate open-world, but whenever you walk around it for a while, you get the feeling that so much of it is little more than window dressing that is a generation behind in terms of basic design concepts. Citizens walk around in limited patterns, reactions are largely limited to cowering and scrambling whenever a weapon is fired within a certain range, and it’s fairly common to see character models repeated even if elements of them suggest they belong in a very specific area.

Your inability to interact with those areas is equally troubling. There are tons of arcade machines and references to other technological pleasures throughout Cyberpunk 2077, but you’re not allowed to use any of them unless they’re part of a quest. Doesn’t that feel a bit odd considering that this game was made by the same people whose previous minigame (Gwent) was so popular that it got a spinoff?

Even driving around the city feels wrong. Yes, that statement certainly touches on the game’s uneven driving controls, but you’re sometimes left with the feeling that CD Projekt Red either didn’t understand the fundamentals of video game driving or otherwise lost interest in the process somewhere along the way. When you can jump out of a car going almost 200 miles-per-hour and watch both your character and the car come to an almost dead stop, you start to suspect that whatever went wrong isn’t just related to bugs.

Let’s say you accept that Cyberpunk 2077 was going to be a more linear RPG with gameplay influenced by the Deus Ex series and that you should measure it based on those qualities. Even then, there’s that lingering feeling that something isn’t quite right here.

The most notable example in that respect has to be the lack of meaningful ways to alter your character’s appearance. We knew that the ability to customize your Cyberpunk 2077 character’s car had been removed from the game at some point, but why can’t you change their hair and other parts of their physical form? For that matter, why is the initial character creator so limited? Why can I choose the size and shape of my character’s genitals if I never see them outside of a prevalent (and hilarious) bug? Maybe that’s not as important in a first-person game, but don’t you just find that it feels like these options are simply missing?

While we’re on this subject, what’s up with Cyberpunk 2077‘s inventory system? Why am I constantly encouraged to change my character’s equipment for the statistical advantages individual pieces offer but I’m not allowed to create a pre-set look? What’s really strange is that there are certain items in the game that allow you to wear an outfit while retaining the stats offered by individual clothing pieces, but they’re incredibly rare and largely limited to specific scenarios.

That’s the point here. If Cyberpunk 2077 was an awful game across the board, then this whole thing would almost make more “sense.” Instead, the game is riddled with those bizarre design contradictions that throw the good and bad into constant chaos.

For instance, Cyberpunk 2077‘s dialog system can greatly impact the outcome of certain events, but you’d never know it based on how rarely dialog options based on your chosen lifepath appear after the prologue sequence. There are multiple rival gangs in Cyberpunk 2077 with elaborate backstories, but your ability to interact with them beyond killing them or see them interact with each other in the open-world is virtually non-existent. The game’s much-hyped braindance sequences are cool, but they’re rarely utilized during the main story and only appear in a few sidequests.

All of this leads us to a very important question. When Cyberpunk 2077 is patched like a quilt and all the bugs have been fixed, will we really be playing CD Projekt Red’s vision for this game?

My gut says the answer is “no.” Despite claims that Cyberpunk 2077 has essentially been finished from a content perspective for quite some time, there are enough examples of missing or partially implemented features in the game to lead you to believe that Cyberpunk 2077‘s turbulent development didn’t just impact the developer’s abilities to work out all the bugs; it may have impacted their ability to craft the game they set out to make.

Understand that I say this as someone who generally has a good time with Cyberpunk 2077 each time I play it. I love its customization options, its sidequests are simply incredible, and I’m even starting to warm up to the game’s action sequences and how it really does offer you options that may not be immediately apparent.

However, when all of those things I like are closely tied to some element of the game that feels half-baked or simply missing, then it’s hard not to wonder whether we’re playing a rushed version of the project or what essentially amounts to the final vision of the game that is just underperforming at the moment.

I hope it’s the former and that the Cyberpunk 2077 team takes the time to eventually add in what appear to be missing features (or even just features that they now realize would greatly enhance the game). For the first time in a long-time, I hope that Cyberpunk 2077‘s developers were stretching the truth and that Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t so much “finished” as it was “as good as it’s going to get before the studio seemingly realized they had a massive technical problem on their hands.”

What I fear is the other scenario. There’s a world in which Cyberpunk 2077 is the game that CD Projekt Red wanted to release but with too many bugs and performance issues. If that is the case, then the debate over this game has only just begun.

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[cirillafionaelenriannon]

all of the witcher questions

ur a good friendd 💗

what’s your favourite monster?

i like the devourers (+ rotfiends), but sirens are my favourite, although they’re irritating to kill 

what’s your least favourite monster?

i hate wraiths and all the elementals.

did you free the tree spirit?

i considered it to be the lesser evil, i didn’t want to kill like 5 war orphans in order to save an old woman and an abusive drunk (idk all the options tho)

did you kill the botchling?

no :((

what did you do “in the heart of woods” and “the nithing”?

killed the leshen in the heart of woods & killed jonna 

did you kill monsters even though you didn’t have to?

when they get in my way yeah (and i needed a drowners brain 1 time)

what is your favourite main quest and why?

i cant decide between: the isle of mists, the battle of kaer morhen, skjalls grave & child of the elder blood. most of these are because of family time with geralt & ciri (and the small amount of ciri & yennefer stuff we get) bcos idk i just love when they’re smiling and happy together. 

what is your favourite side quest and why?

the one where u can say ‘actually i prefer women’ and thats pretty self explanatory. 

what quest broke your heart/made you tear up?

i was crying through the entire game so (the battle of kaer morhen, when vesemir dies)

what is your least favourite main quest and why?

the entire set of velen main quests are so boring for me. 

how many hours have you spent playing the witcher 3?

cant check rn but ill tell u later

what mods do you use?

i have it on ps4 since i dislike playing games like that on pc.

if you could change one thing about the witcher 3 what would it be?

i cant :)) just pick 1 :)) i’d change the relationship between yennefer & ciri, since it seems 1 sided and is honestly heart breaking. (also i’d give yennefer her curly hair back and change ciris to ashen so it’s not white bcos it ruins the whole black/white/yennefer/geralt = grey/ciri dynamic thats all)

what’s your combat style?

idk i just spam the fast button i dont use strong attacks too often, also i use swallow constantly and roll around a lot instead of dodging like i should.

do you prepare yourself for a monster hunt? how?

cant be bothered sometimes but when i do, i usually meditate and then select all the bombs and potions i want to use. 

do you upset the guards on purpose?

:))sometimes:))

which hair cut is geralt wearing right now?

the classic geralt of rivia ponytail 

favourite armor?

the wolf school armor (one that matches ciris alternative outfit) 

favourite sword?

idk,,, any , good sword

favourite character?

yennefer of vengerberg!!! my mother & reason for living!!!!

do you dye your armor?

no.

which witcher armor diagrams do you have?

.idk?

is geralt poor or rich?

i have so much money from selling monster blood u have no idea

is geralt monogamous? 

he sure is

do you read the books and notes? do you have any favourites?

sometimes i do!!! i can’t remember any right now sadly. 

what happened to syanna?

i saved her because i liked her VA’s voice & detlaff was being a dick, although i wouldn’t do the same next time 

what happened to olgierd?

i hate him but i saved him

how do you feel about gaunter o’dimm?

he can die.

how do you feel about the wild hunt?

i like eredin as a character but the wild hunt can die.

how do you feel about avallac’h?

:)) i hate him so fucking much :)) he tried to get 15/16 year old ciri to sleep with some guy + nearly killed her one time because she said something about his dead lover and :))) he can die i hate him (i’m sorry)

did you get the ending you wanted? which one is it?

i would’ve liked a ciri & geralt & yennefer in toussaint together but thats not an option. but yes i did get an ending i liked!!! 

did you take iris’ rose?

:/ yeah. i think next time i might not take it, but im not sure if that means iris will exist + be sad for the rest of her life? i just want her to be happy.

do you play gwent? do you have a favourite faction?

i love gwent!!! and i love scoia’tael

on what difficulty level do you play?

i play on normal for this game.

what did/would you do differently in your second playthrough?

im on my second rn and im trying out the empress ending, although its…hhhhhh

where would you want geralt to live (other than corvo bianco)?

kaer morhen!!! i know it’s falling apart but, it’s home and i can’t imagine anything else. 

thank you ily