#wants him so bad when hes playing the Witcher? this is literally the same situation.

[featherymainffins]

Kyle Gallner is somehow capable of looking both hot as hell and whiter than Wonderbread bread and twice as milquetoast at the same time. What do they keep doing with him on sets

[janiedean]

okay like I’m answering like this bc apparently tumblr put a limit on how long you can make asks and I was getting too long as usual but hahahaha well

my friend my countryperson, I  can talk about them and then I will see myself out and start drinking way too early because of the pain, but not counting the addendum which killed me because yes hahahahahahahahha OH MY GOD YES *cries and kicks netflix*, it's choke full of parallels because like (I'm going off netflix and what books I read wrt witcher I haven't finished them yet but I got enough)

like first of all there's direct jaskier > stede and geralt > ed comparisons in the sense

jaskier and stede are both nobles/rich people who came from money/titles and gave it up to lead an 'adventurous' life or anyway something that puts them completely outside their original class status but don't care for what it brings them and at the same time are kinda gnc wrt what one would presume is A Real Man in their universes (but also irl tbh) because they both dress well/care about their appearance and put a lot of effort in maintaining it (I mean book!jaskier curls his fucking hair pls)/use what they learned in high society when they have to and the situation calls for it but at the same time they don't behave like anyone who doesn't come from high class is a lesser person and they don't gaf wrt who they're friends with

on the other side geralt and ed never mind the clothing similarities (because the black is just netflix!geralt game and book isn't exactly into LEATHER BLACK AESTHETIC but netflix is so we'll count it) have the whole thing where most people they meet/know perceive them as someone extremely dangerous/at times inhuman [for ed because for geralt it's most of the time when he's not with friends]/feel like they have to play into that part in order to get by in life/are sort of born into a violent job that makes them risk their life over and over (like geralt didn't have a choice about it and ed pretty much couldn't have done anything else) and they basically tried to embrace it as much as they can even if they want other things from life starting with being treated for themselves/like human beings also we can add that they both come from a poor background and they have a shitload of parental trauma that they never worked through (geralt with his mother and ed with his father) and to top it all off they're canonically seen by others (and themselves to a point) as monsters (geralt bc he's a mutant and ed has the whole kraken defense mechanism)

to which we could go with the first obvious bunch of relationship parallels in the sense that in both ships (not counting how bad netflix is at show don't tell) the thing is that jaskier/stede immediately see ed/geralt as someone they like/they want to be friends with and they don't care about whatever bad fame they have if they even knew about it (I mean netflix!jaskier doesn't even know wtf is geralt before he goes and talks to him while everyone was giving him a wide berth and stede had shown ed the secret closet after literally five seconds he didn't know he was blackbeard) and make them feel like they don't have to pretend to be someone they're not at least with them while on the other side they feel like they can also be themselves without getting judged for their idiosyncrasies or for all the reasons they didn't fit in high society

to which we could add that ed/geralt have canonically saved stede/jaskier's asses as well I mean in netflix we mostly had bottled appetites when it came to geralt saving jaskier's ass but in the books it happened way more often as far as I read up and ed signed his freedom away to save stede's life like we serious

but then there's the other parallel which you hinted because yes there's the whole angle with the what makes you happy part but let me go into it a second

like, jaskier and ed in that sense is kinda obvious because they're the two who bring up the whole 'wanting to figure out what makes me/you happy' (and the one difference is that since obv netflix!witcher isn't going that route geralt was never gonna say IT'S YOU while stede did but I mean that went unsaid) but they're also the two that are more in touch with their feelings, because jaskier has no problem bringing up the thing and admittedly he's the one out of the two of them who tries to actually talk about stuff and same for ed who for being like... in a fairly crap position for it is actually way more open about his own feelings and needs and shit than stede is (more on that later), takes the first step and puts himself on the line...

which brings us to the fact that at the end of S1s of both shows jaskier and ed are the two people who are in the same position because they’ve been left heartbroken by ed/stede ie the two people they trusted/cared for the most (and were in love with) and you don’t want to know how much I screamed when ed was working through it with the breakup song because my immediate thought was ‘if it was the same universe and he heard burn butcher burn he’d track jaskier down just to have drinks with him about the fair-headed assholes who obviously broke their heart’ and I’m just sad I don’t have time to write that crossover but like are we fucking serious, and the fact that both of them pretend they’re over it after but actually aren’t (ed cries in the nook at the end of S1 and jaskier is lit. crying while singing the last line of BBB) isn’t anything I can get over atm

I can also rant about the fact that actually jaskier and ed are the ones that have uuuh the most similar fashion choices because YEAH YEAH I KNOW THE BLACK LEATHER but listen to me a second like jaskier dresses all Not Exactly Masculine™ with his own flair, not with previously put-together outfits, and he has the post-breakup red leather outfit, but it’s still nice stuff (the frilly shirt, the silken vest) because he figured out what he wants to dress like and has no issue donning that right, while ed starts with the black leathers but that’s his blackbeard thing, then moves on to stede’s frilly stuff and he likes it but it’s still not him™, and the moment he could actually pick and choose what he wanted... he got stede’s trousers and the silken pretty (red) floral vest, the long hair and nothing else including the trademark beard, which is... Not Exactly Masculine™ but is his own flair over what he found out he liked wearing and he was exploring it before izzy had to go ruin it but I digress

meanwhile netflix!geralt and stede until the end of S1 dress in... well, coded outfits unless someone puts them out of it in the sense that geralt never gives up his leather get-up unless jaskier gives him the nice clothing and stede has only frilly coordinated outfits all the time except when they’re at the academy (and we could talk for ages wrt he and ed being dressed the same when they kiss but nvm that) but at the same time like the other witchers don’t dress like geralt so we can take for granted that he chose that get up and likes it/maintains it same as stede liked the frilly clothing and never cared that he was judged badly for wearing it, but it’s kinda armor-y for them if it makes sense imvho? idk I’m ranting but anyway let’s move on to the actual stuff

because clothes nonwithstanding on the other side geralt and stede have in common a terrible level of emotional constipation brought by the fact that both of them think that they can’t be genuinely loved/cared for by other people/think they’re bad news for them, like the fact that geralt keeps on telling himself he doesn’t have feelings (false) vs how stede keeps on saying he agrees he’s a monster and ruins beautiful things is... kinda the same thing at the end of it because neither of them is anywhere near in touch with his feelings (as much as stede is good at making others discuss them) and it takes them a... I don’t want to say traumatic event bc that doesn’t exactly fit, more like a lifechanging revelation like thing to start getting over it - like, for geralt is finding ciri and having to be emotionally available for his daughter and therefore getting more in touch with his feelings for others at the same time, for stede is hearing mary talk about what it means to be really in love and realise that’s what he was feeling because he couldn’t recognise it as it never happened to him before and no one actually loved him like that either, and while with geralt/jaskier isn’t exactly 100% the same bc obviously geralt is close with the other kaer morhen witchers jaskier is still the first human friend he had and obv in between witchers it’s a different thing

which brings us to the part where geralt and stede are the ones who actually cause heartbreak for jaskier/ed, geralt because he has the pent up rage moment and unloads on jaskier also probably because he knew he could do it with him and on one level he thinks jaskier would be better off without him anyway but doesn’t realise how much it actually would have hurt him and stede because he thinks he ruins everything and that ed would be better off without him when instead ed is a lot worse off without him, so they basically are working on assumption about themselves which are not true and end up driving away the other two who has just bared their heart out to them ops

so like geralt and ed would have an interesting conversation and stede and jaskier would have the same because both would be like eh being a noble sucked, but the double date would be something because it would end up with jaskier and ed siding vs the other two being like eeeeh we did fuck up didn’t we but I digress

and I mean at this point I’m here sobbing like why the fuck are these fictional people doing this to me but YEAH THERE ARE PARALLELS and I’m nowhere near ready to consider most of this without feeling like I’ve been personally attacked

[hanzajesthanza]

i might have developed a witcher superhero au even though i dont even care for the superhero genre and have no experience with it. idk if this aligns with any kind of superhero canons out there since i dont have experience im just saying whatever i want to. also this is from september of last year and comprised from a few different discord messages i sent to my friends

note that i build aus by just looking at the canon and making everything fit a different universe instead of creating extremely different situations and characters... i.e., it’s an alternate universe, not an alternate story.

some worldbuilding clarifications:

in this there are characters that are just some guys. dandelion is just a regular singer. but imagine if like elton john and batman were best friends forever and everyone knew about their epic friendship

superheroes in this are treated ig just basically like magic abilities in the witcher; some ppl have them though its rare, theres a few schools in the world to develop them

i dont see a necessity in this au specifically to add things in like “superheroes are oppressed for having powers” or anything like that because [ironic for a witcher books fan to say] i dislike oppression allegories if they’re overt comparisons to specific forms of oppression irl, and i’d rather real oppression be tackled instead because it can be insensitive a lot of the time

there’s also superheroes who dont have powers which are a lot of our cast lol. geralt just still has two swords and the ability to kick ass

as for setting, there’s always like some city this stuff is set in but i want to genre bend and say a lot of it is roadtripping through the countryside and they only enter cities when the plot calls for it (like entering reidbrune in ttos)

heres some cringey supernames:

geralt: “the white wolf”… but more commonly “the wolf”. the “the” is mandatory :/ yennefer: menace dandelion: that’s already his stage name. gay ass milva: “kite”. opposite of geralt in that there is never a “the”. cahir: doesn’t have a super identity or name and doesn’t want one. he’s “the [unknown] rider” sometimes because he kidnapped ciri while riding a motorcycle regis: it’s complicated, scroll down angoulême: just a supervillain’s henchman for now, but has meticulously brainstormed and planned out potential supervillain’s names, and she wants to be a supervillain called “dagger”… “because, you know, dagger, like? sharp? cutting? i’m funny, i wound people. what’s not to love.”

geralt is a vigilante so/but ppl just see him as an inconvenience. this world might take place in a post-nuclear setting where the effects have created monsters and also are the sources of people’s superpowers. 

yennefer is not a superhero so to speak but she just has powers and uses them whenever she wants. sometimes its cool and sometimes it causes traffic incidents. she just owns her own small business and doesn’t care too much about using her powers for good or evil, she just wants a regular life. she got more bad rap than she deserved though just bc she didnt play to society’s ‘you have to use your powers for either good or evil’ thing. geralt meets her in a similar fashion to the canon last wish. complete with crashing a dinner party

yennefer: literally just minding her own damn business and living her life everyone else: so why don’t you exist for MY benefit . what a b*tch

just like in canon, the main conflict is that ciri is like being hunted by the government for her powers and by leagues of other ppl with powers (lodge, aen elle) for the same reasons. she has superhero abilities but doesnt know how to control them and if this were a superhero comic she could teleport inbetween the pages and enter/exit scenes through the margins

milva gets caught strategically taking out hateful and violent people as a vigilante and gets caught by eithne and joins her coalition instead. 

cahir is a young man from a wealthy family who through nepotism gets a job at a tech company and then gets tasked with retrieving ciri so the company can use her for her powers.

regis was a supervillain (bc of course…) … eventually he stopped going insane though and became normal and is now a trauma surgeon at a hospital 😅. slightly different backstory than in canon, since he is human in this - he is one of a few ‘gifted’ people who developed powers from a young age and this was overwhelming to his parents so he was in the foster care system for a long time. he generally exploited the lack of care from parents and sought attention and affection from peers instead, showing off. he became famous and revelled in the attention from not only other people but local news outlets and the media. but when they moved on he became embittered and started to arrogantly and narcisticically exploit his fans for power and he might have overthrown the city at one point idk anyways he died of his own stupid accord but came back through his powers. oh yeah his powers... he has shadow-based powers that are generally like his canonical powers (disappearing, putting people to sleep, hypnosis) but also with the addition of manipulating shadow to cause a variety of unpredictable chaos to happen. and perhaps flight/levitation, or some sort of blink/shadow travel ability... but no turning into a bat. also he has perhaps some kind of life force draining powers bc id like him to be called nightplague … which he thought was a stupid name but society gave him it anyways … he wanted to be called “fangZ,” with a Z (or Kaos (chaos) with a K), which he thought was SO cool and ranted to his ex-girlfriend and anyone who would listen about it extensively….. 😑 also as a supervillain he looked like zoga from captain yajima (worthikids animation)

angouleme was a henchman and goon of minor supervillain nightingale, she defects from him and thinks her career is over and (obviously the hansa are all superheroes) but regis would b a reformed supervillain and shed be like COME ONNNN BE EVIL W ME… you’re all going to say wow maj Another au in which angouleme is the one to recognize regis from the past and is like “you were that really crazy evil guy SHOW ME YOUR WAYS” and he has to explain to her that being an evil problem to society isnt a good career goal…….. and shes like ok . but i want to be rich and cause problems. she offers to henchman for him about a dozen times before he is forced to explain in strict terms that he is never going to go back to that life ever. and she’s like. ok well can you at least blow something up with your powers. can we at least have an explosion here.

zoltan would be some guy on a road trip with his friends and parrot…… i think he would be but like . im thinking (stupidly) that this is set in the US so i imagined he meets geralt & co were offroading but met with zoltan who was driving an RV full of his friends and they stopped and picked the hitchhikers up. zoltan obv wears hawaiian shirt during this.

emhyr is the ceo of the company that wants to kidnap ciri for her powers. the aen elle are also superheroes but everyone thinks they disbanded and disappeared. the lodge of sorceresses are comprised of ‘patron’ superheroes who come from different cities which are under each of their protection.

i don’t have interest in fleshing this out further but i wanted to post this silly thing for archival purposes :) and so you will know what i am talking about if i mention “superhero au”

[bamf-jaskier]

I’m reading a non-canon short story written by Andrzej Sapkowski about Geralt and Yennefer’s wedding called Something Ends, Something Begins and my heart is literally so full. Even Asaps has to get tired of having so much angst so this short story is a literal fluff-fest and I love it so much. 

So I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes from the story and if you all want to read it, here is the link. 

"One day she'll break her neck," growled Yennefer, watching Ciri galloping in the splashing water, bent, firm in the stirrups. "One day your crazy daughter will break her neck."

Geralt turned his head and without a word looked into the sorceress's violet eyes.

"All right, then," smiled Yennefer, without averting her eyes. "Sorry, our daughter."

She hugged him again, pressing herself against him firmly, bit him in the arm again, kissed him, and bit him once more. Geralt touched her hair with his lips and carefully pulled her gown over her shoulders.

I am literally...I swear, we finally get domestic Yenralt and it isn’t even in the canon universe. I am literally going to fight someone. This is so damn cute and the way Yennefer is like “our daughter” my goddamn heart. 

The list of the guests wasn't that long. The engaged couple compiled it together and charged Dandelion with sending the invitations. Soon it turned out that the troubadour lost the list before he could even read it. Because he was ashamed to confess, he used a cheap trick and invited whomever he could. Of course he knew Geralt and Yennefer well enough that he didn't miss anyone important, but it wouldn't have been him if he didn't enrich the list of the guests by an admirable number of quite random persons.

Why does it just make sense that Dandelion would fuck this up? It’s so in-character, putting him in charge of the guest list was the first mistake. 

No one invited the golden dragon Villentretenmerth, because no one knew how to invite him and where to look for him. To the general astonishment the dragon turned up, of course incognito, in the form of the knight Borch Three Jackdaws. Of course, where Dandelion was present, one could not speak of any incognito, but even so few believed when the poet pointed at the curly-haired knight and claimed it was a dragon.

The image of Dandelion just pointing at this dude and yelling “He’s a dragon!” is fucking hilarious, especially when you consider most people don’t know dragons can shapeshift. 

"Was it you who invited

Triss Merigold?

"No," the witcher shook his head and silently praised the fact that the mutation of his blood system didn't allow him to blush.

"Not me. I think it was Dandelion, even though all of them claim to have learned about the wedding from the magical crystals."

"I don't want Triss to be present on my wedding!"

"But why? She's your friend."

"Don't make a fool out of me, witcher! Everyone knows you slept with her!"

"That's not true."

Yennefer's violet eyes narrowed dangerously.

"It is true."

"Is not!"

"It is!"

"All right," he turned around angrily. "It is true. So?"

The sorceress was quiet for a moment, playing with the obsidian star on the black velvet ribbon around her neck.

"Nothing," she said at last. "I just wanted you to admit it. Never try to lie to me, Geralt. Ever."

I love the little bickering. Also, like, even though Triss and Yennefer are friends try valid of her to not want her at the wedding. She slept with Geralt!! Love how Geralt tries to deny it at first but gives up ten seconds later. Geralt really tried to pull the “just friends” card and Yennefer was having NONE of it. 

The doppler accused Villentretenmerth of racism, chauvinism and lack of knowledge on the discussion's topic. Therefore, the insulted Villentretenmerth changed for a moment into his natural dragon form, destroying several pieces of furniture and causing a general panic. When the situation calmed down, a fierce quarrel began, in which humans and non-humans accused each other of lack of open-mindedness and racial tolerance. 

A quite unexpected twist in the discussion came from the freckled Merle, the whore who didn't look like a whore. Merle announced that the whole debate was stupid and pointless and didn't concern true professionals, who don't dinstinguish between such things, which she was willing to prove on the spot (for an adequate reward, of course), even with the dragon Villentretenmerth in his natural form. 

In the silence that fell abruptly in that instant they heard the female medium proclaim that she's willing to do the same, and for free. Villentretenmerth quickly changed the topic and began discussing safer topics, such as economics, politics, hunting, fishing and gambling.

Everything about this sequence is perfect, absolutely prime. Dragons and Dopplers fighting, Merle saying she would fuck a dragon in dragon form. This has EVERYTHING. 

"I'll get going right after the feast," Ciri repeated. 

"I want... I want to feel the wind in my face on the back of a galloping horse again. I want to see the stars on the horizon again, I want to whistle Dandelion's ballads at night. I'm longing for a fight, the dance with a sword, I'm longing for the risk, for the delight victory brings me. And I'm longing for solitude. Do you understand me?"

"Of course," Geralt smiled sadly. "Of course I understand you, Ciri. You're my daughter, you're a witcher. You'll do what you must. But I must tell you one thing. One thing. You can't run away forever, even though you'll always try."

"I know," she replied and cuddled herself closer to him. "I still have hope that one day... If I wait, if I'm patient, then I, too, perhaps will live such a beautiful day like this... Such a nice day... Even though..."

"What, Ciri?"

"I've never been pretty. And with that scar..."

"Ciri," he cut her off. "You're the most beautiful girl in the world. Right after Yen, of course."

"Oh, Geralt..."

"If you don't believe me, ask Dandelion."

"Oh, Geralt."

Ciri telling Geralt she wants to travel and move on is just heartbreaking but it makes sense. She has more adventures to go on. Geralt’s story is ending. Hers is beginning. Also Ciri feeling insecure about her appearance and Geralt being a good dad and comforting her? Amazing. 

"I have unfinished business there," she hissed. "For Mistle. For my Mistle. Even though I avenged her, but for Mistle one death is not enough."

Bonhart, he thought. She killed him out of hatred. Oh, Ciri, Ciri. You're standing on the edge of an abyss, daughter. Not a thousand deaths would avenge your Mistle. Beware of hatred, Ciri, it consumes like cancer.

"Watch out for yourself," he whispered."I'd rather watch out for others," she smiled ominously. "It pays off more, it works better in the long run."

I will never see her again, he thought. If she leaves, I will never see her again.

"You will," she answered unexpectedly and smiled with a smile of a sorceress, not of a witcher. "You will, Geralt."

When Geralt asks what Ciri plans to do on her travels she literally says: I am going to avenge my dead girlfriend and murder some people. Which is not a healthy coping mechanism but damn if the idea of a gay revenge story doesn’t sound good to read. 

The priestesses Iola and Eurneid also sobbed, when Yennefer refused to put on the white wedding dress they had made for her. Not even Nenneke's mediation helped. Yennefer cursed, threw around hexes and dishes, while repeating that she looks like a fucking virgin in white. 

The enraged Nenneke began yelling, too, and told the sorceress that she behaved worse than three fucking virgins at once. Yennefer responded by conjuring a ball of lightning and demolishing the roof of the corner tower, which had its good side, too. The crash was so terrible that Caldemeyn's daughter got shock from it and her diarrhea stopped.

Once again, this scene has EVERYTHING. Yennefer getting so pissed it demolishes a tower. The shaking being so bad it stops diarrhea. Also, why does Asaps use diarrhea so often in his books? You know what, I don’t want to know. 

Triss Merigold and the witcher Eskel from Kaer Morhen, were seen again, sneaking, arms linked, into the garden summerhouse.

Is that...IMPLIED TRISSKEL?? OKAY THEN. All the Trisskel friends out there: They hooked up at Geralt and Yennefer’s wedding I don’t make the rules. 

"Yen..."

She looked breathtaking. Black wavy locks, curled up with a golden tiara, fell in a shining cascade over her shoulders and the high collar of a long white brocade dress with black-striped sleeves, pulled together on a bodice with countless drapes of lilac ribbons.

"Flowers, don't forget the flowers," warned Triss Merigold, all in dark blue, and handed a bouquet of white roses to the bride. "Oh, Yen, I'm so happy..."

"Triss, darling," sobbed Yennefer all of a sudden, upon which both sorceresses embraced and kissed the air around their ears and diamond earrings.

"Enough of those endearments," ordered Nenneke, smoothing the folds on her snow-white priestess dress. "We're going to the chapel. Iola, Eurneid, hold her dress, or she'll kill herself on the stairs.

Triss and Yennefer’s friendship is so sweet sometimes. Like, they would literally murder each other but they would also murder FOR each other too. 

Yennefer approached Geralt and with a hand in a white lace glove she straightened the collar of his black cloak, embroidered with silver. Geralt offered her an arm.

"Geralt," she whispered into his ear. "I still can't believe it."

"Yen," he answered her in a whisper. "I love you."

"I know."

I don’t know is Asaps is purposefully referencing Star Wars here but either way this had me tearing up. Geralt and Yennefer deserve a happy ending and even if it’s not officially canon the author wrote it so this is canon in my head. 

The wedding was splendid. Ladies and maidens cried collectively. Herwig was the master of ceremony, a former king, but still a king. Vesemir from Kaer Morhen and Nenneke stood in as parents of the betrothed couple, Triss Merigold and Eskel as witnesses. 

Okay but why is Asaps sneaking in the Trisskel? I want more of it and this pairing definitely intrigues me. Also Vesemir and Nenneke as their parents? That’s so damn sweet. I swear to fuck this entire short story is too damn cute and I want more of it. 

I cannot stress how much I love the energy Merle brings to the table. Saying she would straight up fuck a dragon. The power of it all. 

[wordsablaze]

9/13 - shared emotions

A Dozen Denials Soulmate-identifiers exist to make things easier unless you’re Jaskier, who’s equally as deep in love as he is in denial. But there’s only so many excuses you can make to avoid the truth… (aka jaskier’s soulmate is definitely a witcher, just not the one he first assumes)

A/N: hello again, *draco voice* did someone say mutual stupidity-

previous chapter

-

Witchers don’t experience emotions.

Except that they actually do, and sometimes they get two sets of them, the second of which stems from their soulmate. As Jaskier would say, their very loving soulmate who has more than enough feelings to share, don’t you worry.

But Jaskier himself worries quite often because his soulmate rarely feels the same way he did.

He remembers being excited about learning how to write his own name and then being alarmed at the sudden burst of guilt at the back of his mind. He didn’t know it was only the back of his mind, though, so he spent the rest of the day trying to remember what he was supposed to be guilty about.

He remembers being annoyed about having to stay in his room because he was too loud and then being confused by an immense flood of relief. He still hadn’t realised that it wasn’t his own, though, so he spent a very long night wondering if being away from their guests was actually a good thing.

He remembers being upset about the girl who told him his dreams were useless and then being hit with more disappointment than he’d ever felt before. He still wasn’t sure whether that belonged to him, though, so he spent a week writing a ballad to try and figure everything out.

And then he went to Oxenfurt and learnt about the concept of secondary emotions and everything made just a little more sense because of course the slow heartbeat and suspicious lies and strange visions would be paired with shared feelings, of course they would.

He’s more than prepared by the time he saunters over to a witcher in Posada.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly as Geralt returns from a contract with blood practically oozing from his clothes.

Geralt only grunts in reply but Jaskier knows from experience that witchers blame themselves when things go wrong so he just adds some mildly lavender-scented salt to the bath and rolls up his sleeves. It’s not clear to what extent he manages to help but he doesn’t feel any kind of guilt once they settle for the night, his own or otherwise, so he takes it as a win and neither of them mention it again.

“What’s this for?” he asks when Geralt hands him a brand new pot of ink as soon they get back to their room.

Geralt shrugs. “I thought you were sad.”

Jaskier’s not sure when exactly he was sad - he was under the assumption he was having a brilliant day, to be honest - but the fact that Geralt cares enough to try and help warms his heart so he just wraps his arms around the witcher and grins.

“I knew you cared! Thank you, my dear!”

“Don’t waste it this time,” Geralt says, but he’s smiling so Jaskier just beams at him and makes no promises to throw it at someone’s head if the situation once again calls for it.

The situation does call for it a week later when he looks up from his desk to find a dagger held just in front of his neck and the only thing he has nearby is the inkpot, which he smashes at the other man’s head so hard it shatters over him.

Cursing, the man drops his dagger and stumbles backwards into Geralt, who seems to have appeared out of thin air.

“Oh hello, Geralt I was just uh, greeting whoever this is,” Jaskier says happily, wiping the ink from his face where some of it had splashed.

Geralt frowns, glancing between the two of them and throwing the stranger out of their room before looking over Jaskier as if trying to find something. “You don’t look very angry.”

Jaskier blinks. “Should I be? I mean, aside from the fact that I was forced to waste ink on a fool who doesn’t even know how to hold a dagger properly in the middle of composing a very important song? Actually, now that you mention it, I think I am filled with rage.”

“We can find more ink,” Geralt says, shaking his head either in amusement or exasperation, Jaskier can’t really tell. Either way, the matter is resolved simply enough.

Except that it’s not, because Jaskier keeps messing up.

“What are you so happy about?” he asks during a break in his set.

Geralt raises an eyebrow at him as if to ask why in the name of Nenneke he would be happy in a court but Jaskier grins because literally being able to feel his soulmate’s emotions means he knows better than to take Geralt at face value.

“Come on, it’s not that bad! And you have the pleasure of listening to the greatest bard on the continent!”

“I’ve heard you sing these songs for months,” Geralt reminds him.

Jaskier shrugs. “Say what you will, Geralt, but I know you’re secretly pleased with the way things are turning out!”

With a sigh, Geralt glances around. “I guess it could be worse.”

That seems like an understatement; there are very few things that could make the evening better. Jaskier watches Geralt frown for a minute before nodding as if he agrees, inwardly making a note not to project too much of his own emotion in future.

He’s not particularly good at that, as is proven when he does the exact same thing at the next court they play in, only this time the other way around.

“We can leave now, I can tell you want to,” Jaskier whispers as he flops down into the seat opposite Geralt.

“The wine is good here,” Geralt says simply.

Jaskier blinks, wondering how he’s doing such a good job of hiding the irritation Jaskier knows he’s feeling. “As much as I appreciate your stoic patience, you really don’t have to pretend for my sake.”

Geralt snorts in amusement. “Go back to your singing, Jaskier, or whichever guest it is whose bed you’re chasing tonight.”

“I- You- Which what?” Jaskier splutters, almost dropping his lute.

He wants to protest that there’s only bed he’d want to end up in at the end of the night but the knowing look Geralt gives him stops the words before they leave his mouth. A small smirk is all he can manage before he slips through the crowd again, trusting that as his soulmate, Geralt knows him well enough by now and from the looks of it, better than he knows himself.

(little did he know his trust was entirely misplaced.)

-

it is really hard not to make geralt seem like an antagonist at this point but i promise he is trying his best and is definitely not to blame for jaskier's mess of a self !!

-

thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier | next chapter

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I’m about to start watching The Witcher! I’ve read that you enjoy it best when you don’t expect it to be Good(TM) but when you expect it to be a weird, wild ride, so that’s what I’m expecting. I have no idea what the plot is except, you know, ~magic stuff~ so I’m guessing the bastard child of half a concept behind Merlin, what half the writing room of Game of Thrones wanted to do but ended up not doing, Xena, and the vibe of some Japanese anime from the 90s. All I know is that the main character wears tight clothing.

Alright, let’s do this. (I’ve actually never done this kind of watching notes thing, I’ll probably just get absorbed by the show and forget about this. Whatever. I’ll try.)

Before even clicking play, the Netflix preview thingie gives me a screen-wide close-up of the guy’s ass. I suppose it’s an important plot point.

I’m sorry the show starts with a deer in a forest?? I can’t take this seriously, it makes me think of the Twilight movie.

Ominous. Please don’t kill the baby deer.

Okay, the monster looks like what Shadowhunters wanted to do but with a smaller budget and/or a less competent special effect crew... is it just me...?

Yeah, I wasn’t optimistic for the fate of the baby deer.

I’m digging the aesthetic, Lord of the Rings movie trilogy meets early Supernatural seasons if they weren’t set in present day US of A but in mud-and-swords-fantasy-land. Or, whatever. Just watch the thing, Marghe.

Dude is a We Don’t Want The Likes Of You Here kind of person, we immediately all root for him. He’s our child now. Here’s the adoption papers.

Cool lady is cool and also cute. The actress looks familiar, I check the imdb page and no, she’s not. I am face blind and it shows.

Everyone stop telling him to buy new clothes, he’s got an Aesthetic to keep.

So witchers don’t supposedly feel anything! It’s going to be fun seeing any witcher we meet in the show feel 47593 emotions at the same time every 2 minutes.

Oh, okay, the plot of this show is People Being 100% Done(TM) With Other People.

There’s a battle but I have no idea who the two sides are and what the attackers want except, like, war. Also that’s why you don’t keep your helm off to have conversations during a battle, but okay. Why are the queen and her husband both on a battlefield when the next in line is apparently too young to be ready to rule? That seems dangerous.

Geralt and Renfri have a Moment(TM) and I suppose that "near the horse” is the equivalent of “near the car” in terms of that’s where characters have emotional conversations or moments of sorts.

Oh, that looks bad. It is.

Oh, so the princess has literal magic powers. And that’s why they’re attacking. The plot thickens. Sorry but the problem with pilots is that they try to be Intense(TM) but you’re literally like, I have no idea who these people are and why I should care, except for how the director, cameraman and editor frame things, so I’m not really taking things very seriously right now.

The princess’ day has been a very shitty “that escalated quickly” situation.

Stabby time. (Also emotional dilemma time.)

So this was enjoyable in a first episode of a thing way, it sets the general idea of the thing waiting for the juicy parts of the thing to arrive, there’s a chatty girl who gets in danger, a shady magic user guy, an opponent who gets killed because it’s them or the main character but the main character is not happy about it because of some kind of emotional connection... yeah.

“Destiny” was uttered 38503 times so let’s see if this is the kind of narrative that fulfills destiny or subverts it.

[ranger-report]

Review: THE WITCHER (2007)

With the recent popularity of The Witcher across mass media thanks to the Netflix series starring Henry Cavill and his arms, I finally began what I consider an epic quest to play through all three of the Witcher games and their DLC. This is, by no means, a small task, but you know I might as well sacrifice myself in the name of entertainment. So I began to play The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, a PC game released in 2007 based on the books of the same name written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Now that I’ve beaten it I have quite a few things to say about it. But, first thing’s first, and that is easily the most obvious aspect of this game:

It has not aged well. Not at all.

To begin with, the graphics of the game are very 2007. A product of seventh generation graphical technology to be sure, it doesn’t help that it’s running on BioWare’s Aurora engine, which was notoriously difficult to use outside BioWare’s own house. There’s all kinds of graphical glitches, people pass through objects, character models and textures are fuzzy and sometimes plasticine, facial animations are sometimes downright frightening. There’s also the fact that the game reuses the same character model for multiple characters, both important and unimportant, leading me to confusion sometimes as I swore I just saw that goddamn priest I just killed wandering around the city. Except now there’s two of him. And all the merchants look the same, too! This being the enhanced edition there’s a number of upgrades and clarity that’s been added in to the experience, but it’s still dated for better or worse. What has aged well is the use of impressionistic paintings for the purpose of certain cutscenes, adding an extra dose of epic quality to some of the goings-ons. This also includes more “intimate endeavors” Geralt can engage in. Long story short, there’s a lot of women in this game who are willing to throw themselves at Geralt, and if you play the cards right you can get down to business pretty quickly. Sometimes too quickly; one time I brought a woman a loaf of bread and she had sex with Geralt. It was confusing and out of left field. But each encounter comes with a brief piece of tasteful nude artwork of the lady in question as blurred models bump and grind in the background. And, to be completely honest, the artwork is really well done. Although it is very jarring to play a game where sex workers are clearly labeled “whores” and “hookers,” most of the women have a good amount of agency in the proceedings, particularly the two primary romance options, Triss and Shani. Geralt can actually romance these two women to the point of committed relationship, which is refreshing to see that sex is not just a reward for “romancing” a character in a game, but something the characters enjoy, while the romance comes from genuinely caring about someone.

Despite the graphical despondency, main characters fare slightly better, as anyone who needs to be easily recognizable is, and are crafted with much more detail and fine tuning than regular NPCs. While this is fine, sometimes finding these characters is a chore and a half. The Witcher has a day/night cycle, and characters follow this, but when my map is telling me I need to be in one place to meet up with someone, I can’t count that they will actually be there depending on the time of day. And I can’t artificially move the time of day forward unless I have a campfire to meditate at. Meditation is an interesting mechanic, btw, as it basically acts as Geralt “sleeping” and also functions as your chance to level up and distribute talents. On paper, I’m okay with that. In reality, campfires and places to sleep are few and far between, unless you’re close to an inn or someone who doesn’t mind you crashing at their place. And oftentimes you’re running back and forth in linear paths across deceptively open areas, back and forth and back and forth in what can only best be described as tedium when you’ll approach the quest marker on your map, only to find no one there, and need to hoof it back to a fireplace to change the time again. This can also lead to extra consternation if the game crashes, which it did a handful of times during my fifty hours of gametime. Save often.

And, finally, there’s the combat. For better or worse, it’s an exercise in clicking on people to attack them, then clicking again at the right time when your icon changes in order to string together combos. That’s fine. Combat is also divided into three styles between two swords: strong, fast, and group style, with steel blade and silver blade. Strong and fast styles speak for themselves; group style is for when you’re surrounded and need to attack everyone around you. Steel blade is for humans, silver blade for monsters. Sounds simple right? It is -- too simple. Clicking on people is as easy as that, with little interaction otherwise. Sure, you have to figure out which style to use on which enemies, and you can couple in Signs (magic spells) to make your life easier, but repeatedly clicking on people to whack away is bland at best, frustrating at worst. Later on when you can level up your sword styles to include more powerful/deadly moves it becomes more challenging, but even then it remains a strange exercise in an odd hybrid of real time/tactical combat.  Finding oneself surrounded can lead to death quickly, so if you’re not paying attention, you can go from overpowered madman to witcher meat in seconds. Literally seconds: enemies I would have no problem with one-on-one, or even two-on-one, suddenly escalate to an unstoppable force the moment that three or more come in for an attack. The game has a way of forcing Geralt into combat situations without warning as well, making it easy to be thoroughly unprepared for a deadly gangbang around a corner and a cutscene. The game also doesn’t have much of an autosave system, meaning that if you haven’t been hitting that quicksave button very often, there’s a deep chance you could get your ass handed to you and reload a ways back from where you were. Easily the biggest frustration for me in terms of playing the game. Enemies will stack status effects to clobber you; Geralt will attack and get hit; sometimes you can stagger enemies and one-hit kill them, but enemies can still attack while Geralt goes through the slow kill animation. I don’t know how many times I cursed the game in anguish as I was forced to reload yet again after a fourth monster swept in out of nowhere, or the one monster I was fighting decided to get in a Stun attack, then proceed to own my ass. Pausing the game at any time using the space bar can help to get bearings, but you can’t execute commands while paused. Saving in combat isn’t allowed either, so if a big fight starts and you realize you haven’t saved in a while, you’re screwed. Couple this frustration with the intensely boring act of clicking on monsters over and over again to fight them, and here we have the biggest weakness of the whole product.

That being said -- is the game worth playing in 2020? Despite being 13 years of age and regarded as the least accessible game in the franchise, what it brings to the table is a surprisingly effective storyline that involves subject matter which is shockingly relevant. Racial tension. Class war. Plague. Quarantine. Riots. Gray morals. Strange creatures. Frustration. Difficulty spikes. Blurred lines between human and monster. If that sounds hauntingly familiar, it’s probably because that sums up the first half of the year 2020. To say that I was expecting a 13-year-old game to reflect the state of current events would be a massive lie; in fact, at the outset of the game, I was struggling to maintain interest at all. However, as time goes, the story and the choices made are what end up being the game’s biggest strength, and ultimately its salvation.

The story opens up simply enough: Geralt of Rivia, our titular witcher, has been found in a near-death state and nursed back to health by his fellow witchers and former lover, the sorceress Triss Merigold. Coming back from the dead has cost him his memories, however, and the amnesiac Geralt is quickly plunged into conflict as a group of mercenaries called Salamandra attack the witchers’s base to steal the secrets of their mutations. Swords clash, magic flies back and forth, and Geralt is tasked with giving chase in order to retrieve the mutagenic formulae so they can’t be used for harm.

A great conceit in this is that Geralt having no memory of his past allows anyone unfamiliar with the world to gently ease in and learn about the world as he does. The game is set after the events of the books, so this gives an added bonus to readers already knowledgable of events. And as the player learns more about Geralt and his world, a variety of choices come into play. Most RPGs have this option to allow player freedom in telling a story, but unforseen consequences follow every decision; whether they come into play immediately or further down the road remains to be seen, but there’s a ripple effect that goes above and beyond the usual Choose Your Own Adventure details which essentially craft your character into a good guy or a bad guy. What’s brilliant about this is that the game never hints at this; it isn’t until the game breaks away into a cutscene with monologue does Geralt realize how his choices crafted this specific moment. For example, in the Salamandra attack, Geralt can choose to fight off a horrific monster or help Triss defend the witcher laboratory. Depending on that choice, some characters may live or die, and the game will let you know that when it wants to....usually to hammer home a point.

What works to this being the strength of the game even further is the deep narrative, which is often times complex to the point of frustration. But the story develops at a natural pace, and never presents any choice as being right or wrong, black or white, good or bad. The main gist is that the human city of Vizima is under quarantine, fighting off a vicious plague, but also defending itself from the rise of nonhuman freedom fighters comprised of elves and dwarves. The city is divided on this, particularly in class division, with any nonhuman residents living in the slum quarter, while the affluent humans live exclusively in the market quarter. There are humans in the slums too, make no mistake, but it’s very apparent who is allowed to live where. However, the game makes no stance on this whatsoever; Geralt is presented with a series of choices based on the information at hand, and as the game goes on, comes closer and closer to choosing a side between the freedom fighters or the humans as tensions comes to a head with violence. Every action has a consequence, positive or negative, but also depending on who the consequences affect. Questions of moral arise; what truly defines a monster? Is it appearance, or is it action? It’s difficult to really spell it out further without diving into spoilers, as the story should be experienced first hand without any warning. That being said, it’s refreshing to play through a game in which the character is clearly defined as being the hero, but then forces the player to ask if their actions are truly heroic or actually damaging in the quest to destroy the greater evil.

In closing, The Witcher is a mixed bag. Narratively, it’s a stellar effort that swings for the fences and sticks the landing. From a gameplay perspective, it’s a dated game that’s sometimes a chore to play through, even to the point of dire frustration. But it’s one that I can cautiously recommend. While it certainly took me six or so hours to finally believe that I had the hang of it -- I didn’t -- struggling through the first quarter of the game can yield beautiful results, especially once it rolls into the final, jaw-dropping conclusion. What I will say is that it really beats you over the head with your choices, even the ones you didn’t know you were making, and holds up a mirror to ask if your decisions were really for the greater good or not. Outstanding work in that regard. I’m looking forward to playing The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings now that I’ve beaten this, and someday I’ll even come back to see the paths I could have taken. Just with tempered expectations this time around.

Final score: 7/10

[i-just-like-commenting]

The Witcher review

When I first read critics’ reviews of this show, they seemed to fall into two camps: non-fantasy fans who dismissed it as nonsense, and fantasy fans who said it got good but took a while to get there. Knowing I was a fantasy fan, I figured I might be in the latter camp, and started watching it. Casually at first, one episode a day, taking a break for Christmas…and then about halfway through I was hooked and marathoned the rest of the series. I genuinely liked this series…but it has problems, and I can see why it lost a lot of non-fantasy fans from the outset. Let’s get the bad out of the way first so I can gush about the good.

Barriers of Entry

Most TV viewers are not fantasy readers. Those of us who are may regret that, but it’s not a genre that everyone gets into, and it has its own storytelling quirks that can be off-putting to newcomers. This is why, for all that it failed in later seasons, Game of Thrones did well for general viewers in its early seasons. The small bit of fantasy hinted at isn’t all that different from the zombie films people are used to, and the rest feels mostly like period piece drama. Magic only gets introduced gradually, with an explanation of what it is and how it works as it’s introduced. Also, there’s a map.

The Witcher doesn’t have any of that scaffolding. It is full high fantasy, magic-heavy, thick in world-building from the very instant it opens. It explains very little about anything; by the end of season 1 I don’t know what Cirilla’s powers are, how Witchers are made, or what the Conjunction of the Spheres is that gets repeatedly mentioned. Now, as a fantasy reader I’m used to this; ideas and supernatural mysteries get introduced and not explained until later because the characters in-universe understand the and don’t need an explanation. All I need to know is that Cirilla has some dangerous power that Nilfgaard wants, that Witchers are made and not born, and that the Conjunction is an important thing that happened in the past that may be relevant in the future. Presumably all will be made clear in time.

But I really would’ve liked a map. Up until the penultimate episode we’ve no idea of what this place looks like, how everything is connected to each other. It makes the stakes of Nilfgaard’s invasion harder to fathom. How big are they as a kingdom? How at risk are the Northern Kingdoms? How many Northern Kingdoms are there? A few map shots in the first episode as Calanthe prepares for war, a few more as the series progresses, all of that would have helped situate the story and have it feel more grounded spatially.

As for temporally…

Timeline Shenanigans

I have no problem with this series choosing to have three different timelines for its three different characters that don’t meet up in the “present” until the final episode. Certainly there have been excellent series that have done this in the past (N.K. Jemisin’s Fifth Season comes to mind). But time stamps would’ve been really nice. Let the first episode play out as it does, but when we jump back to Ciri for the last time, have a heading that says “30 years later,” confirming to the audience what they suspect from some throwaway lines about Calanthe, that this is taking place much earlier than Ciri’s scenes. Do the same when Yennefer is introduced, keep updating how far along we are with Geralt’s story, not just to clarify the timeline but to also build suspense as the viewers realize that the plotlines are catching up to each other.

However that wouldn’t fix all the problems inherent to the time-jumping. Between episodes 5 and 6 we find out, for example, that Yennefer and Geralt have met several times already and are pretty heavily involved with each other. It works well enough because the actors are very good, but it’s a bit “oh, really?” when you find that out.

Likewise, I have no idea how long Jaskier has been around having an obvious crush on annoying Geralt; is it months? Years? I think it’s years, because that’s the same time frame for Geralt and Yennefer’s hookups, but maybe it wasn’t that long? And how long did Yennefer’s education take? When did her immortality kick in? How much time passed between Geralt and Yennefer breaking up and Geralt deciding to seek out Ciri? Was it right before? Years later? How old is Jaskier supposed to be at this point? Was Yennefer’s joke about crow lines an indication he’s approaching middle age? Time stamps!

This show is really lucky it had as good a cast as it did to carry it through these narrative issues.

Special Effects

The elves, hedgehog people, and fauns all look…bad. Like, almost Halloween costume bad. Don’t know what else to say. The other effects were really good, so they stuck out.

But now let’s talk about how this series rocked:

Have I mentioned this cast is fantastic?

So my interest in Henry Cavill may have been less than high-minded, but he is in fact absolutely fantastic in this. The show also walks that fine line with “jerk with a heart of gold” characters where it explains their dickishness without excusing it. We understand that with the life he’s led and the discrimination he’s faced why Geralt is cold and aloof, but we also see how being that way destroys his relationships with people he cares for, especially in episode 6. And Cavill manages to convey perfectly how, at the moment he sees Ciri, Geralt realizes that his whole life has been leading up to him taking on this role as protector and guardian. He needs someone to need him, even if that terrifies him.

And then there’s Anya Chalotra as Yennefer who you might call a deuteragonist since she doesn’t show up until the second episode and isn’t the title character, but honestly the show is as much about her as it is about Geralt. You start with her as an abused child with a spinal deformity who thinks she’s unimportant and worthless. You have her trying to conform herself to the purposes others give her, literally changing her body to meet their expectations, failing, flailing about trying to find a purpose, and then in the final episode landing on the grim realization that she is the only one who can protect all the Northern Kingdoms. It’s an excellent arc, even with the timeskips sometimes making it not as smooth a one as it might have been. Again we have Anya Chalotra to thank for making it work in spite of the narrative missteps.

Even Freya Allen, though she doesn’t get much to do plotwise, does a great job portraying the internality of Ciri’s journey this season, as she slowly realizes her beloved grandmother may have, in fact, been terrible – but that this doesn’t justify what was done to them.

Relationships you can root for

Two broken and emotionally distant people learning to break down their barriers and be vulnerable to each other? Sign me up, nothing is hotter. I really like Geralt and Yennefer, and I honestly hope they find common purpose together next season and realize that, wish or no wish, they’re good for each other and should try to work it out.

But Jaskier and Geralt’s relationship is honestly great, too. While I don’t think they’re sexually interested in each other and therefore this counts more as a “bromance,” I also hate the term “bromance” and prefer to just say that their unacknowledged but obvious affection for each other is charming. I’m guessing Jaskier will come back later? Maybe he was just in the short stories they use here, but that would be a shame.

The soundtrack “slaps” – that’s the term young people are using, right?

While “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” is attaining meme status and so many Youtube listens that it threatens to break into Billboard’s charts, let’s not forget how all the music in this series is so good. Like, literally, even if you can’t get into the show at all because of its other problems, check out this score, it’s amazing. It is incredibly frustrating that it’s not up on Spotify yet, though a few tracks are available on Youtube.

Its total embrace of being a fantasy series

And here we come back round to the beginning of my review. While Game of Thrones did well in its early seasons by easing its audience into its fantasy setting, as seasons went on it seemed progressively more and more embarrassed that it had to be a fantasy story. The Stark children’s warg powers are forgotten, prophecies are removed, the House of the Undying is reduced to like one room, bye-bye krakens and any kind of water magic, Euron’s just a pirate now, and who is this Lady Stoneheart you speak of? They even dispensed with the big final threat of the White Walkers as quickly and unceremoniously as possible, just so they could get back to the politics.

The Witcher, on the other hand, is a fantasy series from its first frame to its last and loves it. There’s monsters and magic everywhere, Destiny sets everything up to follow fairy tale rules, and humans share the world with multiple other sentient species. It does not apologize for this, and it has a very lived-in feel to it that many magic-heavy universes fail to achieve. You believe that this is a world where the supernatural is natural, where people have seen and lived alongside magic their whole lives. We see how magic is integrated into combat, healing, and politics, and it’s all believable in spite of how unbelievable it is. It makes it refreshingly fun and escapist without feeling completely divorced from reality.

So overall, I recommend the series while really wishing they’d structured it more clearly and accessibly. And had better makeup effects because ugh.

[ofstormboys-blog]

⧼    matthew daddario, cisgender male, he/him   /   old pine by ben howard   +   a lone black wolf standing on an overcast hill, thunder in the distance on a lonely night, the sound of rain through an open window as music softly plays, worn leather jackets, a loyal pet never leaving your side    ⧽   ━━      don’t look now, but that’s GABRIEL O'CONNELL. the THIRTY-TWO (536) year old VAMPIRE has been here in seattle for NINE YEARS, and is considered to be a NOMAD. they’ve always been EMPATHETIC & MYSTIFYING, but i guess this town just brings out the worst in people ; apparently, they’ve been way more UNFORGIVING & DISTANT than usual. it wouldn’t surprise me if they knew what was going on.   [   shiloh, twenty-five, cst, he/him   ]

BASICS.

BIRTH NAME: unknown. CHOSEN NAME: gabriel beckett o'connell. NICKNAMES: gabe, beckett, beck. BIRTHDATE: september 21, 1483 ad. AGE: thirty-two (536). BIRTHPLACE: scotland. GENDER: cisgender male, he/him. ORIENTATION: bisexual biromantic. SPECIES: vampire, feeds on humans. OCCUPATION: artist. PORTRAYAL: matthew daddario.

PHYSICALITY.

HEIGHT: six feet, five inches. POWER: darkness manipulation, also known as umbrakinesis. gabriel can create, control, and shape darkness to his every whim and has in the past used his abilities offensively and defensively. gabriel can create structures of shadow that can vary in solidity but are not entirely bound by any certain laws. a construct made in the image of a gun will shoot a solid bullet of shadow, a wall of darkness will act as a shield, and tendrils of shadow can be used as deftly as his own hands and still slice through others like a sharpened blade. naturally his ability is weaker in sunlight but he can still draw upon darkness even then, though not to the same extent as if it were night. gabriel can see through shadows and even track others via their own shadow if he wishes, though the further a shadow the harder it is until they ultimately disappear if they get too far away. his most prominent use of his ability allows him to meld perfectly into shadows to become intangible and move between them from shadow to shadow. at night he can practically teleport through the darkness. of course, his ability does take its toll and without proper feeding he can find even the most simple use of the ability to be detrimental. ABILITIES: over the centuries gabriel has amassed a wide assortment of abilities. he is trained in the martial arts and has mastered nearly every form available, only stopping out of boredom than anything else. he is a skilled thief and detective, his skills are usually put to use when he feeds as he only feeds only those that harm innocent people. he is also a skilled archer and swordsman, though he is much more deadly than any human weapon and so he doesn't ever use the skills unless for show. his most accomplished talents reside in the arts as his way of making money. from music to painting, art has been his true passion for centuries. CLOTHING: dark leather jackets, wool sweaters and the occasional turtle neck, dark denim with leather boots, sunglasses to hide his eyes, an old ring from his best friend's noble house usually on his right middle finger, button ups with the sleeves rolled up, darker colors in general.

HISTORY.

(content warning: murder, slight descriptive vampire feeding, amnesia, loss of identity, imbalance and emotionally abusive relationships.)

the earliest memory he has is the waking from transition in the lap of his sire, hands stroking his hair. after this there is burning hunger, so white hot and his sire coos when he kills an innocent farm girl the second they step outside. he has no name - no home or family to speak of. his sire claims that they don't know of them, but they always call him sweet pet names like darling or beloved or dearest. on the bad days he is it or the man, something less than human and he has to work hard for the forgiveness of his maker in those days when he somehow earns their ire.

together they carve a bloody trail through europe but never stray close enough to italy. they feast on innocents every night, and for a time he relishes in the decadent debauchery and cruelty of it all because they look at him like he's the brightest star in the sky. in time he begins to question though - who is he really? he wants more than to just be a senseless killer.

in time, about half a century later, his sire grows bored of him - of the conscience starting to grow inside him. they tell him the ugly truth - they had courted for awhile when his sire manipulated their way into his family's home back before it all. when they were found out, instead of just leaving his sire had killed his whole family and turned him for the fun of it.

he fled his sire and didn't look back, content to be nothing but a senseless monster once more. that was when an older, more mature found him and literally as well as figuratively kicked his ass. in a way they adopted him and taught him how to be more than monster with no soul. they gave him a name and even helped him to at least discover he came from a long destroyed village in scotland.

eventually, gabriel found some semblance of peace in his situation - he could never regain what he lost but he could build something new.

TL;DR - gabriel was a scottish human living a simple life when his future sire shacked up in his family's home under the guise of a poor stranger needing safety of course, gabriel being young and easy, fell into bed with his sire while still human. eventually after catching said vampire in the act of feeding - his sire killed his family and turned him to be their new plaything. maybe it was the trauma of watching his family's senseless murder or outside forces but gabriel developed total amnesia about his identity - amnesia that would never fade in time. they made a mess of europe for some fifty years before the truth came out and gabriel fled only to be eventually found by his future best friend who would help him figure himself out.

MISCELLANEOUS.

AESTHETICS: a lone black wolf standing on an overcast hill, thunder in the distance on a lonely night, the sound of rain through an open window as music softly plays, worn leather jackets, a loyal pet never leaving your side, piano music in the early morning hours, low growling from a dark treeline, hooded figures protecting innocents from criminals, blood smeared across chiseled jawlines, calloused hands gripping supple thighs, bruised knuckles left bloodied, darkness creeping along arms, two red eyes staring in the darkness, a full moon on a moonlight night, claw marks on sweaty backs, the sound of a paintbrush on canvas, full libraries, perfectly tailored suits with fancy watches, paint stained hands, gently strumming a guitar, a lonely figure strolling on a rainy day. SOUNDTRACK: sky full of song by florence + the machine, old pine by ben howard, mr. sandman by syml, river flows in you by yiruma, i am not a robot by marina, medicine by daughter, broken crown by mumford & sons, the fear by ben howard, believe by mumford & sons, cover your tracks by a boy and his kite, all these things that i've done by the killers, darkness keeps chasing me by grace vanderwaal, the troubles by u2 featuring lykke li, cold by aqualung featuring lucy schwartz, arsonist's lullaby by hozier, the loved ones by sanders bohlke, ghosts by james vincent mcmorrow, thousand eyes by of monsters and men, i'll be good by jaymes young, an unkindness of ravens by sanders bohlke, in the woods somewhere by hozier, come back for me by jaymes young, short change hero by the heavy, beauty of the dark by mads langer. DOPPELGANGERS: jonathan reid (vampyr), stefan salvatore (the vampire diaries), edward cullen (the twilight saga), geralt of rivia (the witcher), angel (buffy), adaline bowman (the age of adaline), emma swan (once upon a time), bruce wayne (dc comics), elijah mikaelson (the vampire diaries), dean winchester (supernatural), matthew murdock (marvel comics), alice cullen (the twilight saga), magnus bane (the shadowhunter chronicles), alexander lightwood (the shadowhunter chronicles).

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

SIRE/PAST: the vampire that made it all happen. they're conniving and manipulate and seductive and totally bad for gabriel which would totally be fun to see play out in present day now that gabriel has an identity and self worth. SAVIOR: the vampire that saved gabe from himself. they're pretty much the lexi branson to his stefan salvatore tbh. DEFO NEED THOSE BFF FEELS. DESCENDANTS: it would be cool if somewhere down the line gabriel discovered he has living descendents - like maybe a sibling survived and went on to have children that passed on legends of the supernatural or something. BUYER/INTEREST: someone that buys his art but is also more than that. they actually push him and seek him out instead of letting him run away - they intrigue him and he finds himself wanting to actually know someone for once.

[dicecast]

Blast from the Past: Dragon Age II, Why the Mage Templar Conflict Fails

So Dragon Age II is the best game in the series (I will fight you) and has the best writing in the entire narrative thus far...but dear god the Mage Templar Conflict is handled terrible.  This is also true of inquisition, but it is the main focus of II and I think that is a major reason why people have so many problems with DA:II, because for all of its greatness, so much of the narrative is based on this aspect which just...doesn’t work. 

So why is that?  I mean the Mage/Templar dynamic was one of the few things in DA;O which is better than DA:II, and there are some really powerful moments involving the conflict in DA:II so why does the overall effort just fall flat?  Wait, I know the answer because I am awesome

Basically there were 5 different ways you could have handled this conflict and any one of those could have been a workable story in their own right.  But Bioware in their infinite wisdom tried to do all of them and...it was a mess.  So I am going to break down the various narratives that could have been and how that should have been told, and why DA:II just doesn’t work 

1) A conflict between two equal forces

So the obvious narrative (and the most typical) is present this as a conflict between two roughly equal powers each with valid points, each side has bad elements and each side has some good elements, a very Grey vs. Grey type deal.   The player is encouraged to choose which group they/their character personally feels is more valid, but the game is making it clear that the other side is understandable.  There is no true good or evil option in terms of which faction you choose.   The themes would likely be something like “oh no, look how extremism tears people apart, isn’t it terrible when people won’t listen to the other side” or the same golden mean pablum RPGs do with these sort of narrative 

  Why this doesn’t work

Well right away, there is the problem where both sides aren’t in fact equal in terms of power. Like at all.  The Templar are organized, have the support of the entire society including the church, most of the populace hates mages, and the mages literally are trapped inside a prison tower.  The mages are not organized, they don’t have any resources outside their own magic, and of course the Templars can basically mistreat them with impunity (which literally contradicts lore from the first game I might add). You really can’t view this as “Both sides have a point” when the Templars under Maredith are regularly raping, tranquilizing, and just generally abusing the mages. 

    And what really just kills this “both sides have a point” style conflict is the final choice because...the mages didn’t blow up the CHantry.  Anders did it, who is a renegade who explicitly says he is independent.  We literally see the head mage both trying to appeal to the Grand Cleric right before and go “WTF man” right after, hawk knows full well that the mages did not do this.  So Meredith’s choice to massacre all of the mages (including children) is just loony, like we know full well that she is killing innocent people for a crime they didn’t commit.  Even when I play a pro templar hawk I can never really bring myself to side with Meredith because not only is she an obviously crazy evil lunatic with no redeeming qualities, but I can’t imagine any way my character would murder thousands of innocent people for no reason without seeming out of character.  I couldn’t even imagine Fenris doing that.  

   This conflict just can’t be “Both sides have a point” because Meredith is just too fucking psychotic for anybody to really side with her.  Unlike Ser Gregor from the first game, Meredith constantly breaks the rules of the chantry itself because she is a paranoid sadist.  She uses the rite of tranquility for things that we know in universe the templars shouldn’t use it for, like people speaking out.  There is rampant sexual abuse, torture, and...look my point is that the Templars are way too evil and cruel for this to be an equal conflict.

Like if this was Tevinter vs. the Templars, that would be one thing, but this isn’t an equal conflict, when one side is literally locked in their prison, 

If Dragon Age wanted this to be a moral situation where neither side was necessarily right or wrong, than they needed to make the conflict more nuanced, the templars should be more like they were in one, and the mages should have actually been doing evil shit, rather than a rogue terrorist.  And the final conflict shouldn’t have been “massacre everybody for crime they didn’t commit.”

2) Mages are Right, but lets Understand the Templars

DA:II is obviously trying to tell a story about bigotry and oppression, and at parts sets out to do so in a mature and serious way, and try to explain why the Templars behave as they do.  After all, just because a work disagrees with a character doesn’t mean it can’t depict them in a human and understandable way.  Dragon Age II could have been trying to explain exactly wy pepole believe things that the game views as wrong, to say “ok yeah, the Templars are wrong, but lets understand their perspective, after all they aren’t cartoonish monsters but people”.  And parts of the game seem to do that, for example Fenris is like an anti mage bigot (Magist ?) in a really unacceptable way but he is very understandable. He came from a really bad background and is lashing out his own feelings against the vague group that hurt him, and he is utterly terrified of Tevinter coming to southern Thedas.  He is wrong, but the game doesn’t wish to demonize him and wants us to understand how these prejudices grow.  We see a similar treatment with Cullen, whose experience in the Origins Circle tower has made him see everything in an extremely black and white perspective, and we pity him even as he commits evil. 

Where it went wrong

Well...Meredith is just too fucking awful....again.  Unlike many of her minions, she is just kind of an asshole all the way through, from her first appearance she is haughty, callous, paranoid, indifferent and ambitious.  We never really see her reasoning or psychology, yeah I know we are told about tragedy  in her back story but it never really comes up in scene. She just kinda does awful things because she is an awful person, nothing more complicated than that.  For example, punishing people speaking out against her with Tranquility (which again is suppose to be illegal) just makes her out to be a despot, we don’t really see any reason to support her or sympathize with her.  And anybody who stays loyal to her comes off as an idiot.

   This also makes Grand Cleric Elthina just come off as a complete tool btw, if the Templars are acting out of bounds then the Chanty needs to pull the lease.  Again and again Meredith is violating Chantry rules, and Elthina just doesn’t do anything about it, the chantry is strangely passive in all this.  

3) Templars bad, Mages response isn’t appropriate 

Another approach the game could have done what the Witcher I did, the system perpetuated by the templars is evil and wrong, and really not acceptable, but the mages response to said system isn’t good.  The game kinda does this with Anders, who has a very valid point but his extremism makes the whole situation worse and also makes him really unacceptable as a person.  Basically ‘Man the Templars are awful and we need to fix this.....why did you blow up the Chantry Anders?”

This version doesn’t actually contradict version 2 btw.  Personally I think 2 and 3 combined would be the best way to handle this game

Where it Went Wrong 

Well....Anders is the only real anti Templar mage who gets a lot of narrative focus...and he is  renegade.  I know we run into evil mages who do evil mage things over the course of the game but they are just kinda cartoonishly awful rather than you know...interesting.   This narrative would require a lot more focus on the mage resistance and mage responses to the templars in a more human light.

And no, the massive amount of evil Blood Mages don’t count, they are just kind randomly evil douchbags who don’t relate to anything else in the story.  

4) Both sides need to come together and unite

In this narrative the conflict is the result of am misunderstanding, and if the two sides just saw thigns from the other’s perspective, a compromise could be reached, and the true evil could be destroyed.  Honestly this is the narrative where Meredith makes the most sense, a force of evil that the mages and the templars could unify to fight against because she is so utterly awful.  THe ending kinda implies this ending with the templars all going “screw you” to Meredith  and her going all Red Lyrium, 

Where it went wrong

but then we have a stupid binary moral choice.  Enough Said

5) The Templars are totally wrong, VIVA LA REVOLUTION

Finally the game could have just been very black and white, the templars are bad, the Circles are an evil, the mages should rise to fight against their oppressors. 

Where it went wrong 

This is the only other narrative where Meredith makes sense, and this story would be very clear cut.  But again...the presence of Fenris, Cullen and Aveline really implies that this is suppose to be a more complicated conflict than that.  

[kaorei-endgame]

What Yakuza game would you recommend playing if I wanted play one? I keep seeing stuff from 0 that looks great and you've said a lot of good things about the series in the past.

In a lot of ways, Yakuza 0 is the BEST place to start with the series! 

And you could leave this post at that–but aw heck, it’s been a while, and I got some stuff to say!

So my appreciation of Yakuza 0 is definitely related to how I prefer the slightly more personal “Kazama Kiryu Desires A Peaceful Life but dang if his Best Bro won’t stop dragging him into these intra-clan turf wars,” stories of Yakuza 1&2 to the exponentially expansive scope of “Kazama Kiryu wants nothing more to than to raise orphan bbs on the idyllic beaches of Okinawa BUT WATCH OUT: The American military wants to buy the entire island and you’re the only gangster man enough to stop them!!” of Yakuza 3 and onwards

(note: I can’t remember if that was actually the plot of Yakuza 3 but doesn’t it seem like the plot of Yakuza 3?)

So it’s like a return to form; 0′s a (…more or less…) hardboiled crime plot about one specific Objet d'Ardeur that everyone in the country has a rack-focus mega-boner about solving the mystery of. In Yakuza 1 it was the “10 Billion Yen” and here it’s “The Empty Lot.” You know I loves it when people refer to such things in hushed and/or concerned tones. 

And they do it a lot in this game.

A lot a lot.

And that’s where I’m at r/n.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like them later Yaks, but the series ditched its focus from as it went, where the plots got a lot bigger and they added a shitload of playable characters to varying degrees of success. Enough of those games still rock (Yakuza 5′s got a whole section where you play as an up and coming idol and also one where you fight a bear)

(subnote, the idol does not fight the bear)

(subsubnote, though she absolutely should’ve)

But their plots are such a severe mess that I was only able to enjoy the narrative of 4&5 for their audacity–they’re so dopey and BIG–since none of the characters were, like, super character-y, you know, per se. They all blend together, especially antagonists, who end up being “thug guy” or “haha, it was actually I, the refined business man BEHIND the thug guy, (and also, for some reason I have DIAMOND CUT ABS and KNOW KARATE).” 

So, when you sit down and really think about it, in some ways, Yakuza 0 is actually the perfect Yakuza game!

Though it’s a prequel, the story works without context. There’s a good bit of fan-service in how they spent a decent time on characterization for people who would become major players/antagonists in later games, but I don’t feel like it being a prequel would hurt new players. You’d miss out on some of the dramatic irony I enjoyed, sure, but you also wouldn’t have to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of Majima, Yakuza’s genre-standard “crazy guy who’s gay for the protagonist (but strictly in a violent way (no homo))” acting like just a regular, (…relatively…? i mean he’s a gangster…?) nice guy. In fact, this game made me kind of wish Majima was just always this Majima. :/

(spoiler warning: Yakuza sidequests still have a 1-5% factor of Extremely Bad Video Game Opinions on Gender/Sexuality/Race 😞 And I wish they’d quit that shit already, because it straight up sullies the fun, lighthearted tone of most of the side content–there are always a couple “ugh, aren’t you better than this?” moments in these games)

Aside from that–the narrative stuff, or etc–the mechanical bloat of later games can make it tough to fully recognize which parts are wheat and which parts are chaff. There’s too much of it to sort, especially as they move into the If Yakuza 4 had 4 characters then obviously Yakuza 5 has to have five??? model, where I sorta forgot there were 5 protagonists until I looked it up because the Baseball Guy in 5 was the only dude more forgettable than Baby Faced Grapple Cop in 4. 

And I liked 5, no doubt, but you don’t really need like four+ distinct fighting styles, especially when you’re musical chairs-ing between them every 2 or 3 hours. And it’s definitely fun and/or funny that every character has their own goofy sub-quest like “trapping rabbits on a mountainside” or “extremely solicitous taxi cab driving,” but a lot of that stuff gets lost in the wash as you get farther out from the actual playing of it. 

(vs chicken????)

As a result, I retain vaguely positive feelings about Yakuzas 3-5, but I can’t remember a whole lot of what I actually did in them. Where Yakuza 0 felt like it had just enough that I could manage everything without going nuts. Just the same, I keep sayin’ 1&2 remain my favorites for their tighter scopes–the Goldlocks Principle of Yakuza games–but I also haven’t played them in almost a decade, so who knows how they actually hold up. I’m probably just talking out of my ass! And, in some ways, Yakuza 0 might be one of those situations where it’s actually living up to the fond memories falsified by my nostalgia! 

What I mean by that is 0’s a refinement of a series that has always been one of the extremely few “open world” games that’ve ever actually worked on me. Weird comparisons on sale here, but it’s like Witcher 2: the maps are small enough that they become intimate, and there aren’t a billion checkmarks all over them, so it doesn’t feel like you’re running down a list. Really, Yakuza has been the only series I feel like I can play on whim, act arbitrarily and according to mood, and not freak out about not playing the most “efficient” way.

(also why does it seem like they spent like 100x as much effort on Sagawa’s face than they did anyone else in the entire game, including the main characters? Is it because Sagawa is Actually The Secret Best???)

It’s cool, being in those neighborhoods, whose twists and turns become familiar. They’re some of the few games that I can really space out with, not worrying about completion lists or plot progression or missable sidequests (we just beat Tales of Vesperia, I’m “missable sidequest”-ed out for the foreseeable future), just playing arbitrarily, and pecking away at a long substory until you get bored, and not worrying super much about whether or not you’ll ever come back and finish it. They set a tone; ie: “there’s so much CRAP here.” Like, every bar gives you a mini-lecture on each whisky’s history as you order it. You can’t possibly do all of it–in fact, they don’t let you, because the bartender cuts you off after 3 or 4 drinks–so it’s almost like they game is telling you “hey, do something else so you don’t burn yourself out trying to catch ‘em all.” Which is I suspect Fallout or Farcry or Assassin’s Creed or whatever will probably never, ever do.

So even though Yakuza is as checklisty as any of those games (and in Yakuza 0 there’s a literal checklist that gives you quantifiable gameplay benefits as you fill it out) there’s no impetus to play them that way. You do whatever you want, at the speed you want. It’s like, by curtailing your ability to drink every whisky at once, eat every food at once, find every sidequest at once, they’re giving you permission to leave things half-finished. I dumped several hours into reaching the climax of Majima’s biggest substory, but when the game offered me the chance to go to the final battle, I kinda went “I’m ready for this” and left the whole thing unsettled right before the finish line. 

So I guess I’ll never know how that cabaret plot ended, but I also don’t feel like I really need to know how it ended either. My experience was enough, and it’s good to feel like you’re playing something just to immerse yourself in the experience of it, rather doggedly coming back until you can Finish it and Check It Off A List.

In summation, I’m hope to keep this one in my kokoro 5ever:

…tell Kuze hello for me! 👊

[gamelyplanet-blog]

Not *that* Good: “Red Dead Redemption”

We all have them; games everyone hates that we love and, more controversially, games that everyone loves but we don’t really take to. The most recent one I’ve had to put myself through was none other than Rockstar’s much loved Red Dead Redemption (RDR), the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game wearing a Wild West hat. 

Red Dead Redemption is actually a bad game to start this series with, because not only do I understand why so many people love it, I also don’t hate it myself. At least half of the game impresses me quite a lot in fact.

For one thing, the writing is really good. Rockstar employs some legitimately good writers; even Grand Theft Auto IV, which is not well-liked by a large portion of the gaming audience, told a very engaging story with colorful and layered characters. Red Dead Redemption follows suit; there are great themes of change and consequences through the story of a former outlaw that is blackmailed to kill off his former friends and gang-mates, in the twilight of the Wild West. His blackmailers aren’t lowlifes, but the forces of “good” and “progress”, the Federal Government that shapes the modern United States of America. John Marston isn’t a deep or complex character, but he is a character easy to like and relate to. The supporting characters of both the flamboyant and the grounded flavors inject life into the story. The ending twist, even though it’s somewhat predictable (and probably spoiled for everyone, by now) has a profound impact and upon reflection, it’s the only right way for this story to end.

The voice cast is also fantastic and not a single one of the actors turns in a performance that’s anything less than stellar. The atmosphere is top-notch; this is another one of Rockstar’s strong points. I remember reliving the 1980s in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I remember feeling like a New Yorker driving around Times Square in GTAIV and I had no problems immersing myself in the life across the frontier in the early 1900s with RDR. The visuals are a little too muddy, but they fit the setting; riding a horse across the empty planes and seeing civilization from afar is an experience that fills one with contentment; the architecture, the character designs and the fantastic music during the long treks in the wilderness easily absorbed me in the game.

I will go out of my way and assume that people who adore RDR do so primarily because of the above. I get it; I’m even with you on those. What I mind is actually sitting down and playing the damned thing.

To put it simply, I’m not sure why RDR needed to be an open-world game (marketing reasons notwithstanding). The game world is filled with random events, mini-games and hunting achievements, but do these add anything to the experience, or do they only distract the player away from the story? I find RDR suffering from GTAIV-syndrome; that game is also full of meaningless distractions, the only significant difference being that in RDR you don’t get smoke signals by Uncle in the middle of a mission asking you to go to the nearest saloon for whiskey shots. 

Upon reflection, I think that maybe the reason for the open-world approach is atmosphere. It wouldn’t be unheard of; the Mafia games did the same thing, adding a giant city in an otherwise linear third-person-shooter. One can argue that GTAIV’s overworld activities were included in that title for adding to the atmosphere as well; I can’t rightly imagine another reason that playing darts or bowling in what’s already a game of itself had another purpose. This is something I not only understand, but also appreciate quite a lot; it worked for me with both Mafia and GTAIV. But not with RDR.

I wager the reason for that is that the game’s map is massive. Yeah, okay, it’s not The Witcher 3-massive, it may actually be smaller than the modern GTA games (that is, games after Vice City), but the problem is that a lot of what makes the commute from and to missions in GTA bearable is the sight-seeing. There are pedestrians, people going about their daily lives; there is traffic that bugs out hilariously some times and has cars driving willingly onto walls; there are impressive skyscrapers towering above you and different districts that give off the illusion of a living, breathing world; and, of course, there’s a ton of beloved, licensed music blasting on the car radio, followed by hilarious commercials and made-up talk shows.

In RDR there are rocks, trees and some wildlife and that you can slaughter for the Hunter achievements. The music that operates as additional ambiance while riding in the overworld is great, sure; it’s subtle and effective. But these trips are damned long and RDR, especially in its first act, is being a complete asshole with spacing out objectives. 

Another issue I take with the overworld stuff, compared to GTA, is that Rockstar’s other juggernaut series is one in which you are a criminal. The overworld exists specifically so you can destroy it; that’s how it has always been, since the very first game, the city is there for the player to blow it up. In RDR, on the other hand, the hero (and by extension the player) are good guys. Marston is supposed to be a romanticized anti-hero, but the game operates on an Honor system and clearly doesn’t approve of you going out of your way to be a murderous psychopath that firebombs young maidens.

A lot of the overworld becomes a distraction and the game uses the long trips from one mission to the next specifically as a means to pad the playtime. This padding doesn’t end there.

The last few missions of the first act of the game are all padding. Recruiting West Dickens, Seth and Irish starts out well enough; all of them are fun characters and their missions are initially interesting, but all three have at least one mission too many that only exists to delay the attack on Fort Mercer. Missions like the second race for West Dickens only break the flow of the narrative and undercut the urgency of the situation.

It gets worse, however; the entire Mexico act, the second act of the game, is padding; not some of it, not a portion of it, but all of it. There is literally no good reason for that sizable chunk of game to exist in RDR. The story stops dead in its tracks during that segment and only gets back on track in the last mission of that act. Finding Bill Williamson is the primary purpose of John’s mission, but both he and the player get distracted for hours, until Bill magically appears and just happens to have been with that other bad guy all along. John’s actions never actually bring him closer to Bill; even after he captures Javier, finding Bill is just a giant coincidence. This is what we call “the story resolves itself” and it’s a shitty way to write a story.

The inclusion of Javier Escuella is another red flag; the man isn’t mentioned at all before and his name once the second act starts comes out of the blue; so much so, it took me a while to understand what the hell John was talking about when he mentioned him to Irish and Landon Ricketts (who is also so shoehorned, he feels the need to teach the player basic aiming with a gun six hours into the game). Javier is the only one of John’s former gang members that can be captured alive; the Feds want Bill, Dutch and John himself dead. The rationalization for this would be that Javier is Mexican and doesn’t fall under their jurisdiction or whatever, but from a writing perspective, Javier just doesn’t fit; the story never sets him up properly and he is actually never mentioned again in the story afterwards (sans one name-drop by John in the fourth act). The third act, in Blackwater, examines John’s past life as an outlaw and his gang in detail and every conversation is about Bill and Dutch. Abigail too. Javier just doesn’t exist.

It is clear, to me at least, that Mexico was an afterthought. I would assume they found the story content too short (and it is, compared to the GTA titles), so they shoved in a bundle of missions that have nothing to do with the main story to pad it out. There is some minimal thematic connection, but since none of the characters ever draws that connection in any way (subtly or overtly), it seems more like a happy coincidence. The tragedy is that if Mexico was DLC, it’d work better; it wouldn’t break flow, it wouldn’t get in the way of the story, it would feel a lot less boring and it would give Jack something to do other than being the replacement avatar for the player after John bites the dust. 

These are the things that annoy me about the game the most, but there are other, smaller annoyances. I don’t like the horses, for example; they are dumb and easy to die and if they do in a pickle, you’re screwed. It’s de-motivating as fuck taming that one great steed and seeing it jump to its own death and being replaced by the back-up shit horse.

I’m not a fan of how limiting the game can be in the freedoms it grants the player and not just with the Honor system. There was this one instance I really enjoyed; it was one of the world events that a lady asks for help and then leads you to an ambush. Once clearing the ambush, I decided not to kill her; instead, I hogtied her, took her to the port in Blackwater, and let her roll down to the bottom of the sea. Horrible death, but that’s what I play games for; to do weird shit I don’t want to do in real life. Of course, the event was never really resolved (it just went away) and any similar actions against less aggressive NPCs would give me a strike in one form or another.

Likewise, I was dissatisfied with the game’s ending, where it forces you in a duel with Agent Ross. The “Duel” mechanic is one of the worst in the game and it’s extremely unsatisfying in look and feel. That guy betrayed my entire family and killed my father, who was my own avatar as a player for countless hours; I wanted the option to choose his fate on my own. Maybe I’d kill him, maybe I’d let him go, completing the story and accepting the change the Federal Government brings, instead of forcing across the notion that the Wild West never dies. 

Of course, in reality, I just wanted to hogtie the dude and drop him in front of a moving train; it’s a tried and true execution method in the game and I’m salty I didn’t get to do it to him. But the point stands that for an open-world game, RDR is somewhat more limiting than GTA and, especially, Saints Row.

Lastly, there are some technical issues. The game is stable, but performance isn’t great on the PS3. The game looks muddy, just like GTAIV did, presumably because neither of them have antialiasing worth a damn. It’s also locked at 30 frames per second and there are noticeable framedrops in open spaces or crowded towns and settlements. Of course Rockstar was working with limiting hardware, so I can’t blame them for that, but I can certainly blame them for never porting the game on PC, where it would’ve done unlimited framerate and mods to clean up its muddy vanilla look. Dickwads. 

As I said, this wasn’t a good game to start this series with, because there is a lot of good in it that I can’t realistically deny; hell, most of the good in it, I quite enjoyed myself. For me, if the game was a more streamlined experience, like Mafia, cutting out a lot of the fat and dropping the distraction of Act II, I’d probably have loved it. Rockstar’s games have never been strong in terms of core mechanics (particularly in combat), so that was never going to make or break the game and side-content to kill time has always been part and parcel of the company’s open-world games. But as the games started becoming more serious, these activities started causing dissonance. When the overworld stops being a playground and becomes a stage instead, giving a show takes precedence over building a sandcastle. 

What I find interesting, however, is that I dislike Red Dead Redemption for the reasons that so many people dislike Grand Theft Auto IV and I like Grand Theft Auto IV for the reasons that everyone else prefers Red Dead Redemption. Both games are closely related in terms of design; they’re story-driven, serious affairs with average mechanics that utilize their overworld primarily for the illusion of their setting, rather than purely for gameplay reasons. Both are solid games by any metric known to man and yet, the most minute differences between them, the details, seem to have a different impact on their audience.