No Light, No Light (Queerplatonic Geraskier + Romantic Radskier)

This was inspired by two things, mainly...

First, the way Joey Batey acts primarily through his (bright blue) eyes, and can convey emotional pain and heartbreak with them like no one else...

And second, the fact that, instead of going with a more familiar and often expected:

"A man that's always been with women before, now finds himself romantically and sexually attracted to a man, and starts questioning his own sexual identity..." LGBTQ+ coming out story...

He apparently decided to take things a bit further, and surprise the show's queer audiences by exploring a different - yet just as equally important and significant - coming out story!

i.e.

"A usually aromantic person, that has always experienced squishes, smushes, and possibly meshes before, finds himself experiencing a (sapio)romantic crush for the very first time, and starts questioning his romantic identity..."

And the funny thing is that, before Season 3 came out, I'd written on the description of this video (    • Not That Big (Geralt & Jaskier)   ):

"Can be interpreted as romantic Geraskier if you so wish (as most romances carry strong elements of friendship as well), or platonic Geraskier (since many friendships also have strong elements of love and commitment to them) if you'd prefer."

Because it's one of the few times where I literally couldn't make up my own mind regarding what was going on between Geralt and Jaskier on screen.

There's something that most definitely feels much more intimate than what people typically have in mind when they say "friend".

It's friendship, and yet it's not. It's almost romantic, but not quite.

And I believe that what made me doubt the exact nature of the love they shared is that, while Jaskier has always behaved like he deeply loves Geralt, there hasn't been any sense of him "romantically pining" over him, and/or trying to attempt to hide any of his true feelings for him, either.

When people portray unrequited romantic love on screen, there's often this sense of them trying to hold back on their feelings for the other person, and being afraid to show the romantic nature of their interest for fear of driving them away.

But Jaskier is very openly loving with him.

He calls Geralt his "best friend in the whole wide world". He's perfectly comfortable talking about his "lovely bottom" or "bloated biceps" while licking his lips, and very at ease sharing a great level of emotional and physical intimacy with him.

He's very aesthetically appreciative of him, and feels extremely open and sincere in the way he expresses his love towards Geralt.

So, I've never quite gotten that sense of Jaskier attempting to pretend to be Geralt's "friend" when he'd much rather be romantically involved with him instead.

And Geralt seems very much aware of Jaskier's feelings, too.

Even Geralt's own insistence that "they're not friends" (and/or inability to answer Yennefer when she says "just a friend, I hope") at times, sounded like an acknowledgement that the emotional intimacy they share together goes beyond what society usually acknowledges as friendship.

The moment I realized that Jaskier was portrayed as being a greyromantic I literally went "Holy shit! That's it!"

I think what blindsided me is that I didn't expect to see that type of love and relationship dynamic authentically portrayed on screen.

You rarely see an aromantic character having a huge squish (or mesh) for someone right from the beginning, and that love then following a natural (queer)platonic dynamic progression from there.

I love the way Joey Batey has been able to portray both alterous attraction/love (with Geralt) and romantic attraction/love (with Radovid) on screen with Jaskier, and making the two relationships feel so unique, precious, and distinct.

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Disclaimers & Fair Use of the material:

This video is a work of pure love for Netflix’s “The Witcher” ‘s TV series, its characters, pretty much everything and everyone that were involved in the creation and making of the series (including its source material, written by Andrzej Sapkowski), and also its fandom. It is meant to be transformative, and to be a further exploration/study and celebration of some of the series characters’ dynamics and relationships.

Absolutely no personal or commercial profit was or is made from this video (nor was it ever intended).Unless believed otherwise by copyright holders (in which case, it will be my pleasure to comply with their demands, as I sincerely am not looking to put them at any disadvantage, nor harm their work or how they can profit from it in any way), fan videos are usually a good and strong source of publicity for the source material; as they highly contribute to maintaining the original work’s visibility across the years, and especially, to keeping the excitement and enthusiasm for the source material very much alive and thriving.

The song "No Light, No Light", by ‪@florencemachine‬ , can be found here:    • Florence + The Machine - No Light, No...