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Joey Batey is really approximately the same size and shape as Henry Cavill, and there are a number of clever techniques in pretty much all Jaskier's costumes to hide this fact and make him look about three or four inches narrower than he actually is. The costumers work really really hard to make him look that twinky, often with cleverly cut shoulder decorations that pretend he's trying to look bigger than he is and have the actual effect of making him look a lot lighter.

On a Doylistic level this makes sense, because it's hard to make Geralt look Huge and Imposing next to your non-combatant harmless sidekick if said sidekick is a jacked six foot burly man.

"But, sir, you could look ripped!"

"Absolutely not! I must look slim and gentle and unassuming!"

"As you wish, sir... So do you wish it to be cut with much excess fabric, so that you look small and also very wealthy to afford so much?"

Creating an illusion like this has two main components: shape (the style lines created by the clothes), and fit (the way the clothes hang on the person’s body), and is the result of close collaboration between the designer and the production team. 

We’re going to talk about season one, because that’s where the difference is the most obvious. Take a look at Geralt:

First, let’s talk about shape. The goal here is to make Geralt look strong and imposing, and the best way to do that is to exaggerate the triangle of his upper torso. See how much broader his shoulders look than his waist in both images? A loose shirt over tight pants is a classic way to establish this, because the shirt blousing at the waist (note that the pants sit high up at the natural waist) makes the hips looks narrower in comparison. Note also that his shirt has an asymmetrical closure - a centered vertical line down the shirt would make him looks slimmer, while the off-center one adds width.

His armor does this by giving him those massive shoulder pieces, which both lengthen and raise his shoulder line. I would estimate that they raise Henry Cavill’s shoulder line by a good two inches just from the bulk of the leather alone. His torso armor also does a really clever thing by having a very subtle V shape to the vertical lines, making his waist look smaller. If you count the number of stripes above and below his belt (again, sitting high at the natural waist), you’ll notice that the narrow stripe at the front edge of the armscye disappears, which allows the side stripes to make that V shape.

Now let’s talk about fit. The fit of Geralt’s shirt looks simple but is actually super specific. It’s very easy for an actor to get lost in a shirt that is too loose - if there’s too much extra fabric then it will just make the actor look smaller by drawing attention to how baggy it is. This shirt fits just right: the sleeves are full enough to allow for movement but still relatively fitted (and rolling up the sleeves actually also helps add breadth to Geralt’s torso by continuing the horizontal line at his waist). The body of the shirt fits smoothly across the shoulders and chest, and has just enough fullness to drape at the waist without feeling baggy.

Now let’s look at Jaskier.

We’ll start with this look. Shape and fit are very interconnected here so it’s just gonna be a jumble. First thing I notice: the jacket. Unlike your traditional fantasy/historical doublet, all of Jaskier’s jackets end at the waist, rather than continuing into a peplum/skirt like Geralt’s armor does. This cropped jacket is evocative of childhood/immaturity, an association that is generally considered to have its roots in schoolboy uniforms of the 19th and early 20th century (see the image of schoolboys wearing “Eton Jackets” below)

Jaskier also tends to wear his jackets open. This creates a vertical line down his torso, which is generally slimming, but it also totally obscures the shape of his torso. The brain is going to take the line of his hip, which we can see, and the armscye of his jacket, (which actually looks to be cut ever so slightly artificially narrow but it’s hard to tell) and fill in a line between them, which is likely going to end up being slightly narrower than his actual ribcage. He does have poofs at the top of his sleeves, which can be a technique used to add width, but if they’re cut and fit carefully you can actually hide some of the breadth of the shoulders inside the poof and make it look like the fullness comes from the poof and not the body.

Note: the “armscye” is the technical name for the armhole, but specifically the torso part. The corresponding sleeve part is the “sleevehead.”

Again, we have another open jacket, this one with strong vertical lines. See how the line of Jaskier’s hip flows up through the edge of the doublet all the way up through the armscye? This makes his torso look narrower despite the jacket’s shoulder tabs. In contrast, this line is always broken on Geralt’s outfits, whether at the waist with his shirt or with the giant shoulder pieces with his armor. Jaskier’s pants also tend to fit more loosely, which de-emphasizes the triangle of his shoulders to waist.

Okay this is my favorite image to illustrate everything we have going on here. Look at Jaskier’s jacket. What’s the first thing you notice? The bright yellow inset slashes in his chest. The high contrast in color draws the eye inwards and distracts from the breadth of his shoulders, where we have another cleverly cut poof. His jacket is again cropped, with strong vertical lines, over the baggiest pants he wears in the season.

Now look at Jaskier and Geralt together. Jaskier is all about long vertical lines, while Geralt’s predominate lines are either horizontal or diagonal. Additionally, Jaskier’s hips look even to his shoulders, even if they’re not, and Geralt’s shoulders are exaggerated. The two characters have a very different presence, even if the actors underneath are similar.

Hmmm…Seems like they touch.

hmm??

…you have to be kidding me.

…..

She felt undeserving when she was appointed as UN Women goodwill ambassador and sought out Gloria Steinem to learn about feminist activism.

She thinks the criticism she received for being a white feminist was useful because it made her educate herself.

She says there’s a desperate need to reform the education system in the UK to change the way they are taught the history of how Britain has been involved in foreign affairs and how they profited from slavery.

She felt anxious about approaching 30 because there’s a lot of pressure to have a husband and a baby by then and she’s still figuring her life out.

She was so young when she was casted in Harry Potter that she doesn’t remember much of her life before it and she went to therapy to deal with her issues with fame. She used to feel very guilty for being unhappy because she thought she should enjoy fame more.

The interviewer is a transgender woman and they discuss transgender issues for a while. Emma is in regular contact with a trans child which makes the topic of trans rights emotional for her because she’s very anxious for this kid’s safety.

She talks about her role as Meg March in the new Little Women movie and defends that unlike what many people say choosing to be a wife and a mother doesn’t make Meg a less feminist character and quotes a line from the movie, “Just because my dreams are different than yours it doesn’t mean they are unimportant.”  

She wishes more people would realize she’s not Hermione Granger but also understands why they want to see that in her because Hermione is a symbol for her too.

She used to think she could never be happy without a partner and now that she has learnt to navigate that better and is genuinely happy single she’s started to think of herself as self - partnered in contrast to the time when she thought of herself as single = lonely.

blue jay

american kestrel

painted bunting

yellow-throated vireo

cerulean warbler

baltimore oriole

american goldfinch

northern cardinal

stylish accessory bird

loud and delicious bird

bird that will kung fu your face while you are grilling in your backyard

overly dramatic fishwizard bird

demonic creepy noise duck

assorted sky-cats

screaming inflatable doofus bird

stump

not technically native but it poops on my lawn

toasted marshmallow friend

‘68 Pro Street Camaro

I need you to open Google Maps. Locate your nearest mall. Get in your car. Drive to Yankee Candle.

Past the seasonal pumpkin display, near the back of the store, you will find a trash pile Man Candle section. You will see candles called MMM, Bacon!. Riding Mower. Man Town. (I’m not kidding. Man Town.) Stay strong. Not in this section, but likely very near this section, you will find a candle called Mountain Lodge.

Hold this jar in your hands like a talisman. Close your eyes and picture a man.

I want to be clear: I’m not talking about a Hugh Dancy. Or an Andrew Garfield, a Ben Whishaw, even a Tom Hiddleston. This exercise requires someone in the Chris Evans weight class. The Richard Armitage department. Someone with smile lines around his eyes who could chop the cedar for your bower with his own hands, strangle an alpha wolf, carry you home when you sprain your ankle in the woods, bench press your entire body. Picture this man in your mountain home with a full beard, a slightly grimy white henley, a fond half smile he reserves only for you. Now open the lid and smell Mountain Lodge.

Steady yourself on the man candle display. Give yourself a second. No, you’re not wrong. Yes, the Yankee Candle Company has just eliminated the need for men. This medium tumbler Mountain Lodge candle jar is now your boyfriend. The Yankee Candle Company has effectively replaced the need for contact with the male half of our species with a compact and clean-burning candle in a jar.

“Do you like this one?” the cashier asked, ringing me up. “Every man should be required by law to smell like what this candle smells like,” I replied intensely. “That’ll be $12.01,” she said.

The trouble is that nearest Yankee Candle Company store was a bit of a trek, and my schedule tended to prohibit this olfactory adventure.

So for the last few weeks, as I’d scroll my Tumblr dash and look at images of attractive manly men, I’d sigh and wistfully think, if only I could engage another sense with this image. If only I could I could truly fathom the ideal fragrance of this man.

And then this happened.

And I knew.

I knew whatever was happening, I needed to get to a Yankee Candle Company. The scent of Mountain Lodge would transport me instantly to this scene. The aroma of this infamous candle could make me live out a self-insertion Avengers fanfic.

So I got in my car, made the drive, and located the Yankee Candle Company.  The store was crowded with holiday shoppers. My nose was immediately assaulted by hundreds of warring scents.  

I battled through the sea of humanity and the Angel Wings-Merry Marshmallow-Magical Frosted Forest assault, buoyed on by my need to understand what Steve Rogers ripping a log in half with his bare hands smelled like.

I waded toward the back of the store, only to discover the man candle section seems to have been discontinued. What was I going to steady myself on, once I found my scented gateway to hanging out with the Avengers on Hawkeye’s farm? I felt lost, adrift, unable to find my bearings amid Soft Blanket-Fluffy Towels-Home Sweet Home.

And then… rising from the “Fresh” display, there it was.

Mountain Lodge.

It was the moment of truth. What would it be like to smell this infamous candle?

I opened the lid. I took a deep breath.

And I giggled.

Ah yes.  This was it.  This gentle, pleasantly masculine fragrance, in fact, reduced me to what I’d probably do in the actual presence of Chris Evans: giggle like an idiot.

The smell makes me smile, makes me laugh, makes me gently swoon: all reactions that, indeed, can be elicited by an ideal man. I can barely handle the true power of Mountain Lodge.

Several months have passed since this discovery. I have regaled friends with the saga, and after hearing of it, they, too, felt the burning need to smell the candle.  One by one, we have all become Mountain Lodge converts. In times of need, this candle is our refuge. Our group has developed escapist superpowers, infused by the Yankee Candle Company. 

THE CANDLE, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND.