i'm two episodes in and quite happy with it so far

i am also filled with hilarity bc they killed Eskel off IMMEDIATELY and i can hear fandom losing its shit from here

absolutely hysterical

also my new favorite character is Danica, brothel madam and sex worker who takes no witcher bullshit, she's amazing, i hope we see her again

wait, what is Lambert's logic here

how does Geralt claiming Ciri and bringing her to Kaer Morhen have anything to do with Eskel's death? my dude was doomed before he ever got home

or is he just mad that Geralt struck the killing blow

that must be it

weird conversational flow

anyway i love Lambert just as i was always going to

i hate what they did with Triss's hair so much. so. much.

like did anyone think any of the implications of that through? "sure, hiding a Black woman's natural hair so her character looks more like her white counterpart from another version of this canon is fine nbd"? wow

i assume it was to pacify racist fans, but it ain't work because of the racism AND it's pissed off people like me. i can only imagine how Black female fans must feel!

on the other hand, i am so pleased Fringilla is getting to do more this season than be ominous

"And a friend of Geralt's. You must be quite charitable." god i love these characters

also i'm getting impatient, where is Dara

(i'm on episode four now)

Ciri already has a massive crush on Triss, adorable

deaf character! i wonder which sign language they have him using

enter Jaskier with the angry break-up song, fucking fantastic

also they are letting Joey Batey show off what he can actually do. that was killer

DARAAAAAAAAAA

fucking FINALLYYYYY

children please, all this long flowing hair around candles is making me nervous

Yennefer and Jaskier commiserating over how much Geralt sucks

they knew EXACTLY what we wanted

dude Jaskier had more actual human personality in that one scene than in like the entire first season

no one can hold themselves above the narrative this season and that would appear to include the comic relief

"It took me till the fourth verse to understand there were different timelimes" BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

loool

Geralt: explains that an impossible thing has happened
Istredd: nods like this is entirely reasonable

i love Istredd

i did not used to have feelings about him one way or the other, but then i wrote a fic from his pov and now i love him bc that is how that has always worked for me

oh just straight-up doesn't believe it, that makes way more sense

i love that Yennefer is trying to avoid notice wandering around in the world's most obvious purple cloak

she is pulling a Ciri

Istredd and Geralt are bonding, i'm so happy

Geralt is not, he did not come here to bond

he has not yet realized that other people happen to him and there is very little he can do about it

OH SO NOW WE JUST HAVE THE MUTAGENS AGAIN COOL COOL COOL

NO

ROACH

NO

the stuffed unicorn is now Netflix canon. including its demise

ugh i'm finished already why

anyway, we'll see how things fall out int he long run, but right now i'd venture to say that s2, for all its inevitable flaws, did a better job of storytelling than s1 did. it had a shit ton going on, but i didn't come away feeling like it needed ten episodes and only got eight

the major flaws were the weirdness of the conclusion to the season Big Bad arc (i thought for a hot minute or so that they were literally going to save the day with the power of love and i wanted to gag) and the way they handled Yen's loss of her power (i wanted warm fuzzies with her and Ciri gdi, not . . . THAT)

the major highs were some phenomenal new characters (Francesca my love), better use of some established ones (Fringilla!! Dara!! FRINGILLA), and actually having Jaskier mature and grow as a person, which i did not think he as the comic relief would be permitted

absolutely every single second with Yennefer and Jaskier was perfect, PERFECT, including that look they share on realizing that Yennefer's magic is back. chef's goddamn kiss

the one fanon thing i wanted that i thought we might actually get was them becoming bff who hate each other and we got it

(also the shipteasing, god, the shipteasing. wonderful, perfect, yennskier 4 lyf, etc etc)

Jaskier isactually likeable in this season - like, the character on the screen, not whatever fandom went and turned him into. i hardly ever wanted to punch him at all!

some incredible acting from much of the cast, too. i will never like Tissaia, but MyAnna Buring knocked it out of the park with her, i was in awe

Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan were stunning, too, and Mimi Ndiweni is just so good as Fringilla all the time

i think i read that Joey Batey had a hand in writing Jaskie's songs this season, too, and you can tell. they feel more lived-in, like something Jaskier actually wrote and worked on and put himself into, and they show off batey's strengths as a singer and performer much more effectively

and i may not like some of what they did with Yennefer, but Chalotra sold the shit out of it. she talks about how Yennefer is an extraordinary character to get to play and you can see that in her performance

Henry Cavill as Geralt continues to be aesthetically pleasing

i love the new contacts and how much more obviously they mark Geralt as Other, and the way that opaque, unmissable yellow obscures his expression even when he's being emotive. i just kept looking at them thinking "i know Geralt is expressing an emotion here but those are really getting in his way" and it just felt so appropriate to the character

help i have so many feelings about Yennefer and Jaskier i don't know what to do with them all

i knew this was gonna be a great geeky weekend for me. i did not properly appreciate that it would also be full of a lot of very big feelings!

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself XD

so much