#squeedora

[kuwdora]

TWN season 4 reactions and thoughts, from one kuwdora. Would you like 2000+ words of witcher rambling?

Alright, so I have a ton of thoughts and reactions about TWN season 4. Have been too exhausted and burnt out to post before now. And yet the new season inspired a lot of new fanworks for me and I’ve been chugging along with those inspire of my burnout.

This is all just immediate reactions and settling into the season. I’ll have more rewatch thoughts for sure. But in the meantime!

This is one of my favorite of the books and this season hit so many great things in a perfect way. Easily become my favorite season. But really the narrative build to get to this point of the books is really what’s been the payoff.

I had really really set my expectations on the floor with regards to Ciri, and was trying not to be hopeful about the Hansa feelings, and I went into the season not sure what they were going to do with Yen and the Lodge. But oh my god, everything exceeded all my expectations and hopes.

For me the show delivered on Ciri’s descent into darkness, getting to be gay, do crime and become absolutely feral. 100% love. I am making chittering cat noises when she’s on screen. Ekekekekekekeke stab them all and let’s fucking go.

The Hansa just made me so fucking happy I could cry. Spectacular. I was hanging on every word in every scene. MILVA, my beloved. REGIS, my god Laurence Fishburne absolutely slayed it. CAHIR stunning wet cat with conviction, hhhhnng. Jaskier, babbyyyy, forever ridiculous and committed. Zoltan and Yarpen!!!

More about Yen + Lodge, Hansa, Rats, etc, etc, under the cut. Overall squee, some ???? and shrugging and lots more happy babbling.

I love Yen but everything with Yen and Phil and the Lodge, and Vilgefortz didn’t make sense on my first viewing. I absolutely don’t mind the changes in having Yennefer not in a cell being tortured by Vilgefortz (but omg can’t Fringilla and Istredd get a fucking break, jfc). This is where my rewatch will probably help me think more about what they were doing - or trying to do, or try to figure out what I might be missing. But also I’m always solidly aware of the constraints of productions These Days and we only get a few episodes, and exist on a streaming platform. (That is a subject of a Whole Other Post…)

I have a hard time reconciling the Philippa we’d seen from the last season, and her fall from Redanian grace in season 4, that she would just be licking her wounds in Montecalvo and so willingly let Yen take the reins of the Lodge. I have to rewatch Yen and Phil’s Thanedd scenes again to think more about their dynamic, and wonder more about what the implied relationship Phil had with Tissaia was something that influenced both of their motivations and interactions in season 4, or if I need to write a fic to get my thoughts out on them.

I would have infinitely preferred 8-12 episodes of watching Yen and Phil vie for the leadership position of the Lodge and gain various sorceress backing, culminating in sorceress politicking into diverging plans on how (and why) to get Ciri in their grasp. Buuuut we only have 8 episodes, in a fraught show that has been hanging on through a lot of production issues. And I think they got into a nice writing groove with having episode 6 be the Big Battle of the season. But we ned Sorceress Unity and not a schism on grabbing Hen Icher or Yen’s Daughter.

But really: think of it - how great would have a vignette-style ‘joys of cooking’ be for the sorceresses???? Give me the vignettes of Phil and Yennefer’s past interactions, show me Sabrina’s choices and hard decision’s she’s made, give me more of Assire and TRISS and you could throw crumbs to the Phil/Triss shippers by having Horny Flashback for them. Give me BAMF dwarf sorceress! Then have Lambert show up with a joke and something absolutely devastating that ends with another self-deprecating joke, while Coen shares a story that makes everyone cry.

I don’t understand if they showed or implied why Vilgefortz saw Yennefer as enough of a threat to come and storm Montecalvo to remove her as a threat. Or if he was doing this to find out more about Ciri’s location from getting his hands on Yennefer - I need to rewatch those scenes again, since it was clear Vilgefortz had his a-ha moment during Yen’s attempt of Mindfuck Torture, but that felt like it came after the fact instead of being a motivating factor for him. But again, I need to rewatch and think some more.

Kaer Morhen witchers teaming up with sorceresses is cool except I wish there was more time spent with seeing the witchers work with individual sorceresses.

But I found the whole Battle of Montecalvo to be overwrought and silly.. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the women being BAMFs and doing magic and and working together (YEN’S FACE COVERED IN BLOOD AND ICHOR HHHHNGHHHH) but the season 1 battle sequence had the sorceresses defending their position, season 3 had them defending their position, and now season 4 have them defending their position. It’s all big, brash melee fighting and probably working within visual effects budgets. They go to be BAMFs, and use some magic. But it really did not do it for me (except for Yen’s face covered in viscera, okay, I really am that easy).

Anyway I guess I have a lot of feelings about the Battle of Montecalvo in spite of loving a lot of the visuals and character moments there. WOMENNNNNNNNN. clenches fist

Other things of note:

Oh my god, the inversion of Francesca and Yen’s roles has got me making seal noises. Yen visiting Francesca who is dissociating and wallowing in grief, trying to get her to come and fight for Something. And I SCREAMED when Yen turned Francesca into the artifact. I think all of Francesca’s rage and grief from the last two seasons leading to that point was just— a really great payoff and I fucking loved it. I felt Francesca and Yen’s dynamic was much more clear of how and why they got there and agreed to work together than Philippa and Yen’s.

ASSIRE showing up being perfectly coiffed and glam old witch on a broom = 10/10 no notes, I screamed and clapped. Give me MORE. God the absolute fun of just subverting the haterade the book characters, had for Assire’s appearance an what the other sorceresses thought of her, and giving us this Assire who is poised, and gives no fucks because she is high confidence and doesn’t care and might be a little goofy but that’s okay because we are all here to kick some Vilgefortz ass.

I can’t remember her name, the sorceress dwarf with the BAMF hammer, using chaos similarly as Vilgefortz does to create more strength in the strikes?? Fucking loved her, 10/10 flirt with all the women and beat the shit out of everyone with her amazing hammer.

Okay, what else. Pivoting to.. Hhhhhghmm. Oh my fucking god, Istredd and Fringilla. Istredd basically taking the place of book!Yen’s role in being tortured for information, tying it into the macguffin monolith nonsense. Istredd’s brain and heart is too powerful for the show. If he got to be in more scenes, he would be able to explain everything and give everyone a roadmap of what to fucking do and why. RIP Istredd, you deserved better narratively and emotionally.

Yen recruiting Fringilla — this is another relationship I need to chew on some more, but I’m absolutely in Fringilla’s thrall. Her arc in the show is so fucking compelling and Mimi’s performance is absolutely fantastic. I wasn’t sure if Fringilla was going to yet again Double-Agent this shit and fuck off with some extra power on her own at the last minute. But I am absolutely impressed and frightened of Fringilla’s resiliency and ingenuity and deftness at navigating the shittiest situations. She is probably the best sorceress of the show who does this, which is why Yen was the one who came to her in the first place with her recruitment call and ask to infiltrate Vilgefortz's side.

And more:

Sitting on the edge of my seat, babbling to myself about Cahir being called a Nilfgaardian. He’s gonna say it, he’s gonna say it. He’s gonna say it. Truly glorious, and such an easy layup but still 100% perfection.

CAHIR AND THE FISH. clappy hands CAHIR’S DEVOTION. All of Cahir’s scenes with Geralt love love love.

CAHIR AND EMHYR. HHHHHNGH the shitty terrible relationship one builds with the monster you feed in the forest, and then you grow up and he brings you into the inner circle of trust and strength and purpose. My god. Cahir be fucked up. I love it.

MILVAAAAAAA MY BELOVED. Wiggling with glee about her - and the unexpected delight of her scenes with Cahir. Yes, more, very good.

Ciri getting the tattoo - and stabbing the fuck out of those three guys who burst in on them, then casually flopping back down to get the tattoo finished. 10/10 I love you Ciri.

Eva getting to live their best life. Get to fuck Philippa Eilhart last season, murder a king, then casually watch as Dijkstra and Philippa’s power disintegrates, AND getting to be the one who boots Dijkstra from camp and defacto Redania??? BEST LIFE.

Everything with Regis and his cottage. Everything REGIS.

Everything with the riverboat. Including they actually let Meve show up and omg with missing teeth. Thank you show for giving us more shots of women being amazing.

Vilgefortz looking so fucking pissy, what a fucking loser nightmare, please keep being shitty, can’t wait to see you die.

AND SOME MORE:

Bonhart and the Rats. I’m gonna make another post about The Rats: A Witcher’s Tale. But let me try and talk a little about the season 4 presence of the characters. I had low expectations and wasn’t sure what to expect with the Rats, considering how dark everything got in this part of the book with Ciri and them.

I think what Netflix did to Rats can be best described as, “massaging character temperaments” and making some changes to subvert some of the nastier dub-con and adding some backstory to Mistle for some thematic parallels and motifs about the shit that happens to women and what they do to survive. And to do some contrasting with The Rats Trauma and Ciri’s Trauma.

It feels less like a drug-fueled feral gang of orphans, and more like nihilistic punk misfits who have been jaded by colonialism and war, and become brigands who are living fast and dying hard. Which isn’t to say there the Rats aren’t dark and feral in the show, they are drug-addled and opportunistic and Kayleigh definitely was trying to coerce Ciri.

But massaging the temperaments of the characters I think did a great job enforcing and juxtaposing Ciri’s personality and her descent into darkness by having the Rats notice that’s Ciri is really Other in spite of what she has in common with them. Like, I think that’s fucking fantastic. Ciri is not really the same, and yetttttt.

Bonhart. Okay, I am totally on board with the casting. Fucking nasty incredible. I think there was also some really interesting massage in temperament for Bonhart for the show. Book Bonhart is really terrifying and gross and dark, and there’s this sinister cloud that surrounds him.

The show Bonhart is equally terrifying, gross, and dark, and he’s got this darkness that surrounds him. But for me I think the psychopathy was elevated with how casual he was about murder, the performance was just.. so gross and great. I think it really came across well on screen and is core of Bonhart in the books. But there's this playfulness and glee in the murdering that is like, "oh fuck, this dude is crazy."

This is a guy who really fucking loved his hobby: murdering, murdering witchers and skilled fighters in particular. He approaches every scene and moment with the care of someone who has honed his craft and appreciates skill. The scene with him investigating the mercenaries’ deaths and showing admiration and interest of Ciri’s skill? Fucking hell.

Moving on from the Rats for a moment….

Okay, what else? Oh fucking fuck. I fucking forgot that James fucking Purefoy was going to be in the show as Tawny Owl. Is there anyone out there who is as obsessed and in love with Purefoy’s low-key swagger and quiet plotting as I am?? I don’t know if non-book people are gonna care about Skellan but I fucking care, omg.

I think it took me two episodes for me to recognize Purefoy, I’m so used to him being much more in your face,playing braggadocios and center of attention - so this was a real fucking treat for me to see him do this role. Fucking nuance, man. Purefoy nailing it for me.

I’m not sure what non-book people would make of all the Nilfgaardian scenes, but I’m also low-key impressed by the subtle worldbuilding and things they kept for Nilfgaard, showing without telling. Like having the fucking weirdo astrologer there as an advisor for Emhyr. But also Tawny Owl’s machinations and hhhhhhngh. I will enjoy rewatching and thinking some more on them.

Teryn and Yen's scene broke my fucking hear and is going into multiple vids, Milva punching the dude's nose is A++++ forever, Francesca's dead-eyed gaze, full of grief.

Also, lastly, I loved Liamralt through and through. Geralt being disabled, Geralt’s scenes with Jaskier, with Yen, with Ciri. I loveeeeee.

So overall: so much positive, obsessive, fascinated YAYs and enthusiastic squee. Not really buying the Montecalvo and Lodge stuff but I’m just rolling with what they’re giving me. But my god the acting was all top notch, the character moments were chefs kiss, and that battle on the bridge at the end of the season was fantastic.

[kuwdora]

[witcher netflix vid]

Dance Macabre music: by Ghost pairing: Yennefer/Lodge, Lodge/Yennefer, Yennefer/Leadership length: 3:37 download link: coming this weekend content notes: blood and mutilation, character death, angst and tragedy I just wanna bewitch you all night.

also on AO3 This is the first fanvid from my Witcher Netflix vid album Albatross of Love. Hope you enjoy! I'll have some album art and other vids and process goodies to share over the next few months. WOMEN!!!!!!

[kuwdora]

Previously on kuwdora's witcher vid album: Albatross of Love, I made a babbling album announcement, I nattered about album concept/genre and song choices.

And now:

Have you ever started working on a fic, get into a good groove with it, and then the wheels come off, or you write yourself in circles? Or lose the thread of what scene you were trying to pull together?

Or have you ever had that time you were writing a fic and then it seemed like, maybe there was some kind of novel actually in the fic and you didn’t understand why it wanted to get bigger and bigger when you wanted to write this one story—not a series, not a novel. A single fic.

I had that experience while working on my witcher vid album this month.

I started working on what would be the first song on Albatross of Love. I had a strong concept of how this Yen/women ensemble piece would go, and it would be a banger of an opening.

I started laying clips and had a great opening, truly outstanding, I’m so happy and even want to make gifs of it.

And then. And then...

And then I started adding more clips and women as I made some visual connections between the way women have been treated in Aretuza, at home, everywhere from the beginning of the show. The more I added, the less it was … it was falling on the beat just fine, but it didn’t… feel right. It wasn’t bad, but… It wasn’t what I thought the vid would be about when I started working on it (a whole 2 days earlier).

So I stopped what I was doing. I created a new project and added all these clips there, and then tried to figure out what was going on. There was a greater arc and message about the women in the show here. And it was not as flashy and surface level as the BAMF Sorceresses. I had a whole other fucking vid here that I did not plan for in this album.

Now I’m going through my checklist of: is this actually a vid for the album? Or something I’ll make and share separately? What fucking song….is going make sense with this mess of clips? I spent 3 entire days between work and burnout, hunting for songs and rummaging through song recs in reddit, prodding my dusty forgotten playlists of abandoned songs. I knew… I could feel what kind of song it needed, something darker and more intense.

I was able to narrow down my choices and find something that I think could have worked. I bought the song and placed it under the jumble of clips and it absolutely turned into The Vid I Needed to Make for this album. I added more clips to this new project and I feel like my third eye opened. I shuffled 4 vid ideas around in the track listing and it feels like it was meant to be, omg.

I am tacitly calling this new vid WIP: Metamorphosis.

Let me put my journey another way with gifs. How it started —> how it’s going.

Anyway. If you ever had that time in which you wrote like a 65,000 word fic in 7 days or less, that's kind of what's happened to me over the last two weeks and this +6:00 minute vid.

[kuwdora]

It's festivids go live!! There's 131 vids in the 2024 collection this year! All the fanvids to rarely vidded sources. I've seen some Dungeon Meshi and MASH this morning. An amazing Challengers vid for Tashi. There's women's bouldering! A Girl Walks Alone At Night. 92 sources! Scavenger's Reign! Pottery-making fanvid!! Cute sapphics! So much! I'm doing a watch along on discord with folks and so far everything is, of course, AMAZING. Excited to write some squeeful recs soon!

[kuwdora]

The Rats: A Witcher's Tale.

I was SO SURPRISED when I finished TWN season 4 and then got around to watching The Rats: A Witcher’s Tale a few days later. (What is a good acronym for this … The Rats:AWT. TRAWT….)

I fucking love The Rats movie. It is easily my second favorite episode of TWN season 4. (The first being Joys of Cooking, of course).

This is minor-ly spoilery for the movie with basic plot outline but not a lot of specifics, but with references TWN season 4.

A few reasons why this is my second favorite episode of season 4:

I was unspoiled for the casting in this and it fucking knocked my teeth out with glee when I saw who was playing the washed-up Cat witcher. (More about this under the cut)

Character-building, interpersonal dynamics are SO FUCKING GOOD in this, the plot and pacing was great, and it was showing more of the worldbuilding for the southern part of the Continent.

The Rats Persuade A Washed-Up Cat Witcher Into Their Gang with the promise of money, but end up with the power of friendship, character growth, and tragedy instead.

It’s!! A flashback episode! In the streaming era of television!!! banging pots and pans It’s a gift and treasure in that respect!

It's absolutely fascinating to see on a streamer something so episodic. I vaguely remember reading about the The Rats being pitched as full mini-series, and it sounds like the production got cut short and repackaged into the 82 minute movie-episode.

I’m duly impressed with how well you can watch season 4 without having watched the movie (which takes place before season 4) and still get a great feel for the Rats and who they are and their personalities and whatnot.

The movie really fleshes out character and story and motivations in that way that episodic television was able to do prior the streaming era.

There are juicy tropes and engaging characters: heist plot!!!, stinky old witcher riddled with grief and has no purpose!!! Ragtag anti-heroes, the horrors of war and imperialism, and yes, we have some more narrative parallels they are building into the show as an adaptation; we get backstory for Mistle - they’re adding thematic fuel to the fire here. It's what they’re putting down for the adaptation and I am picking it up and nodding like a bobblehead. I see what they’re doing and I think the movie is a successful addition to the story they’re trying to tell.

The movie is also setting the southern Continent stage as Ciri and Geralt make their way south. Showing us more of the culture, the atmosphere, the people and social norms from Nilfgaard’s environs.

I really appreciated getting more of a taste of that world, since I know what Bonhart is taking Ciri into in season 5, and I know what types of people Geralt will be encountering in the final season.

But also the tragedy and dramatic tension of going into the movie and knowing exactly already how the Rats are going to end up, because we’ve already seen their death. It’s heartbreaking, cathartic in that cathartic TV way.

I really love the depth of regret and sorrow Christelle Elwin brought to season 4 with her Mistle performance. Particularly her scenes with Ciri, and when she's vaguely referring to What Happened to Ciri. Then getting to see more of the how and why Mistle's life got upended, why she's so fervent on leaving things in the past (even though the past can't always leave you).

Ahhhhh, Christelle fucking nailed it, the movie was so captivating and heartbreaking for her (and the others, but SO MUCH HER! oh my god).

Okay, going to foam at the mouth a little under the cut about ye old casting.

Okay. I started the movie and I’m watching…I’m watching. Oh, hey, there’s a Cat Witcher. Oh, sad story, he’s drunk and full of regr—oh, he’s the witcher who took Foltest’s money and ran off instead of killing the striga? Okay now that’s an incredible throwba—HANG ON. IS THAT DOLPH LUNDGREN.

THATS DOLPH LUNDGREN.

DOLPH LUNDGREN IS THE CAT WITCHER.

Dolph Lundgren. Is the cat witcher !!!!!!!!

This is. this. I am LIVING FOR THIS.

I grew up watching all of the 80s and 90s films with Dolph Lundgren. I am shaken by the absolute perfection of this casting. His character’s look. His performance. Oh my god it hit all of my buttons so hard, I was a goner immediately.

It’s a crying shame there’s so much time between the release of each new season, and they couldn’t have (magically gone back in time and) made this and released it in 2021. Because fandom would become absolutely feral and batshit bananas about Brehen and the thieving gang of youths that adopted him.

I love it so much. I’m excited to rewatch it, and I’m excited to make a vid about it, and I’m… just.. If you would have told me two months ago I would be this excited about this movie, you would have seen my eyebrows disappear into my hair.

Anyway. That all being said: I really loved this movie.

[kuwdora]

How about a sneak peek of the Regis vid because he has the Hansa feeling alright.

no color correction/color grading yet, that's always towards the end of my vidding process.

[kuwdora]

The Fanlore entry for Vid Farr:

Vid Farr[1] is that state of total obsession with a song or vid concept where nothing can stand between a vidder and her editing software...and live. Sisabet on Vid Farr: "I'm actually pondering this mental shutdown thing fairly hard cause that is how I know I am going into Vid Farr: I stop thinking and it just happens."[2] Pre Vividcon vidding can become an unstoppable Con Farr/Vid Farr hybrid madness.[3] Fear it.

Sisabet in her 2005 livejournal entry really summing up all the pre-work, pre-vidding that happens in your head before you ever open up the software:

Pre-Vid I am nothing but think. The song is on repeat for forever. I don't get tired of a song as long as I am still figuring it out and it is still telling me something. So listening to one song for weeks at a time is a joy. Like a brain teaser. And I'll read fic. I'll search for something that resonates with me - that bounces off the source and the song. There is a lot of thinking going on here. Too much, if you are misfortunate to end up with me in chat when I am on a roll in a Pre-Vid state. But they aren't all my thoughts. They are this mish-mosh of other people's insights and fic and possibly something else that I haven't even considered. But when you get to the timeline, everything is fair game.

Too real. I need to dig up that Ben Wyatt meme for this album (swap out 'depressed' with 'burnt out.') I spent most of November having one vid playing in my head in the background while I worked on Metamorphosis, which is a completely different witcher vid, heh.

I finally got Metamorphosis done enough that I spent Sunday-Tuesday night clipping season 4 scenes for the next vid, Working Class Heroes. Three days clipping, then I started laying clips after work on Wednesday night after dinner.

Day 1 of editing. By 10pm Wednesday my timeline looked like this:

Only a few blank spots but I had the bulk of the vid fully existing in my head already.

Day 2. Then Thursday evening after work I'm zooming through the timeline some more:

I took Friday off. On Saturday I got the rest of the vid pretty much smoothed out, with a few exceptions I need to go back and poke into shape:

Looking closely enough, one may find that I actually made the song a little longer because I needed juuust a little more to fit in everything I needed.

My vid feelings:

Two vids done...7...or 8 more to go.

[kuwdora]

Vid WIP - Witcher Vid Album

So when I get excited, I get a ton of vid ideas and easily overwhelmed about what I actually want to commit to doing. Especially when I already have a Festivid assignment I need to get done before January. And some other WIPs I’ve been wanting to tackle….Yet when it comes to the witcher, all my other fic and vid vid WIPs get placed on a back burner.

TWN Season 4. Omg. I just had vid idea after vid idea, or desires to vid things without knowing what songs, or wanted to use ALL the songs, because I just had too many thoughts and little idea how to prioritize.

Then I realized what I could do and what I should do. I’m making a Witcher vid album. I was definitely inspired by Jagged Little Slayer the Buffy vid album by @periru3 and @tafadhali. That vid album was so fucking good from the use of the songs, to the character and lyrical associations, and matching mood and tone to different emotional arcs and plots. (I still have the album open in a tab for future commenting!) (Vid fans and Buffy fans should go and watch it!)

I realized I could, and SHOULD, make a witcher vid album like two days after the season dropped. So this was all just coming in fast and hot and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my mind along the way, but in the good way. I spent that first weekend thinking about songs and album sequencing—creating it like a vidshow of sorts, with pacing and variety of characters so that it’s actually like a 25 minute vidshow, instead of only 8 or 9 stand-alone vids (that will all be posted separately).

The possibilities just… become so much bigger and unique when thinking about how to make the song choices and character associations relate to one another and as a collective/series.

In my creative frenzy, after a few days of thinking what I most liked about the show, what I’m taking away from the characters portrayals, getting high on season 4….and my feelings about the show as an adaptation of the books…aaaaand how I could try to pull things together for a thematic story.

I realized I wanted to make this a rock album.

So it’s going to be all rock music. Rock and rock sub-genres. A Witcher rock vid album. It’s a mouthful.

But also: what about the album name? Well my brain went hog wild workshopping ideas and thoughts for that too. What can speak about the collective of songs, and the things I want to vid about the show and characters?

I’m pretty settled on the following name for the album:

Albatross of Love.

I’m 99% settled on about 9 songs for the album. And @supercupcakecollector-love the song you sent me last year is absolutely getting the place of honor on album. ....And @dancingwiththefae mused aloud several weeks (..months??) ago about some music for A Character, which absolutely is inspired. And has inspired me. And is happening. (It’s already in progress.)

So I’m making a witcher vid album. I’m bursting with incoherent glee and that creative mania. I’m going to Post about it, omg. Commentary and maybe snippets, and process notes as I become more unhinged and excited. Going to use the tag witcher vid album: albatross of love.

It’s going to be a project that I’m going to ride that dopamine wave through this fucking burnout and seasonal grief.

I’m half-convinced I want to make album booklet, too. That might be too ambitious but my god my soul is just burning with excitement at the thought.

Not sure if I will share the track listing before I release each vid, cause I kind of like holding onto the song choice for the surprise factor. But omg I’m already a month into this project and need to babble about everything I’m experiencing.. so we’ll see if I spill my own beans about all of the songs, nyahhhah.

This album is going to feature all of the awesomeness of the women, Ciri’s Journey, yenralt feelings, the Jaskier song that has been on loop for me while writing him since 2021 (and I didn't think I'd ever get enough canon source to make this Jaskier vid, omg but I did), aaaand more.

I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster of squee. I’m so, so fucking excited. I love vidding the Witcher Netflix so much.