#...*and* I get to make ridiculous BUT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE claims about my blorbos

[triflesandparsnips]

Ahahahaha whaaaaat @gardenharuspex? Me? Researching and recreating household and medicinal recipes within the very narrow timeframe of the Western Scientific Revolution with a hard cutoff of 1718 purely because that's apparently my very niche way of engaging with my current gay pirate fandom?

...it's been a little under 1 and a half years since I made Stede Bonnet's lip balm, cmon now, I am the definition of reasonable.

[fatedtime]

the point of fate is not to be mythologically accurate. it’s literally never been the point, ever. it’s hard-baked into the lore, where rumor and superstition are far more important to how a servant manifests than actual historical fact. the point of fate is to use mythology as a base to creating cool/thematically interesting characters that have sick-ass anime battles against each other, along with conveying narratives about the fundamental worth of humanity.

you can make arguments that specific characters don’t do the job of being interesting because of how they’re written, which is fair! you can also make the argument that certain characters should be more accurate because their representation in particular matters due to their relative obscurity or their status as real people (especially if said person in some way experienced disenfranchisement in their life.) these are both valid points worthy of criticism, and i have my own disappointments with fate’s approach to certain topics due to this, especially in cases where it feels like the actual presentation runs counter to the narrative of the original in a way that feels offensive.

but in the grand scheme of things, ‘x thing sucks because it’s not historically accurate’ is a ridiculous statement to make about fate, because the franchise frankly doesn’t give a shit. this isn’t a flaw, it just isn’t the interest of the narrative. it’s like complaining that cubism sucks because the cow doesn’t look like a realistic cow, which is hilariously missing the point of the art-form. from the very beginning, the series has never been about getting everything factually ‘right’.

‘mistakes’ or ‘inaccuracies’ also aren’t necessarily due to a lack of education, like i’ve seen detractors of the series claim, but are instead more likely due to having other priorities which don’t happen to line up with ‘accuracy’. immediately attributing lack of education to personal distaste for a design choice is honestly in poor taste itself. insulting someone’s intelligence leads to bad faith media criticism.  it’s equivalent to saying salvador dalí sucks at anatomy when really he just wants to draw some fucked up little guys.

not every piece of media has the priorities you might have, and just because it’s not catered to you doesn’t mean it’s bad or that the person who created it is stupid/lazy. hell, monetary factors certainly come into play as well -- i’m sure there were choices that were specifically made to make a character ‘sell better’, because ultimately people want to eat. it takes talent to create characters that someone will fall in love with, and even if you don’t fall in love with them, they might just be someone else’s treasured, important blorbo. the plot point that doesn’t aesthetically appeal to you might be exactly catered to someone else, and that’s a completely different issue than writing quality or the education level of the creators.

this post is me defending hans christian anderson being a fucked up little alcoholic and gods being space aliens, by the way, not antisemitism or putting children in bikinis. fuck that shit.