#lepur stupid toughts

[lepurcinus]

In reality, even if I get to joke about my concepts of Watership Down in the Himalayas or Watership Down with Pikas. Also you know how it really bothers me the whole idea of trading rabbits with hares lol.

Because that changes the story completely and is just another example of people not being able to let go of the idea that the only relevant element of WD has to be violence and darkness and death. Hares are solitary by nature, they don't fight each other unless it's for mates. Basically the whole plot of finding a new home and community and leadership and the downtrodden is not going to happen that way.

You would have to be creating an original story instead rather than adapting.

Because the story is about rabbits, you're not going to trade the lion king for tigers just because they seem more "awesome" to you. Or White Fang for a coyote because of the dynamics. I know that as such there are adaptations that can turn a story into something completely different while still keeping the idea of course, but the thing is that they usually also try to be something new as a product rather than an adaptation itself.

And well the stigma that rabbits are cute innocent creatures and hares weird Lovecraft cryptids. It's changing unknown aspects of their nature just on the basis of how "disturbing" their appearance is.

For starters the terrible stigma Watership Down has of being just a "scary" story has a lot to do with it, no it's not. It's a story full of layers and it bothers me a little to know that because of scenes in the film they have to believe it is.

Plus the rabbits themselves have another stigma. People just can't help but see them as "cuddly critters". When they are not, rabbits are also WILD ANIMALS, they have to deal with a lot of crap every day, rabbits also fight, bleed and bite each other to death. Any rabbit owner knows how terribly chaotic they can be and wild rabbits are aggressive as shit with each other.

Stories like Watership Down HELP remove that stigma, even with certain outdated or unknown topics at the time Richard Adams managed to make his slightly to anthropomorphic rabbits feel like the non-human animals they are, he gave them culture, language, myths and mild intelligence but adapted in a way that sounds believable to anyone who knows the basics about rabbits, even the story itself is filled with thousands of facts about these animals that allow you to learn about them.

Watership Down doesn't censor their reality, and not just because they kill each other or some stupid thing they always say. It doesn't censor the rabbits as the animals they are, they eat their waste, they have in mind the idea of reproducing almost as a law, they are not immediate friends of their animal companions and they even have a hard time communicating with them.

Watership Down is about rabbits because it shows their reality, their anguish and daily struggles, events that although fictional and sometimes fantastic are not far from the possibilities of what a rabbit can do. And it also works with rabbits because it has the whole element of community, family, peer bonding, leadership and knowing one's value and what one is good at.

A lot of that is lost if you simply change them for another animal simply because you think it covers a false "aesthetic" better and it's just the same story but made up by changing its nature.

It also bothers me because people just don't understand that they are different but related animals.

[lepurcinus]

Rabbits: pretty religious beings

Hares/Jackrabbits: Fucking nihilists who doesn't give a fuck about life meaning

[lepurcinus]

This Is the worst take I've ever read in my life, Bro no need to lie to live with 😭.

(The fact that they refers to the miniseries as a "movie remake" instead of as, well, a miniseries than a different adaptation just tells me they didn't see it and probably didn't even read the book either).

This and that Watership Down was about "Lord of the Flies-style cannibal rabbits" are the worst things about Watership Down I've read this week.

[lepurcinus]

In another strange reflection I made, I don't think it's wrong for an animal xenofiction story to show the message of the harm done by man or that animals fear or even "hate" them (this one applies more if they are more anthropomorphized).

But it shouldn't just boil down to "mankind is evil, die, the world would be a better place". The use of this kind of phrases is still fine, some are even powerful, but it is better to know how to use them instead of just being misanthropic.

I found on Youtube a scene from the movie Samson & Sally, which is about sperm whales. And a character says:

"Mankind is not vicious, mankind is stupid. Someday man will realize what he's doing. By killing everything in the sea he is killing himself. When the sea is dead, mankind will die, too".

This is a great example of a impactful, powerful phrase that makes its message very clear. Man affects his ecosystem and is also part of it, his actions are not only towards other creatures.

Of course I'm still a fan of the more neutral stories. It is still possible to teach the feeling of fear, bewilderment and suffering of animals towards our actions, but the world is too gray and changing to just pounce on one idea.

This is also not something about whether we humans are inherently good or bad, but as with everything, there are many variables. And instead of just sitting around crying and complaining, one must themselves set the change and example of how they want things to be. And a story can be that media and set that example that will lead to that change.

[lepurcinus]

Seriously, I would like to have a Facebook group dedicated to xenofiction/animal content in media.

Discord servers are great, but it's a bit more interesting to do full posts with you know... Stories, texts, recommendations a more open community...

The closest thing I have is a Watership Down group and honestly I find it pretty disappointing, as it's just image and video spam. And sometimes the occasional half interesting thing...

[lepurcinus]

At this point I don't know if I'm sure about my stories, there are concepts, there are scenes, but there is no concise plot as such.

Mostly the Iberian animal one isn't quite convincing me, but I can't think of anything that would make me change what I already have.

The protagonist hares don't have such memorable moments or defined personalities, they feel empty and outside of a couple of scenes there's no point.

And my rabbit characters. Oh, rabbits whose original warren gets into trouble and they set off into the unknown looking for a new home, when they arrive they search for more rabbits to make it bigger. Jeez, I feel like I'm writing a cheap plagiarism of Watership Down, I don't feel some identity.

As many animals as I want to put in I don't know how I'll do it, what stories they tell. The only one with a definite and unique backstory is the lynx, and I haven't thought of almost any of his story yet.

And now, I'm not sure if I want them to talk. Or how I define their actions without anthropomorphize too much. I don't know if I want it to feel more naturalistic without dialogue.

This is burning me out more than I thought at first. And about the others I have, uh, there's still almost nothing either...oh the demotivation

[lepurcinus]

Something I noticed recently and maybe not to my complete liking is that in many parts of WD it make comparisons of rabbit behavior with humans or explain a lot of how different are or what means and it feels very out of touch, like, I want to learn on my own how different animals are from people, I don't need it being directly explained to me, thanks.

And that's because there are other parts where he DOES describe what the rabbits do but doesn't explain all at once what it means (I appreciate the parts where they approach each other and "greets" with their snouts sniffing each other).

Also, sometimes Adams makes analogies that are a bit unfamiliar or weird to my little brain so I don't quite understand what he means by that.

Am I doing too much Watership posting? Who cares, I need something to keep me alive and there aren't too many conversations recently.

[lepurcinus]

If I got a nickel for every time I ended up liking a "new version" of a franchise I follow, made in 3D and distributed by Netflix but disowned by much of the fandom. I'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's rare that it's happened twice.

[lepurcinus]

Once I have a dream of a book cover with a hare covered by blue roots/veins and the title was "Blue Bramble".

I don't know what that means, but I think it was a divine sight to me for writting that story.

[lepurcinus]

That moment were you just read a book about talking rabbits and think:

"Oh rabbits are actually cool" and start to research about them and then discover all the species of their order. And you become obsesive about them and discover everything about how they are.

And then you realice that feeling you thought was lost for a long time ago and searching about animals becomes an obsession again, and with it your desire to create stories become stronger again. It's a rabbit hole that I don't want to leave never.

It's a feeling that I'm glad to have, it's was a desicion that im still proud to take.

[lepurcinus]

Reading these old naturalist books makes me feel like a time traveler.

I really appreciate what they contain and it is comforting to see that even in those days there was a love for nature. But it's just that some things and thoughts feel so archaic.

Of course, it was the time when hating wolves and wishing them extinction was the law, and where sport hunting was not even regulated. So seeing men talk so normally about pointing a gun at an animal feels perfectly understandable.

That and how very humanized it feels no matter how much you say it's not. Reflected in the mention of human actions compared to animals, attributing certain thoughts to them both positive and negative and the obvious preference over mammals and birds over nasty, evil reptiles.

[lepurcinus]

Anyone who says stupid shit about paleontology/biology is added to my blacklist of people who will have their arms replaced with test tubes.

[lepurcinus]

Oh look, real life Lilium and Chanterelle.

[lepurcinus]

Something a bit unpopular, or a Hot Take. But personally I think it makes me very uncomfortable when mythical animal fiction loses a bit of realism.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the idea of adding magic or mythical elements (I actually like it), it's just that sometimes they focus so much on this, that the creatures stop feeling like the animal they represent. Instead they are seen as a more humanized or stereotypical version of it (*looks askance at cat fiction*).

Maybe it also stems from the fact that I really appreciate the natural stories of real animals? I feel it's something a little more important to note.

I even have to say that in wsd you have Fiver's future visions, and while they are important to the plot, the story doesn't rely on the mystical psychic bunnies. They still feel like real rabbits. (I dare say, you can even remove that detail and the story would still hold up very well).

[lepurcinus]

I think that my favorite part of my animal stories Is all the lore and mythology I can create for them.

I just, very interesting, guides me to do research for maintaining the realism and makes me imagine a lot of possibilities and ideas

[lepurcinus]

I urgently need a xenofiction group or something somewhere.

Seriously, I want to get together with a bunch of random people where we talk very passionately about our ideas for writing talking animals (or aliens, whatever) that are trying to be realistic.