#they were originally written as the same character

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

yes the plants take the gem but what does that have to do with sonic and tails can you explain I'm very intrigued

i'm assuming you're referring to this post!

In the anime Sonic X, the third season was dedicated to a completely original story. (also obligatory "please watch the subbed version, the dubbed version got censored heavily" mention) The spoiler-free version is that group of aliens in fucked-up robot armor, led by Dark Oak, descend on Mobius to try and steal the Chaos Emeralds. In attempt to save the universe from these freaks, Super Sonic scatters the emeralds across the galaxy before crashing to the planet (he's fine tho). The aliens, known as the Metarex, then attack the planet and steal something from its core, causing the plants to slowly wither and die.

Around this time, a refugee from space crashes on the planet, looking for Sonic. An anthropomorphic plant, her name is Cosmo and she is the last survivor of her race after the Metarex attacked her ship. She knows Sonic as the only person who can control the chaos emeralds, and begs him to help defeat the Metarex. Turns out these guys have been planet-hopping and genociding as they go, but their main goal is to steal the Planet Egg, which is a magic thing at the core of each planet that keeps it alive and thriving. She currently doesn't know what they're using them for but it's not for anything good. And, well, now they're hunting chaos emeralds... and, as we find out later, making fake ones.

Tails happens to have a spaceship so the whole gang goes into space to fight the Metarex. This takes up the entire season and it fucks severely. Again, the English dub was heavily censored; the og Japanese has constant death and shit. In the last of the spoiler-free bits, I will say that if you have ever heard of "Dark Sonic"... this is where he appears.

The entire season is extremely dark but extremely well-written, which makes it very popular in the fanbase. Ian Flynn has previously stated he wanted to adapt this arc to comic but Sega wouldn't let him; us seeing the Chaos Emerald surrounded by plants, along with fake chaos emeralds and Dark Sonic-implications, is making us wonder if Sega's let up and we might get this arc after all.

Now, spoiler version, though I really do suggest you watch the subbed version of this season bc it's a fucking masterpiece:

We find out late in the season that Cosmo and the Metarex are the same species. In this species, the sexual dimorphism is a different "final stage" of their life cycle. The "male" plant-creatures enter their final stage as basically a kaiju, in order to defend their society from threats; the "female" final stage is turning into a giant fuckin tree in order to reproduce with seeds. The downside is that once you enter this final stage, it is FINAL, and you die shortly after.

However, when their planet was attacked by an unseen threat (it's never clarified, but a lot of people theorize it to be the Black Arms considering Shadow 05 was about to drop), they were all about to get wiped tf out. Dark Oak started experimenting with the Planet Egg in order to stay permanently in kaiju version without dying. His wife, Earthia (or "Ashia" in Japanese, but it just translates to "Earthia") is fucking horrified that he's fucking with the life of their planet like this. While he convinces the "males" to join his side, Earthia escapes with the girls and bombs their planet to kill Dark Oak and his new monsters. They survive though, and Dark Oak starts leading them to steal more planet eggs.

Turns out their plan is to use the power of the eggs and chaos emeralds (fake or real) to do a full-scale attack on the entire fucking universe, which will kill all animal-people and turn every planet into overgrown plants. We actually see some characters from a Shadow one-off episode being killed and violently turned into trees in one scene. Fucked up. That's what they want to do to everything.

And Cosmo? Well she didn't just happen to be a survivor; turns out Dark Oak spared her from the attack on her ship, semi-possessed her in order to spy through her eyes and ears, and yeeted her down to Mobius. He's been using her to spy on the Sonic Crew this entire time, against her will and without her knowledge. It fucks everyone up a WHOLE lot.

Anyway there's like a three-part finale where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are desperately trying to keep these fuckers from Mass Genociding. Finally, Cosmo realizes that she's the only one who can stop this and sacrifices herself; she goes into her Final Stage, turning into a tree but trapping Dark Oak in there with her (it's a long story, he kinda turned into a meteor). She then appears to Tails, the ship captain, and tells him to fucking shoot her to kill both her and Dark Oak, saving the galaxy.

The problem is, Tails and Cosmo have had a bit of a romance over the course of the season. It's been fucking adorable, and Tails became extremely protective of her after Shadow tried to kill her (long story). There's an uncomfortably drawn-out scene (and I mean that in the best way) where Tails is like. Emotionally broken and trying to figure out any way to do this without killing Cosmo. Eventually, he has to give in and fucking shoot her, blowing her and Dark Oak up. It saves the galaxy but traumatizes the hell out of him.

Super Sonic and Shadow contain the blast, and Super Shadow chaos-controls it away and disappears (this is likely bc they were setting up for the Sonic Heroes arc, where Shadow would have to appear out of nowhere again). When Sonic returns to the ship, Tails meets with him, desperate for him to say he saved the day last-minute and brought Cosmo back. Instead, all Sonic could find was a single seed– considering how the Metarex reproduce, it's probably Cosmo's child, but it's never clarified. This causes Tails to have a complete fucking breakdown.

The season p much ends there. They show everyone starting to heal on Mobius, have a bit where the anime-exclusive character Chris has character development and leaves to go home, and then go "and now we're going to have more adventures!! yay!!" before panning to a potted plant in Tails's workshop, showing that the seed has sprouted.

As I said, it's very dark, but VERY good, and thus we all really really hope that it's what Sonic IDW is building up to. They've been building up fake Chaos Emeralds, Tails blaming himself for things outside of his control, and Sonic being 110% done. I didn't even get into the Dark Sonic stuff, cause it only appears briefly in one episode and then is never mentioned again, which you'd think would be bad writing but no it just raises so many questions and you know that was what was intended by it.

The arc is really beloved but because it only appeared in a 2005 anime (which was heavily censored in English, and the og Japanese didn't air officially until a couple years ago), not a huge chunk of the fanbase knows about it. Which means we really want to share it and get more people into it and how good a character Cosmo is. So yeah that's what we're excited for.

[grandwitchbird]

I talked about this already to some extent. But let’s round it up. Because there’s new DA people and I’m v tired but also invested at this point.

Also there’s a broader point here. Several tbh.

When people are kind of flailing around looking for the source of problems with a piece of media, particularly an unchallenging piece of media, and resorting to a shallow set of ‘criticisms’ that gesture at real issues, often there are fundamental flaws in said piece of media. They’re just being misidentified to the point of nonsense.

When something is by all metrics genuinely well done AND spectacular in execution, you do not get this. You get straightforwardly stupid people crying about Atreus acting like a child. You get transparently bigoted or immature people whining about Ellie or Joel having coherent arcs.

When something is by most metrics competently written but lacking in execution in multiple ways AND it makes ‘representation’ a selling point. It’s gonna get both column 1 and column 2 in force. This makes everything very loud and very stupid forever. I refuse to be held captive by that so I will keep talking about real things. Because in column 1 there’s an attempt to get at the actual problems, just without the needed vocabulary and experience.

And yes there’s overlap in column 1 & 2. I call it the clown show. That’s just not everything that’s happening.

The actual problems in Veilguard are the problems with BioWare as a whole. And mostly they have to do with motivation and ethics. Anyone who wants to seriously understand what’s gone so terribly wrong with every game release since Origins needs to reckon with this.

This company refuses to consistently define its storytelling values within the game world/s beyond ‘yay friendship’ and ‘trauma sad’. This is why the use of sexual violence in origins is there to shock 12 year olds. If that game were well written and actually meant for mature adults, sexual violence would just be one bad thing that can happen* to people (and if it were weighted towards women, we’d have clearly defined patriarchal systems and sexism that, again, is not there for laughs or shock value) and there would be some actual grasp of psychology and power in the text in general. This is also why people are reducing an attempt at actual mythic storytelling with Mythal to ‘abusive mother’ ‘trauma sad’. These games as texts invite reduction.

That psychology? Utterly lacking for the most part. And not lacking in the way of a story that’s doing something else. Lacking because the text willfully uses shorthand and assumed empathy** from the audience instead of laying bare the actual human motivations*** behind everything. Individual characters rise above this, and all the characters give hints of it, but that’s not the same as actually writing a story that accounts for real human motivations as part of its larger narrative. Characters in truly robust fiction are supportive functions of the larger narrative, and that narrative has clear priorities founded on strong values.****

The damn audience. These games are written for a specific audience. And that audience is really racist and pretty self indulgent. It doesn’t care about motivation. It thinks Varric is an interesting character who isn’t written like a checklist. It’s happy as long as it gets to smash its dolls together. It also likes to send death threats. This audience is an abstracted boogeyman in the writers room as far as I can tell, and it’s stealing all the motivation.

Cannot believe this site has pushed me to actually say this. It’s liberal! These are distinctly liberal games. They cannot and will not say anything truly meaningful because their whole ethos is built on pretending they’re not conservative (an ethos defined by retreat). This is why the subversion of power fantasy in DA is interesting but can ring hollow. It’s incoherent for a reason! It’s not looking its values in the eye. This is also why ME2 remains distinct. Turns out it’s easier for liberals to write villains pretending to be heroes. Take that as you will.

I’m not really interested in talking about how corny Bioware dialogue has always been. It’s always been corny. There’s actual voice direction problems in Veilguard that add a layer of technical problems to this, and that’s a bit more interesting, if frustrating to experience. This is why people are reaching for when they say ‘clunky’. I’m also not really interested in the structural issues. Which are there. Because there’s fewer structural issues in Veilguard than in any previous BioWare game. Most of these complaints are coming from people who have apparently let time soften them on how poorly built the other games are. Again. These are real problems people are flailing at with reductive takes. They’re also on brand for BioWare.

So that whole mess up there? That’s what’s going on. It’s what’s going on with the games and the actual real life audience constantly being at each others throats. It’s what’s going on with expectations and weird takes and the usual clown show.

* You can also go the Alien route of course. But this would require the violence to happen indiscriminately re: gender, and it would need to use the disgust response intelligently to interrogate something like…oh I don’t know the disgusting male power fantasy intrinsic to forced pregnancy-as horror.

** This is part of why people keep saying ‘marvel’. Marvel movies run on assumed empathy and it’s the most immediate touchstone and cheapest shot. BioWare was doing it first though. Guardians is literally riffing on DA and ME. And yes it’s cheap writing. I just don’t know why anyone expects anything else.

*** I’d be fine with mythic or purely dramatic motivations myself, but these games definitely do not know how to do more than gesture at that.

**** Something that’s gotten seriously muddled in our current publishing environment. Character-driven doesn’t mean you can reduce everything to the characters and their arcs. This is how we get shallow self-actualization narratives in place of deep explorations of what it means to be human. This is the problem at the heart of the ‘representation’ debates.

[rosesforwildwitches]

It's not just that he left her because he found out he was gay, it's that up until he got with Blitzø, he literally didn't see a single alternate to his life continuing down the path it was going and had no concept of a life outside of his arranged marriage with Stella. He also literally mentions that he stayed with her despite her being abusive because he believed it would shield Octavia from mistreatment and give her a "normal", happy upbringing. Plenty of parents who shouldn't be together stay together with the best of intentions because of the social pressures to have a two parent heterosexual household, and Stolas's situation is an example of that.

Stella's character wasn't assassinated because she was written as she is from the start, much in the same way that in Disney films Maleficent and Ursula (and for male examples Scar and Judge Frollo) weren't character assassinated by not being "more complex" than being power hungry and self serving. Sure Scar could've been a far more complex character with political motives and a backstory, and he explicitly has sympathetic family in the direct to DVD sequels, but him being written as a pure evil character without much moral grey is part of his appeal and it makes the story work. A character being written the same way from the being of the story isn't character assassination, it's a character being written as an evil antagonist.

Also saying Valentino is realistic and Stella isn't is incredibly biased, I know because I've met women who act like Stella and treat their partners like that IRL (where I was also a teenager at the time and didn't have enough info on the situation to get social services meaningfully involved or do anything to help). I've seen that shit happen when I've been in no position legally or financially to help or stop it, and the fact is female abusers aren't as statistically common as male abusers, but they're just as traumatic and awful to those they abuse, and it's not unrealistic to depict that. And frequently, people brush off female abusers significantly more than male abusers, because I have seen women get away with laughs from a crowd saying they throw shit at their boyfriends and laugh when he flinches, when I know those same people would call the cops and possibly actually get a response if it were a man saying that about anyone.

I'm not saying him being in an abusive situation gives him a pass, he still fucked up as a father, and I literally agree with the first three paragraphs of your original post. I'm also not saying it gives him a pass for his classism. He's literally not being babied by the narrative, his actions as a father literally got him kicked out of his daughter's life by Octavia herself and the narrative portrays it as sad and tragic for Stolas but justified and emotionally understandable from Octavia's side. He got kicked out of his position of power for his actions and is currently couch crashing at Blitzø's place and trying to learn how to live in normal society, where most of the imps rag on him for being formerly higher class. This is literally the narrative showing the natural consequences of his choices and how he's trying to deal with it.

ok this isn’t a hellaverse acc anymore but i have to get this rant out here,

octavia was not being irrational with how she acted in sinsmas!! just imagine being in her shoes: your dad cheats on ur mom with some random dude, constantly picks him, and even sacrifices his life for him on live television. how would that make you feel?

“oh but stolas has shown he cares about her!” he SAID he cares about her with words, yes, but he had never shown it with his actions, atleast not on screen. you can see it in the loo loo land ep when he claimed he wanted to have a special day for via but made blitzo tag along despite the fact he can defend the both of them just fine because?? he was just horny i guess???

you can also see it in the seeing stars ep when he goes to la to look for via but gets sidetracked by blitzo again, at the end it wasn’t even him that found her, it was loona 😭

stolas is not a good father, nor was he “trying his best”, and the fact that the show expects the audience to believe that shows how incompetent the writing is at times

[kastellaran]

Hinezumi Character Bios

The Medicine Seller (Kusuriuri)

A mysterious being who wields the Sword of Exorcism which has the power to exorcise and slay mononoke. He entrances people with his otherworldly appearance, suddenly appearing before those who are being troubled by strange occurrences and melting into the backdrop just as quickly. Sometimes brazen, sometimes cool-headed, he observes strange occurrences and the situations they cause and faces these terrible and ferocious things while at the same time getting up close with the feelings that have become mononoke.

Ootomo Botan

Regards herself highly as the daughter of Administrator Ootomo. Now that she's attained the highest rank in the Ooku, otoshiyori, she exercises strict control over the Ooku, faithfully maintaining order and balance.

Tokita Fuki

Originally a town girl. As soon as Tenshi saw her, she was made an ochuurou, and is now the sole object of his affections. There is a deep gap between her and the order-loving Botan.

Tokita Saburoumaru

The third son of the Tokita household and Fuki's younger brother. He's worried about Fuki, who's living in the Ooku, in the aftermath of the chaos of Karakasa.

Sakashita

Guard in charge of security at the Ooku. He met the Medicine Seller in front of Nanatsuguchi, the gate that sees the most traffic. He's always on the lookout for any strange movements.

Asa

One of the two protagonists of Karakasa, the first chapter. She's taken on the role of goyuuhitsu, managing the documents of the Ooku, but still carries the damage she sustained from Karakasa in her heart.

Tokita Yoshimichi

Fuki and Saburoumaru's father. He originally ran a kimono shop, but when Fuki was selected to be an ochuurou they were able to become a samurai* family. For some reason, he was made to be Ootomo's shogi partner. *In English we use the word "samurai" differently from how it's used in Japanese, and usually when people are talking about the military/nobility class in the Edo period, they'll say 武家 (buke/military family) which is what is written here. Likewise, when talking about warriors, the word 武士 (bushi) is more commonly used than samurai. But I said samurai because it's got its own meaning in English, and I thought saying "military family" might be confusing since to me it sounds like a family who has a military background.

Administrator Ootomo

Botan's father and one of the four administrators who looks after the interests of the shogunate. Keeps an eye out so that Tenshi's reign can continue stably, hates things that invite disorder, which he calls "sparks."

[jesncin]

MAWS has made me wonder if some people put too much emphasis on a creator's passion for their work being an indicator of its quality, and if past examples of people praising media for "heartfelt, earnest, and clearly indicative of the crew's passion" were glossing over the skill, talent, hard work, and other factors that made it work. You can not deny the creators of MAWS had genuine love for what they made, yet I personally feel like this is a case highlighting how that alone is rarely enough for telling a competent story. I feel like this perspective has been bolstered by past instances of executive meddling to the point of critical opinions often being negated as "not understanding what hurdles crews had to deal with", even with shows like MAWS that had a lot of free reign with their decisions.

oh you are right on the money. "Love for the material" alone is not a marker of a story or adaptation's quality. Undoubtedly, the MAWS crew clearly adore Superman to such a point that they keep having to reiterate that they will not be including Batman in their show- they want to focus on Supes (never mind the rogues they stole), but all that love didn't translate to well written conflict (or dialogue, pacing, character motivation, etc) or a single solid episode.

Meanwhile STAS is often aptly described as "a Superman show written by Bat-fanboys" (and it absolutely shows, the episodes jump in quality when Bruce is around)- the crew even admitted that they weren't motivated to make a Superman show, it was something mandated. STAS certainly doesn't hold a candle to BTAS by a long shot, and I agree with DCAU fans who say "there's probably only 10 great episodes in STAS". But that's the thing. That's 10 better episodes than all of MAWS. Even STAS' worst episodes are still better written than MAWS. And this is coming from a crew that don't care for Superman to the same level. It's still a better show on the mere merit that the BTAS crew assigned to it are competent storytellers. They still created iconic original characters like Livewire which even MAWS ended up adapting.

There are a ton of mindsets to approach an adaptation of a source material as massive as the DC mythos. One of the most common pitfalls is what I like to call being "Married to the Text"- it comes from loving the source material so much that the creative is unwilling to make changes. That's one of the many ways loving the source material too much can hold a creative back. MAWS is the other direction- a ton of crazy changes that miss the point and potential themes of Superman.

tldr, Love for the Source Material doth not make a competently written adaptation. So many other factors go into creative writing.

[whatdidtheydotomygirljinx]

the problem is that it's so hard to really analyze anything about arcane, and draw any conclusions about the story, because of the way it was written and conceived in the first place.

to the people who're like "yeah season 2 was bad, but season 1 was a MASTERPIECE in story writing and PERFECT in every way", that's just not true. the cracks were already there in season 1. there's multiple things, especially overarching ones, that just don't add up, and several ways that the story progresses that seem like odd choices. the thing was that, to me, the rest of it was all so good... the small details, the contained scenes were so well done, so detailed, so touching, that i really believed that maybe those cracks were just hiccups after all, and it's not a big deal, and maybe they'll even make a lot more sense and all get tied up with a nice little bow in season 2 (ha)

to me, at this point, it seems obvious that the way season 1 came into being was that these three idiots (who should never be allowed to write anything ever again) wrote a script, that was so terrible that riot had to bring in help to fix it for them (cause they were that incapable) and then someone got handed their slop and told "save this as much as you can, but keep the main points the same", and save it THEY DID! but the overarching plot is still the original one. which is why there's this dissonance all across it.

season 1 often seems like it's trying to tell two different stories at once. the example that comes easiest to me is jinx's transformation from powder to jinx post time skip. to the people i know irl who watched it, me included, the difference between these two is jarring, to the point that it just doesn't seem realistic that powder would change that much. this is what most people's reaction to her transformation was. like, sure, she changed... but jinx is almost a completely different person. and we can sit here and analyze all we want, and say yeah, but look, in ep2 min37, powder laughs when an enforcer is hurt, so that shows that she is indeed attracted to violence even at this age, but like... first of all, im at this point fully convinced that these details were put in specifically for that, to attenuate the valley that is between powder's character and jinx's, and I also honestly feel embarrassed that i even have to do all of this at all.

other notable examples are whatever is going on between jinx and silco in their relationship. like, yeah, he was actually a good father to her... but actually, there's something weird going on between them... but actually, no... he was better than vander, but actually he was worse than vander and was actually the cause of everything bad in jinx's life..... and on, and on, because the literal story itself never actually makes up its mind on what it wants the relationship between these two characters to be. same as it never makes up its mind on whether powder was a cute, innocent kid who was just manipulated by silco, or if powder was born like that and was just looking for an opportunity to release her inner jinx. same way as it never makes up its mind on whether vi is a devoted sister, who would do anything to get powder back, as she herself says, or if she actually thinks this new enforcer chick she just met is kinda cooler, as her actual actions would indicate. does silco adopt jinx because he sees himself in her, or does he intend to use her as a weapon and then later on grows to actually care about her? there comes a point where "this is a complex story" just becomes an excuse for "we were actually working with three different ideas at once and we never really decided on which one we were gonna do and we kinda just prayed it would all work out somehow"

the one thing that arcane season 2 has on season 1 is that it doesn't suffer from any of these weird identity issues. it's bad and simplistic but it's bad and simplistic in its entirety and it doesn't ever seem interested in being anything else. the story has no continuity or congruence issues, except of course for the ghost of season 1 that haunts it, and especially haunts the writers, who so far have displayed nothing but dismay for the story that actually made this show so acclaimed, and have done all they could to bury it as much as possible in season 2.

now, personally, im a big death of the author truther. even more so in cases like these, where we're dealing with teams of people. power struggles happen in studios, and in writing rooms, and at every level of production. and these three people that have taken credit don't seem like the most emotionally (or intellectually) mature individuals.

so, to solve all these issues, just know that when im discussing or analyzing arcane, im going off the interpretation of the events that serves the story the most, and that leads to the most meaningful narrative and the one that is most worth telling. all of this weird lee and overton slop that snuck in im gonna be completely ignoring.

[bugeyedfreaks]

…so you accurately portrayed Brick as a villain but people got mad? Why am I not surprised? 🤣

I don’t mind that people write romance because, to be fair, that’s usually the dominant genre for any fandom’s fanfics. I myself am not immune to have written dopey romance junk in the fandoms I’m in! It can be fun! But when you have the majority of fics about one pairing, about characters who barely appeared in the series, where almost every story is like the same thing regurgitated over and over again that barely resembles the series it’s from and barely accurately portrays the characters in it, that’s when it gets so boring! And yet it’s popular why? I can absolutely see that being a huge deterrent for new fanfic writers who don’t wanna write anything like that and who do wanna write something either original or closer to the feel of the series, especially if you’re going to get hate for not writing characters (ones that are at this point just glorified love interest OCs) “correctly.” 🙄 Why even try to write something if that’s how things are?

Speaking of that deterrent, I’m sorry you felt like you had to add them to just even get some more eyes on your work. That’s such a bummer! It reminds me of a fanfic writer I used to know online who dabbled in fics for an incredibly, incredibly small rare pair for the series. She wrote all the characters more or less in character, her stories had some really interesting themes and ideas, and even though most of those fics were originally published 18 or so years ago, they still only have, like, maybe 1,000 views each. Some maybe less.

The one fic where she happened to add PPG/RRB has around 7,000 views. Seven times the views! And it’s not even her best one by a long shot! It’s crazy! 😵‍💫

I wonder if people wrote more comedy and action oriented fanfics back then because they were desperately craving new episodes. Those fics could’ve been a perfect way for fans to tide themselves over while airing for the next ep to air, and in order to do that, they’d have to be as close to the show as possible to be entertaining! I have a couple of theories why PPG/RRB got so dominant after the show ended and those other fans went their own ways, but it’s disheartening to see the shift happen and then, just, never really change or evolve much. It’s a little embarrassing to say, but I’ve been complaining about this kind of thing since before Tumblr even existed, back before the infamous LJ migration days (if anyone remembers ppg_rants on LJ, I was definitely on there 😂), and… yeah, it’s crazy how it’s just been the same old same old thing since then. 😔

I’ll quit talking about PPG fanfic after today, but I decided to actually check the amount of fics that still existed if I ran filters on AO3, because I don’t normally check the numbers when I do filter and I was curious.

Here’s the number of fics in total in the PPG section:

Here’s the number of fics when I remove crossovers and the RRB pairing and characters entirely:

Then if you add the RRB back in and search for fanfics that also include the “humor” tag you get this result:

And if you search for anything that includes the “comedy” tag… it’s worse!

I also tried various combos of action and adventure and this was the best result I got from that:

Anyway, I understand that people would like to write a dramatic fanfic every now and then. I get it. Totally. No hate about that kind of thing. I also get that you don’t necessarily have to add those tags if your fic includes those things. Not everyone categorizes everything accurately and that’s fine! But sometimes, looking at results like this, I wonder if I watch the same show as everyone else… 😩

[toobusybeingdelulu]

look who is speaking…

[thunderboltfire]

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

[sonknuxadow]

im a sonic 06 defender but one of the things about that game that i absolutely cannot defend is its handling of blaze . literally one of the coolest sonic characters ever yet they had her do almost nothing of importance other than die at the end to make silver sad . she interacts with nobody other than silver and on the rare occasion she appears in a scene with someone else she just stands there and says nothing while the other character doesnt acknowledge her existence at all . the only thing she really adds other than dying is making everything way more confusing than it needs to be because her being from the future and seemingly not knowing sonic contradicts what we already knew about her. overall it just doesnt seem like they put much thought into her inclusion and i wouldnt be surprised to find out she was a last minute addition. blaze youdidnt deserve this bestie

[quatregats]

I feel like the only way I can describe the tragedy of Hornblower chronology is that there is a horizontal asymptote at "Consistent Essence of Hornblower" and a vertical asymptote at the space between Atropos and Beat to Quarters/Happy Return, and his character arc is the line -(1/x)

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[majormeilani]

i think the dumbest argument that someone made to me about literature once is like. when i was complaining about the characterization of a character in a follow up season of a series that i like being really ooc and the other person was like "well, the character chose to do those things and the author wrote them to do that then obviously they would do that" and was essentially saying that the characters in a story actively CHOOSE and have AUTONOMY over what happens in the story and not that they're like. written. to do that. lol? like i'm sorry babes but even if i JOKE about my own characters choosing to do things in a story, ultimately i am the executioner what the characters do in the story and like. if everything established prior about the character gets contradicted in a later season i'm sorry but i'm ALLOWED to criticize it and not like the narrative choices a writer has made a character do in the story. don't make me show you a shitty sequel movie that undoes all a character's character development to prove my point.

[yeyayeya]

Don’t you hate it when you read a chat fanfic and one of the characters types EXACTLY the same way as a cousin of yours that it unnerves you so bad you drop the fic because all you can envision is your cousin saying that stuff and not the character?

Doesn’t help the fact that the character would type exactly like that irl so it’s not even mischaracterization, it’s just you who’s bothered by it

You can laugh at me and say I’m stupid I just wanted to vent

[rococovirgo]

i was gonna remake the lil character bio pages for these two but with how long those took, i'm just gonna post the sketched out redesigns instead :') later on i'll draw some fancy art of these two when i get a day off work again

i also slightly altered how they both kinda exist and why ragdoll is considered modern with like, a really basic timeline i made that shows the change and how they technically are different

there is a bit more detail but i kept it simple for now, i may draw how ragdoll basically came to be and how they ended up separated from the show itself with no memory of it vrsiondko

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

before i go to bed bc i have been doing a lot of research- it’s *intensely* funny people whine about “gene's vision” whenever star trek is mildly transgressive like. i mean for one the dude stuffed the series with as much sex as he could in the time periods he was alive if he saw modern star trek and what’s possible on the air nowadays he'd probably say it needed to be way hornier lol. but also like. gene was progressive in his time outside of his fucking ridiculous level of misogyny. and even with that people who were Not Gene because turns out multiple people are involved in production of a whole tv show were often progressive in that area including women who obviously didn’t share the nightmare sexism gene had. and the series heavily reflected that, even if it’s not obvious today (since progressive for the 60s is usually intensely bigoted now). if the series wanted to be accurate to that it should actually be way more transgressive to the point it makes blunders bc the writers are tired from arguing with network executives. where’s the equivalent of the first interracial kiss on television guys ur playing it way too safe.