#and to understand what the source material is about

[anodymalion]

ok I am in fact using this as an excuse to make a long post about this thank you thank you asjksdjfaljdf

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Interpreting Yuri as asexual is my very very favorite type of headcanon, which is one that 1. is compellingly coded in the source material (even if that wasn't the creator's intent), 2. is thematically relevant to what the piece of media is Trying To Do as a whole, and 3. just means a lot to me, personally, because I said so.

Coded in the source material

Yuri’s short program is “eros”, aka desire (you can interpret what “eros” means in various ways, but YOI itself explicitly refers to sexual love, at least in the English translations). Yuri struggles with this. Hard. He can’t come up with an answer when asked what eros means to him. His big revelatory moment about desire is that it’s how he feels about wanting to eat his favorite food (omg… boy). Even as the season goes on and the way he views the Eros program changes, the program doesn’t ever really embody the idea of eros as sexuality or romance (which was how the other characters expect him to interpret it) but rather as a desire to keep Victor in his life.

Like look. I’m obviously not going to say that the creator intended any kind of ace subtext to be there. I kind of doubt it was her intent. But goddamn is the subtext there.

2. Thematic relevance

The central theme throughout YOI is “love”, and especially loving people in a way that inspires you both to be your best selves: Yuri learning that the people in his life truly love and support him; Victor finding someone who makes him feel joy about skating again.

Like, Yuri’s whole skating theme for the Grand Prix is literally about him exploring what love looks like to him, even when it takes a form that other people don’t totally understand. Viewing all this through a lens of him being ace is really compelling. It adds depth to the idea of learning how to express the way you feel love even when it looks different than what other people expect. I think it’s a really delicious layer that adds even more nuance to what the show is getting at.

Besides, it’s an interesting way of viewing the criticism of the show that occurred for it not being 100% explicit about them being a couple (aka people getting mad because the kiss in ep 7 is blocked by Victor’s arm lmaooo). Like, ok, did you see the ending scene of ep 9? Did you see ep 10??? They definitely, definitely love each other, in whatever way that means for them. Their relationship takes a form that’s pretty different than the other way people in the show are going about romantic relationships, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real for them. That is very much in line with the main themes of the show.

3. Means a lot to me

In the final scene of the penultimate episode, Yuri tells Victor that they should end their coaching relationship after the Grand Prix ends. This is because he thinks he’s holding Victor back, that Victor would be happier being free to go back to skating on his own instead of being Yuri’s coach. When I watched this (and, I’ll be honest, this is completely me projecting here) I REALLY interpreted this as an ace thing. I think it’s pretty easy to internalize the idea when you’re asexual that you just won’t be… enough, for other people. In my case I ended up a strong impulse to self-sabotage relationships because I would rather be the one to end things than to let someone else tell me that who I am as a person is fundamentally lacking. Yuri destroying a connection he desperately wants because he thinks there’s something about him that is holding Victor back from a life he’d be truly happy with? Oh yeah. I can fucking relate to that.

Also: YOI came out in 2016, which was the absolute peak of hostility to ace people I was seeing on this site. It was bad here. At the same time Tumblr was going wild over this show. Everyone was watching it. Seeing a whole site of people absolutely adore a character I very deeply in my heart believed to be ace? Extremely vindicating.

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In conclusion Yuri is asexual because it is fun and interesting that way, and also because of this:

[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.

[quatregats]

Also I realize that the answer is probably just reading enough period sources but as a linguist I really do need to pick Patrick O'Brian's brain about where in the world he got his different speech patterns from

[sidsinning]

Every time I see an interview for a new LA adaptation of a Disney princess movie where one of the cast members says smtg along the lines of "She's not going to wait for a man to save her this time" I already know we're doomed

[goemon-fan]

This was easily one of the best Lupin episodes

[eremin0109]

The more I read about Patroclus' actual characterization in the Iliad, the more my distaste for Madeline Miller's version of him grows.

Like lady, how do you take this MAN who was a formidable, seasoned warrior with a body count that was CANONICALLY greater than that of Achilles', a briliant strategist and an army medic, charming as all hell, bisexual as fuck AND rips apart Zeus' goddamn son with his bare fucking hands and turn him into whatever the fuck TSOA Patroclus was???!?

With all due respect, Patrochilles aren't your run of the mill yaoi couple and the only reason I can see for her to "feminize" Patroclus was to make two WARRIORS who canonically had a balanced dynamic between them to forcefully fit into the done and dusted, absolutely fetishizing seme/uke (erastes and eromenos, if you will) trope. And this is just sad because had she been true to the original characterizations, it would've made for a vastly more interesting retelling and not a book that basically glorifies and justifies Achilles' horrible deeds and makes Patroclus a dumb simp who can't see anything wrong with his boyfriend's actions.

[francy-sketches]

If I'd actually posted all my pjo art when I made it instead of hoarding it like a little goblin for no apparent reason today I might have been known as the octavian guy instead of the joffrey guy...scary thought...

[graciousdragon]

I FUCKING DID SOMETHING FOR ONCE LET'S GO!!!

ok so i was listening to this song like a week ago and i saw this animation clear as day in my mind and i knew i had to try and storyboard it out while i was thinking of it. i wanna do the full song at some point because it is So Very Them-coded but i do not have the time rn and will not for a while (i barely had the time to make this) so for now i just made sure i got the really complicated part out of the way. figured i'd post it because. why not lol

anyway. this is for my Darkest Desire AU story!! it's called Glitching Fates!! i am so normal about it and i have been for years now. it is. so far removed from the source material but i do not care it is very special to me :]

as a sort of summary for what's going on here, the night guard and Will used to be really good friends but they both ended up getting busy with their own lives so they couldn't interact as much, and then the whole Glitchtrap possession thing happens which reunites them but also drives a wedge between them since Will is blindly following Glitchtrap while the night guard is trying to find a way to stop Glitchtrap.

i am so not fucking normal about these characters you all have no idea. oh my god. they have permanent residence in my mind rn. i need people to ask me about them or else I Will Become Violent (/j)

hope y'all liked this, or at least i hope y'all found my passive-agressive notes to myself funny lol. under the cut i typed up all the handwritten ones in case y'all want to read them but can't make out my handwriting

a fuckin uh.. pillar or somethin idk

ooh cool scene transition

how do i convey that he's walking onto a train

dismissive wave

hair is longer to indicate passage of time

pretend this shot doesn't look like total dogshit ok?

hey how did my anatomy manage to get That Much Fucking Worse this far in

there is Something wrong here. i just cannot tell What

that is. so much better what the fuck

ok that's all thank you for looking at my post :]

[dailyeca]

the henry stickmin to eca orichird pipeline

[storytellering]

the moment I see someone unironically make a "deadweight" nero joke or seriously refer to him as "deadweight" i know i can't trust them

[bitchthefuck1]

“sometimes you need some skin on skin” april fools isnt until the weekend 😭 clown shit

Like congratulations, you somehow found a way to completely dismiss and mock the mental illnesses, trauma, and sexual orientation of 3 characters in only 7 words! It would almost be impressive if it wasn't so massively stupid and fucked up

[franeridan]

there's a certain kind of lost-in-translation feel when talking op ships between manga-onlys and anime-onlys that should seriously not be underestimated, I think

[inf1nyxw0rlds]

i love complexity. except of course if it's about me . hope that helps

[significant-ace-nnoyance]

i have this thing where anytime i think about kanej from the shadow and bone tv series i get deeply mentally unwell

[pagesofkenna]

dead boys post again sorry

thinking about the bi options here, ive decided:

(basic) edwin's confession helps charles realize he's bi and in love with him, they kiss on-screen (cute but i realized its amatonormative and pretty cookie cutter)

(worse) charles actually isn't bi and they have separate romantic melodramas (maintains the friendship > romance anti-amatonormative angle but at the cost of charles being bi, which won't do)(also this is a cw style melodrama so theres still amatonormative stuff happening regardless)

(the actual best option) edwin's confession helps charles realize he's bi but he's still not in love with edwin (literally no downside here)(recovering pining coupled with unrequited guilt its delicious to me)(get to do an entire arc where charles gets a crush on some other boy and has to keep it secret because he doesnt want to disappoint his best friend)(edwin eventually finds out and is so sad his best friend didn't let them celebrate his queer awakening together)

[dearreader]

something is not right about a 26 year old adult picking fights with 14 year olds and lying about people being racist and antisemitic and suicide bating because they rightfully called you out and you like the drama