#whats the context? you decide

[whack-patty]

[ slap sfx ]

[bunnieswithknives]

Okay but does Peri KNOW that Dev has a robotic leg when he shows up? Something about the fact that Peri's wand is a cane and the fact that Dev could have kept his leg and just had a cane for the rest of his life instead tickles my brain.

I mean he doesn't know immediately, he wasn't like briefed or anything, but he basically lives in Dev's house so he definitely finds out. Peri doesn't comment on or react to it all though really, there's no reason for him to think anything of it, plenty of people have missing limbs, a lot of people are born without them, it doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister happened. He had no reason to pry or ask and I think Peri's lack of reaction to it helped Dev feel a bit more comfortable in his skin. (Not by much but.. a little bit.)

[sualne]

some later kidlu stuff (part 2 - nsfw)

[cigarettehearted]

let Chilchuck say "fuck"

[pxme-granate]

tiny little portraits while I wade through art block, enjoy

[winterrens]

send help

[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.

[lime202]

Giving mixed signals...

[raisedbythetv89]

I can’t believe there are humans walking this earth that watch seven seasons of Buffy being crushed under the weight of the literal world and all her responsibilities and suffer constant chronic loneliness and isolation even from her closest friends never getting the support, emotional or otherwise she really needs and then we witness Spike become her safe haven and emotional safe space as she battles her depression and the only person she can genuinely count on both before and after he gets the soul. Acting as a true partner and other half who sees her and she can be truly vulnerable with and who loves her so deeply and she loves deeply in return and go “🤓☝🏻I actually think she should be ALONE rather than in a relationship”

SHE HAS ALREADY DIED THREE TIMES AND HAS A VERY SHORT LIFE EXPECTANCY AND MANAGED TO FIND AND MAKE IT WORK WITH HER VAMPIRE OTHER HALF IN THAT SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME AND YOU WANT TO ROB HER OF GREAT SEX, EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND LOVE AND FREEDOM FROM HER EVER PRESENT LONELINESS FOR THE REMAINDER OF SAID SHORT LIFE??????????? YOU CAN FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF ACTUALLY THAT’S NOT FEMINISM OR EMPOWERMENT THAT’S JUST MEAN

It’d be one thing if she had a solid family support and real fucking friends but tara and spike were the only people who genuinely cared for her rather than what they can get from her and with Tara gone Spike is an incredibly important person for her to have in her life for her overall happiness and emotional and mental wellbeing and because I don’t fucking hate Buffy I think she deserves to spend the rest of her life with that person!! And miraculously cannon agrees!! So 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻

[can-of-slorgs]

I'm personally blaming @starbiology and everyone who has reblogged or commented the other piece for this.

Bonus comic featuring my grundo:

[vamps-hmu]

He got a bit too silly

[violetsteve]

“And that doesn’t scare you?”

Steve gives a half hearted shrug, his hands still stuffed into the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders slowly starting to crawl towards his ears.

“I don’t know. Kind of, I guess?” Steve’s eyes finally kick up from the floor, meeting Eddie’s gaze with so much open vulnerability that Eddie feels his chest go tight.

“Mostly I just like being with you, man. You have this way of—“ Steve cuts himself off, shrugging again like he can’t help it. “I don’t know. Making all the bad shit disappear for a while? Or maybe not disappear, not really, but more like…you make the big stuff smaller. Like yeah, sure, the worlds fucked and we all have enough trauma to fill marinas fucking trench, but also I look at the way you light up when I reference your nerd game, or the way you put on a fucking show without even thinking about it when you can sense one of the kids needs a distraction, and it makes me feel…” he trails off again, eyes jumping around for a moment like he’s trying to find the right words, before they finally settle back on Eddie. “Whole. Hopeful. Safe. Like, sure, we’ve lost a lot to the upside down, but we haven’t lost everything. I mean, your terrible sense of humor is still intact, after all.” Steve finishes his small speech with a wry twist to his mouth, like he was going for a joke to lighten the mood and missed by a mile. 

Eddie feels his chest burst with static, an overwhelming sense of something for this man in front of him. He should be offended—or at least play offended at Steve’s last few words, but he can’t find it in himself to pretend at this moment. There’s so much to unpack in everything Steve’s just said, least of all the fact that he called the Mariana trench marina—which Eddie finds so endearing. He’s aware Dustin finds the slip ups to be annoying at best, but, lord help him, Eddie thinks they’re cute. He thinks Steve is cute.

And here Steve is, standing in front of him and telling Eddie that he makes things less scary—that he makes all of Steve’s biggest problems feel so much less daunting just by existing. He’s standing in front of Eddie telling him that Eddie makes him feel fucking safe and cared for, and oh, fuck he’s so, so unbelievably in love with this boy that it makes him dizzy in this moment. Eddie extends a shaky hand to grip the back of the couch just so he doesn’t fall over.

He’s staring into Steve’s completely unguarded eyes and feeling like he might throw up with the affection and absolute fear he feels in this moment because—

Because it’s absolutely undeniable at this moment.

The sky is blue.

The sun rises in the east, sets in the west.

Eddie Munson is head over heels in love with Steve Harrington.

[tozettastone]

I just had someone comment to me "I haven't read the other fic yet (I was sneaking glances at work and decided to start with the smaller one first)" in a comment. I'm losing my mind.

It's not "the other fic." They just started with a sequel on purpose?? And then they started with "even without context..."

Wow, imagine if someone had just provided all that context somehow. Say, in the... first fic in the series? Perhaps?

Absolutely unhinged. I think this person might also be someone who tries to cut their steak once it's already in their mouth, honestly. "Even with all the blood the steak still tastes good!" Yeah, imagine if we had ever... uh... invented an alternative...

[hypertic]

“Wait!” Beatrice hands reaches out to grab her arm, but hesitates halfway. Ava turns around, frowning, a flash of fear crossing her eyes before softening at the sight of Beatrice’s fidgeting.

“Yes?”

“I- I’m sorry.” Ava’s eyes widen in surprise, but Beatrice doesn’t catch it, eyes solely focused on her feet.

It was strange, but quite endearing, to see the most powerful queen of the continent fidgeting with the too long sleeve of her sleeping shirt. The candle light hits her features just right, looking younger than ever before in a room that feels to grand and too big for her.

Beatrice takes a deep breath, pushing down the fluttering in her chest and finally looking up to meet the woman’s eyes.

“I know you find the marriage oath to be quite loathsome.” She deadpans, and Ava feels her stomach sink.

She’s not sure how Beatrice got that information, but she’s shouldn’t be surprised. It’s her castle after all, and walls have ears. Ava’s head begins to spin with all the possible scenarios that could follow, but none of them have time to fully form before her wife moves.

Beatrice takes a small step forward, staring at her solemnly before sinking down to her knees, head lowered and hands clasped loosely at her front.

“Your Highness-“ Beatrice looks up, head slightly tilted forward, eyes soft and shining earnestly. It’s enough to make Ava freeze, words halfway out her mouth.

“I, Beatrice Xin, swear my loyalty and obedience to you, Ava Silva. I vow to always put your needs before my own, to remain faithful and honest; protect and care for you until death do us apart.” She recites, and Ava can just stare in awe.

Though the first part is, word for word, what Ava herself had been taught to recite, everything else wasn’t. Everything else was Beatrice, her promise, her vow.

Ava feels like crying, because she has the most powerful woman in the world on her knees, vowing to protect her, to obey her.

She can’t believe it, she doesn’t want to, for she’s been let down too often, hurt too hard and barely acknowledged for most of her life. Still, she can’t help the wave of relief that washes over her, because maybe, finally, she’s safe.

[astranauticus]

stultifera navis rerun AKA thinking about Iberia hours again because a lot of the Iberians have such fascinating relationships with the concept of home but specifically Thorns and Lumen are eating at my brain. like where do you call home when the place that is your home Just Fucking Hates You? Elysium's rewinding breeze specifically makes a point to hammers home how differently Iberia treats its Liberi and its Aegir

(which is especially interesting since this comes right after a conversation where Purestream commented on how despite Leizi being a high ranking government official, there are still some experiences that are universal for all Yanese people - because the experience of what Iberia itself is like isnt universal for all Iberians)

But all that being said, Thorns also straight up states that Aegir is not his home, and yeah, how could it be? How could a place you've never been to, never truly known, ever be your home? How could it ever feel like a home?

so where do you go when the place that you are from hates your people and the place your people are from is completely unfamiliar and alien to you? Thorns' answer at the end of the conversation with Aya is: my home is where i chose it to be. my home is where there are people I care about and people who care about me

in the complete opposite direction, Lumen's oprec asks: why do you still stay in a place that wants you gone? because the people of Gran Faro like Jordi well enough but when push comes to shove, they will want the only Aegir in town gone

and yet, when Rald the messenger offers him a chance to leave Jordi turns him down and when he's forced to escape Gran Faro after the people there literally try to send him to his death (or worse) at the hands of the Inquisitors he keeps trying to go back because like everyone in stultifera navis, Jordi is clinging to his own dreams of a golden age

but the shape of that dream is unique to every character and for Jordi, his dreams are deeply, inseparably bound to the Eye of Iberia, the legacy his parents left behind

and it's this dream of becoming someone great, of bringing about that golden age that his parents devoted their lives to help create that ties Jordi to this nothing town because despite everything, despite the mistrust of the townsfolk and the hostility of the Inquisition and the danger from the ocean, he simply cannot leave it behind

(or, because i personally dislike the official translation,)

"I just see this place as my home"

so yeah. not sure what overall point i was trying to make here i'm just. deeply in love with these stories about chosing what is and isn't your home, of saying you will not call a place your home because it has given you no reason to or saying you consider a place your home even though it has given you every reason not to. deeply unwell about them <3

[beesinspades]

happy pride month from vash the stampede!!!! 💜 seeing all the ace vash art makes me so happy I wanted to contribute!