disaster_imp

Entirely boggled to learn there’s a subset of #OurFlagMeansDeath fandom who think that Ed isn’t canonically a BIPOC character? Because they don’t say aloud that he is? My beige dudes, the actor is Māori. They cast a Māori actress to play his mother. This was not an accident. 

Taika has always been proudly vocal about his mixed heritage and the fact they canonically gave Ed a white father and a Māori mother is so important in the context of Ed’s character. The show is set at Peak Empire, when England (and Europe) colonised everything.

There’s a powerful thread of subtext of this history within her characterisation and this show doesn’t do anything accidentally: she is a house servant, trapped in poverty, abused and controlled by her white partner, and conditioned to believe that “it’s not up to us, it’s up to God”.

For anyone unfamiliar with European colonialism, the role the church played in it is toxic. The stolen generations are a legacy of it: children of indigenous people abducted and forcibly cut off from their culture to be ‘civilised’ through Christianity and assimilated into a white-centric culture. The entire system was a genocidal horror story perpetuated in the name of God for centuries in almost every single colony. The children were abused and conditioned to believe they were lesser, better than their heritage but still never good - ‘white’ - enough. “We’re not that kind and never will be”.

So when Ed’s mother says “it’s not up to us, it’s up to God”, that is the voice of a child of colonial violence repeating what she was taught by abuse and by rote to make sure she knows her humble place in the world order created by the Christian Empires. The fact she’s a servant is also so integral to this. The Christian schools trained the children to be workers but most specifically in low-level manual/domestic work. The people running the show didn’t want them getting ideas above their station, after all. 

Not a word of this show is incidental. The history is there if you listen to it and it makes the red silk scene devastating because we are seeing a woman from a colonised culture literally and metaphorically pass that trauma on to her son. 

Think of the first time we see the silk: it is immediately in the aftermath of Ed’s encounter with the French Captain. This is the moment when Ed is faced with the same level of racial abuse as Frenchie and Olu get from the white Navy officers in episode 1 - “made by savages”, “silence, slave!” “your master may tolerate uppity behaviour”.

The Captain refers to Ed as “your kind”, immediately designating him as something Other and Uncivilised by comparison to himself. Ed reels as if slapped at that alone, asking tersely “what’s that supposed to mean?”. The man derisively says “a rich donkey is still a donkey”.

But no, sure, tell me there’s nothing inherently racist about a posh white man describing a brown man in terms of a beast of burden, something meant for manual work, carrying things for its owner and known for being beaten into submission. /end sarcasm. In many documents from that era, this was a common way for white (especially English) Europeans to write about anyone not white, regardless of rank, culture or history: comparisons with animals, beasts, lower creatures are all over the place. (eta: it has also been confirmed that donkey itself was commonly used as a slur against Polynesian and Pasifika people, which makes this a deliberately targeted racist insult)

Ed, unsurprisingly, does not react well. The fact that this is the thing to make him lose his temper for the first time underscores how distressing it is for him, especially when it segues into the flashback to his mother, repeating that same lesson to him.

Stede Bonnet, and his crew when they’re around him, live in a Muppet movie. I didn’t come up with this analogy but it’s so accurate. Insane physical comedy and comedy-action where no one really gets hurt. Mild peril but you know everything is gonna work out. Terrible puns and sight gags, but room for sweet, genuine emotional moments too. The rules of time, space, probability and logic will bend for a good joke.

Izzy Hands is in a grimdark action/drama where if someone gets stabbed in the gut they will behave normally and fucking die. (Probably slowly and painfully, of sepsis.) Crucially I think Izzy also lives in a genre where you can only be subtextually queer, and violence (done for or with or to each other) is the only acceptable form of intimacy between men. This is why being forcibly dragged into Stede’s world, where everyone is busy having silly low-stakes misadventures and being gay and emotionally available all over the main text–and seeing his Subtextual Boyfriend go into this world and love it–sends him round the twist.

The British, Spanish and other imperialist militaries are in a Master and Commander-style naval adventure where they’re the heroes. This is why they all take it completely seriously when Stede (unintentionally) kills Badminton and takes hostages, even though we can see that he bumbled his way into it ass-backwards. This is also why Stede is so shocked to get actually for real stabbed aboard the Spanish ship. (“Did you mean to do that?”) He didn’t realize until that moment that he’d stepped into a different genre. The stabbing is one of the first Surprise Genre Switch moments we get and in retrospect it’s very important for setting up that in this world, the threat of getting hurt or killed is very real–which we need to understand to know that there are real stakes much later, when Stede almost gets executed by the British.

You’ve Just Been Conditioned Not to See It.

I recently got into a huge fight with an abled friend about disabled representation, in which he was completely convinced that the stance he held was that of an ally. He’s a long time friend of mine and I know he really did think he was fighting for us and coming from a place of trying to help us.

And it really got me thinking about the way abled people perceive disabled people. And how that message is internalised and reinforced in so many ways.

My friend was trying to say that characters like Cyborg, Misty knight, Daredevil, Toph, Edward Elric, Bucky, Nebula, etc were not good representation. And he at first refused to listen to me (an actual disabled person) when I was like; no, we like that. we love that. we LOVE seeing badass and competent and sexy disabled people. It’s validating and empowering.

His argument was that it didn’t really count because nobody saw them as disabled and that it would be the same thing as saying Gamora is black representation.

While I understand where he was coming from, both of us also being black, it was hard to get him to understand how it wasn’t the same thing.

Gamora is a black actress painted green to portray a green-skinned alien. She has black features, yes, but within the narrative she very much is not a black woman. She’s an alien.

But a disabled character is always still a disabled character. Regardless of how high tech or SciFi or magical or fantastical the world or universe is; an amputee with a prosthesis is still an amputee. They are still disabled. Yes, even if their prosthesis shoots lasers.

And other characters, like Toph and Daredevil, who are both blind, have superpowers/superhuman abilities that allow them to overcome their disability. That does not make them less disabled.

Their blindness still impacts their everyday lives. They can’t read. They can’t draw. They don’t know what things or people look like, or what color things are. They can’t read someone’s facial expressions during a conversation. They can’t follow a map without assistance.

When I asked my friend for examples of what he considered good disabled representation he said Professor X, Oracle, and the Thinker. And that made me pause and I won’t lie, it upset me. It felt degrading. I got kind of angry at him and it got a little heated.

Because what he was saying is: the smart one in the wheelchair that never actually joins the battle because their body is too frail? Those are the only good disabled characters? The ones who still need to be protected and treated tenderly and are physically weaker?

Do we only exist when you can view us as some subhuman lesser other that you can take pity on?

But it’s not only my friend who thinks this way.

I’ve seen quite a few arguments online about people who don’t think Edward Elric is disabled, despite being an amputee.

Who don’t think Cyborg is disabled, despite the fact that his entire power set is due to a life support and mobility aid device.

And my friend was shocked that I, and many other disabled people, find these depictions of strong and confident and capable disabled people empowering. He fully expected that I would find those depictions offensive.

And that’s when it really hit me.

The issue is not that characters like Bucky or Toph or Daredevil are bad representations of disabled characters.

The issue is that people don’t perceive them as disabled. They’ve internalized this belief that disabled people have to be weak and delicate and fragile and in some way physically inferior.

They’re only considered disabled if they’re tragic and/or weak. Or ugly. People love to project a tragic subhuman otherness onto disabled people who are ugly.

If they’re cool and badass that confuses them. That doesn’t fit with the narrative that’s been built in their heads.

The idea of a competent, confidant, and strong disabled character, especially a cool disabled character is just so completely foreign to them that they don’t even consider it.

Now I’m not saying that depictions of disabled characters like Oracle or professor X are bad or harmful. We need representation of disabled people who aren’t strong and don’t have superpowers and maybe don’t feel particularly empowered. That’s a genuine representation of many disabled people.

It just isn’t the only one.

I think the issue with disabled representation is not that it doesn’t exist (as I’ve seen many abled people online claim in our defense) but that we need to shift the way we think of disabled people so we stop overlooking a lot of the really cool and badass and awesome disabled characters we do already have.

So if you read this far through this essay, please stop for a moment and consider the preconceptions you have about disabled people.

Have you ever overlooked a disabled character because they were strong, powerful, charismatic, or, (God forbid!) SEXY?

And if so, I’d ask you to take some time to examine in yourself why you don’t think of disabled people as being able to be those things.

It'll mean that a lot of hard-won rights are rolled back. Critically for the gay men here, those in rural or religious areas will be further blocked out of HIV prevention and treatment; most men I know aren't eager to seek help from a practitioner that will tell them they're going to Hell.

People seeking abortions, same-sex family planning, transgender people looking to transition. It's already been shown last week that schools will seek to expel students for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender; LGBT staff at various institutions would have to ride a fine line trying to defend themselves from discrimination when there's now a legal loophole for god-botherers.

If you're in Australia, any last-minute calls or emails to your MP is help. There's protests all over the country, find yours and get loud. If you're overseas, maybe just keep in mind that for most of us the fight against homophobia isn't over.

"Burn, butcher, burn."

They say as they tie Eskel to the stake in the middle of the town square. The price of the contract was too high in the end. He had frowned when the alderman declined to pay him, and the ugly scars had twisted his broken face into an intimidating scowl. Eskel, tired and hungry, had been no match for the town guards and now he hangs his head, stripped of his armour, his medallion, and resigns himself to his fate. They'll bury what's left of him in a shallow grave and his loved ones won't even know he's dead.

"Burn, butcher, burn."

They scream as they beat Lambert to death in a tavern. He lost patience with his Gwent partner for yet another slur against him. One of the hundreds; one too many. Since that fucking song came out, it's all he's heard in every backwater shit-heap in which he's had the misfortune of searching for work. It's the last thing he hears as the final boot kicks him unconscious. He doesn't wake up. They leave his body for the necrophages.

"Burn, butcher, burn."

The sailor spits in Coën's face as the knife pierces through his back. He didn't even see it coming. All he did was smile at a pretty serving girl as she swayed through the tables. He was so taken by the daydream of what it would be like to hold her in his arms that he missed the flash of steel. His heart gives one final, fitful stutter before it peters out and his blood soaks the floorboards. His murderer won't face justice; he'll spend a day in gaol to sober up before he heads out to sea and about his life. After all, it was only a witcher he killed. They're all butchers. They all deserve to burn.

"Burn, butcher, burn."

The words echo in Geralt's head as he listens to the screams in the streets. He's just decided to retire. No more witchering. He'll settle in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. Just him and those he loves. But as he listens to the banshee cries of the murderers pouring through Rivia, he grabs his sword and heads out. Time to defend the innocent one last time. Time to get involved one last time...

...but butchers don't deserve happiness. They don't deserve a second chance.

Just Another Fading Star: Part 2

Honey & Wine AU: Masterpost

Geralt stared up at the cobweb free rafters above his bed. The sparrows outside his window twittered softly, foraging through the creeping vine class clinging to the brickwork in search of insects. Gwyn Cerbin - Corvo Bianco to the locals - was as close to paradise as Geralt could dream of. On the estate, with its loaded apple trees and flowering grapevines, the cold talons of the past receded and for the first time in his appallingly long life, he felt at peace.

There was still a huge piece of him missing though. The gap hadn’t bothered him too much at first. With the whole O'Dimm fiasco, followed closely by a year of blood and wine, Geralt’s focus had been absorbed by just surviving the sheer chaos of it all. Yet, now he couldn’t shake it; the huge void in his heart. Like the emptiness between stars.

“So it was freezing cold that day, in the middle of winter. You do have to go into a bit of a dark place for a very, very long time to get through that.

“But thankfully, Chris [Fulton], who plays Rience, is such a sensitive actor. He’s so able and willing to work out exactly my energy levels.”

Joey went on to explain how gruelling the shoot was and how going to a dark place mentally stayed with him even after the cameras stopped rolling…

“It’s really, really… It can be really draining, and you do go to bed that night with a lot of stuff floating around your head. You’ve got to drum up some really dark stuff in your head in order to go to those sort of places.

"But thankfully, I’m surrounded by people who kind of know me. You can easily just go, ‘Joey needs a banana, and he needs it now, because his blood sugar’s just dropped…’”

“But that was a tough day…. I can never let go of Jaskier until I wrap…”

I’ve been thinking about this interview for the better part of an hour. The comments on a twitter account saying that this is “par for the course” for Hollywood, that this is why actors are paid as much as they are, that this kind of treatment is to be expected. Those of you whose hearts are broken from reading this: don’t let people convince you that this is okay.

If I had known this before watching Season 2, I would have boycotted it.

Informative rant below

To sum up in a couple paragraphs (because there are many more below) if you don’t want to read my whole, in-depth explanation below the cut: JOEY IS/WAS FINE. Was it a difficult and challenging scene? Yes! Was he in any legitimate danger or badly treated on set? No, no he was not. There were many, many people, including health and safety reps (possibly also stunt reps, depending on how they classified the scene) not to mention the directors (I included ADs here) AND Lauren AND any PAs AND an actual union-required MEDIC watching him to make sure the SLIGHTEST worrying thing was dealt with immediately. As he mentioned in the bit about the banana, it was! Someone thought he looked a bit peaky and they made sure he was given a break and ate a banana (they untied him to eat, no one fed it to him). I have had my blood pressure drop on set with me visibly doing Not Well and every. single. time. someone helps. The director notices or a scene partner does. All this before I feel bad enough to bring it up myself. Current Health and Safety standards on a big show like this are very meticulous. Joey was at no point in any actual danger or harm.

As for the dark places he had to go, he CHOSE the acting method he used. It was a challenging one and he had to take time to shake it off. But he DID shake it off. No one was forcing him to use Method acting or whatever technique/mixture of techniques he used to achieve the BRILLIANT acting in that scene. A director DIRECTS, tells you how they want you to think of the scene or what kind of motivation you should tap into. They guide you, yes that is true. But the director did not tell him he had to use American Method (which is usually total BS that part is very true Fuck American Method acting) or any other specific technique. No one FORCED HIM to use the techniques he used. He made a choice and it is infantilizing to say he had no voice or no say in what happened to him that day. 

Also notable, I don’t hear ANYONE comparing his torture scene with Anya’s scene with Streogobor where she was also restrained. Or her season 1 transformation scene. I put those at equal to or greater physical and mental strain and yet, we’re just focusing on one interview Joey gave. Speaking of!

Joey talks over and over about the support he was given on set (if we can look at the many other interviews where he specifically MENTIONS THE SUPPORT HE WAS GIVEN instead of this just the highlight reel of the interview at the top) and if he had been struggling too much, I feel sure he trusted people enough to ask for a break or something. And he would have been given it. Even if he didn’t ask, it is required by the actor’s union that breaks are taken. As an actor, I am CERTAIN he was constantly checked in with between takes and given every opportunity to call a time out if he required one. I don’t think he would thank anyone for trying to demonize his friends/colleagues/coworkers over the difficulty of this scene. He trusts his crew. We should too.

To summarize with the point I really want to drive home: people who ask others to go to challenging mental/emotional places for our catharsis and entertainment have a responsibility to help bring them back. Perhaps not a legal responsibility, but I believe a moral and ethical one. Furthermore, people who know they will be challenged physically, mentally, and emotionally—however consensually—deserve access to professional aftercare.

It is not hard to link to your Tumblr or Twitter with a vague message like, “If you’re looking for my other works or other ways of supporting me, go here: link.” I have had people buy me coffees after enjoying my fic and asking where to support me. I threw up a link to my Tumblr and people cared enough to follow it. They were fully understanding when I explained in the comments that they could not commission me and I could not link them directly to any donation platform, but they could go to xyz link to read more. And they did! Nobody has to put AO3 directly on the firing line.

Go ahead and commission independently. Just do it anywhere else except on AO3. And then don’t come crying to the community when you, personally, get a C&D from a massive corporation.

AO3 is our bullet shield. Tumblr will pull your shit down. Wattpad won’t fucking protect you. LJ and FF.net already sold our asses for one (1) corn chip. AO3 is trying to protect us, you goddamn lemmings.

If you cannot follow the rules that protect fanspaces, you do not belong in our fanspaces.

Witchers are perceived around the Continent as uneducated, mindless monster-killing machines that often serve as scary bed time stories for children to behave. We see Geralt being mistreated for his lower class status as a witcher, especially by people from the upper class: Istredd, driven by his jealousy of Yennefer, offends Geralt’s very existence using his status as a witcher; Calanthe, even as she’s polite to Geralt during the banquet, doesn’t make any attempt at hiding she thinks of him as just a mercenary for hire; Foltest is actually pleasantly surprised that Geralt is so eloquent; the sorceresses at Thanedd are pleasantly surprised that Geralt is so good looking (and immediately start fetishizing him); Vilgefortz is not shy in saying he thinks Geralt is just a stupid insignificant man, even while Geralt keeps up the conversation with him effortlessly; the professor (I forgot his name) at that boat in Blood of Elves refuses so adamantly to accept Geralt is not stupid, even while Geralt maintains a decent conversation there.

And you know what’s interesting? This perception is established and propagated a lot by people from the upper class (nobles and mages mostly, like I pointed out). The alderman in Blaviken is actually friends with Geralt, until the whole Blaviken massacre happens. The other people in the boat aren’t as prejudiced against Geralt as the professor is. There’s an exchange between Geralt and Yurga, a peasant merchant, where Yurga pretty much asks Geralt whether he’s interested in taking up his son to train to become a witcher — it’s a noble job in Yurga’s perception, and it’s better than whatever job Yurga himself can get for his son.

The point is: throughout the story, we easily realize that Geralt — and by extension, the witchers, a lower class and outcast portion of society in the Continent — is anything but a mindless monsterkilling machine. He’s educated, he went to Oxenfurt, he is quite the (annoying, whiny) philosopher, he is intelligent. When we meet the other witchers, we also get the sense that they’re also educated (whether they studied at Nenneke’s temple and/or Oxenfurt is not stated), that they’re intelligent and savvy enough to understand the broader politics of the Continent. Lambert, for instance, calls the visiting mage out on the “small talk” she’s doing trying to convince them to give Ciri to her — he understands broader politics enough to know that the upper class (in this case, the mages) are never interested in helping society, they’re only interested in helping themselves (and oh boy, isn’t he right in this moment?). Coën takes in consideration what Triss has to say and decides to make a life-changing decision and go to war in Brenna. They aren't ignorant.

Which leads me to another point: I’ve said this again and again, the mages in the world of The Witcher are meant to be an allegory of our society’s upper class. Magic is a metaphor for money, and sorcerers and sorceresses are the lobbyist pushing politics (kings and queens) towards their own goals; they are our world’s billionaires who could do a lot to change society’s injustices, but just don’t because… it’s not really convenient or relevant for their plans, is it? So we have a really not subtle scenario: upper class (mages) belittling the working lower class (witchers) on several occasions. And we see it when Istredd belittles Geralt, we see it when Triss belittles the witchers when she’s visiting Kaer Morhen, we see it when Geralt visits Thanedd, we see it when The Lodge is formed, we see it until the very end, when Vilgefortz is doing his evil Vilgefortz shenanigans.

But Netflix fails to see any of that (or refuses to?). Instead of leaning into this classism problem and discuss it, they choose to portray the witchers with the least depth possible, as just mindless orgy enthusiasts who can’t even train a child without bullying her. They choose to ignore the significance of Ciri abandoning her title as Princess Cirilla of Cintra and finding a new family away from that political weigh — it feels like they can’t even fathom the idea that Ciri wouldn’t hold tight to her former princess title as her identity? Nevermind that, originally, Ciri was so traumatized that she leaned heavily on her status as Geralt’s child surprise instead of former princess of Cintra, and she leaned heavily on the hope that Geralt would find her after living for a few months with Yurga’s family. Ciri abandoning the upper class status and actually finding solace and comfort in a found family of the lower working class is filled with symbolism: it’s here that it’s established that political titles are just made up symbols of imperialism and oppression; it’s here where the themes of imperialism is bad and autonomy is important start to be discussed.

The Witcher Netflix fails to discuss all of that. They choose to focus on made-up mage politics instead of building working class-upper class dynamics to highlight the unfairness of it all, choosing to focus more on the opressor of the Continent instead of the oppressed — or not really the oppressed, they could focus on the classism problem without even focusing on a specific group. The witchers aren’t the only ones who suffer with classism, we can look at other characters such as Angoulême, Milva, Mistle and the Rats, the scoia’tael—hell, even freaking Rience-who-was-kicked-out-of-Ban-Ard-but-became-a-lackey-instead-of-a-lawyer.

(And on that note, let's not ignore that a lawyer is still a prestigious position in-universe, it's just a step down in the scale of privilege from actual mages, so it's really another case of classism dictating social roles in the in-universe society.)

(And still on that note, let's not forget that in Season of Storm, even though Geralt was being defended by an Aretuza drop-out lawyer — who obviously didn't care about him in the least — Geralt himself had to figure out how to defend himself with his own knowledge of Law and Latin. Another instance of 1) Upper class not giving a damn and 2) Geralt proving the stereotype about witchers wrong, he's very well educated.)

(And we *know* Netflix folks read Season of Storms because that's where Nightmare of the Wolf was inspired from ;D)

TWN chooses to focus on the oppressor instead of the oppressed because… let’s be real, they want their Littlefinger vs Varys moment like in the early seasons of GoT (it’s either that, or they actually sympathize more with the class of mages than any other class in the Continent? Hmmmm.)

My point is: The Witcher Netflix ignores the classism issues found in the story. Why? Class discussion is a key part of the Witcher stories, but it seems that discussing class is not fashionable? For rich TV executives at least? Otherwise, why are they working so hard to avoid these issues and begging the audience to sympathize (be it through pity, charisma, or politic mind games, or even anger — why give Stregobor so much screen time?) with the upper class oppressors?

Geralt works in a dying profession where he risks his life on the regular for very little money, and yet when he bounds himself by destiny to a vulnerable girl who has both immense political and magical power he doesn't take advantage of her. If at some point in the story he had broken Ciri's trust for his own gain then he would be one of the few characters you could almost sympathise with for doing so, and yet the thought never even crosses his mind. Geralt and his fellow witchers are some of the only characters who want nothing from her. Their working class perspective on power and corruption is why Geralt becomes a good dad.

And that's also why Vesemir's plot in the show felt so bizarre to me. The idea that the witchers might try to mutate Ciri and put her through the trials is something Triss thinks about while ruminating on why she was invited to the keep (as they would need a mage for the trials). Vesemir never shows any inclination that he might want to put Ciri through that. Instead he welcomes Ciri into the keep without fuss, sews her clothes to train in, adjusts her sword to her height, and comforts her during a lesson on ghouls when she's reminded of the death she saw in Sodden. All we see Vesimir doing is sharing his skills with Ciri so she can better protect herself. He wants nothing from her. Why have him burden her with the legacy of witchers?

Why is the Witcher fandom not talking about this scene? I get it. I completely agree, the whitewashing of the PoC characters is horrible. The racism is atrocious. We need to talk about that. HOWEVER. We also need to talk about this. This scene. It makes my skin crawl. I'm horrified. Appalled. Everyone should be, no matter how you feel about this show. ESPECIALLY if you love this show. Especially if this is the canon you prefer. Because this scene right here? Turned those witchers into rapists. Discussion below the cut.

So just been thinking about how I've seen some people compare "the book orgy" to "the show orgy", when it comes to Season 1. (And implying that's why Season 2's wasn't noncon.) So, I opened up my book, and reread The Last Wish, when Geralt meets Yennefer in that house. Here's the discussion regarding the Orgy in The Last Wish:

You can't point the Borch foursome to use it as your example of a "consensual orgy." I don't care how you choose to define an orgy, though personally I don't feel like a foursome hits the mark, my point is you can't use a different scene and a different context to apologize for a context that was added later. You may as well say "But the book has consensual sex" while defending non-con that's been added by scriptwriters.

Just because consensual sex occurs in one context does not mean it's consensual in another. We... we understand that, right?

Even if Yennefer was in the bathtub with Borch and Geralt and Théa and Véa, it's still not a valid example. Because it's a completely different circumstance from the "orgy" in the Last Wish--which only exists in the Netflix canon. (I use quotes because an orgy is where everyone has consented to be there willingly).

You cannot look at the way these people scramble and tell me there's not distress. One blond looks around in confusion. They're immediately trying to cover themselves. Note: this is not yennefer bashing. this is not anya bashing. This is 100% placed on the writers of the show. It was unnecessary. Especially considering when we complain about Yennefer's noncon behaviour in the book, we're not talking about a made up orgy. We're talking about things like this:

(Sorry for the repost y'all. Because I replied to the original ask in good faith the first time around, when that person didn't like my answers and blocked me - and then waded thru the list of folks that interacted with me and some other folks that disagreed with them and blocked all *them* as well - it locked rebagel'ing for some of the folks who wanted to share the Coën Facts™. So here it is again on it's own, so those of you that said you wanted to reblob it now can)

[redacted] Here you go, as requested:

1) book!Coën is not a Wolf witcher || TWN has said there is only one school in their canon (Kaer Morhen) and TWN!Coen wears a Wolf medallion

2) book!Coën's first winter at KM was Ciri's as well, he was also an outsider like her || TWN! Coen is (again) already part of the wolf school which kind of makes him just another of the witchers around her

3) book!Coën "was young, apparently the same age as Lambert" according to Triss in BoE - who is relatively young herself (Jaskier is possibly older than she is), so i doubt she'd be calling someone over a century-old "young" || in Netflix's NotW Geralt is the youngest and - as there is only one school - TWN! Coen would have to have been at least old enough to be a full witcher out on the Path at the time of the attack, making him even older than Geralt who's already over a hundred come S2

4) book!Coën did not bully Ciri || TWN! Coen did - a century old monster slayer, and he’s spending his winter helping Lambert bully a human kid

5) book!Coën did not dance with sexworkers brought to KM and then intentionally drugged past being able to remember anything about the night || TWN!Coen did

6) book!Coën "had unusually pale, yellow-green irises and the whites of his eyes, riddled with red threads" (BoE) || TWN!Coën has heterochromia. Now this might be a visual design choice to make that difference in eye mutations between him and the other witchers obvious, or it might be related to Atour saying he had an eye injury when he was young. But because of the nature of witcher mutations, TWN!Coen's non-mutated eye is functionally different than a mere cosmetic choice - it would mean that at the very least his eyes have differing visual levels (which would cause issues on it's own) or could even be a sign of some level of vision loss. And as someone who's had minor vision loss before and has family who's suffered major, I can report back that such a thing does indeed make a difference in one's life

7) book!Coën spells his name with an ë || TWN!Coen has been anglicized to remove the ë, kind of like how some of my ancestors were forced to change their names to not sound too “foreign” when they immigrated to America. To be clear this is not “just removing the umlauts”, it makes it an entirely different letter and is a purposeful misspelling which is generally considered rude to do to a person of another language/culture. It would be like changing Yennefer to Jennefer or Ciri to Siri - it’s not the same name (alright, admittedly this is just a personal annoyance than a true character change, but it’s still rude. names & culture are important)

8) book!Coën had the awesome teaching/foreshadowing moment with Ciri about even the best of fencers all winding up in the same place/in cemeteries || TWN!Coen did not get to have that teaching moment because the line was given to Geralt

All together, these seem like major differences to me though - both physically, in his personality, and in his backstory. So much so that they feel like totally different characters. TWN!Coen doesn't feel to me like someone who's going to march off to Brenna, for instance. So while Atour remains my face claim for Coën, when I write him it's the book character who gives him life. When I read him, I want more personality and backstory than TWN saw fit to give him. Otherwise he's just another Aiden really - which can be fun, but only if I'm in the mood for an OC

When you said "there was no other clarification of 'book canon Coën' besides that tag" - except that tag is on a whole entire fic which would presumably provide the clarification you're asking for, right? If you don't want to read that fic, that's fair. Walk away. But to *not* check your evidence before you go jump online and impugn someone who's just helping readers looking for more book-personality Coën?…Like I said, seems like it says far more about you than it does the writer

Are you upset that people are canon blending characters (as you mention with Triss), or are you upset that people are trying to specify which canon they are using instead of just blending (the whole Coën/Coen thing that started this mess)?

Now as to your tags:

IDK, when I see someone specifically described as pale, I tend to assume that's because everyone else *isn't* (see: Earthsea)

I DO in fact think it's a leap to assume Sapkowski intended the characters to be default anything because a) it’s not just some sort of fantasy Poland - he said they came from all over in a different world and b) there's no such thing as "default white" any more than there is any other kind of “default skin tone.” Look, Western Europe and Eastern Europe have A History, the countries within those regions have A History, the regions within those countries have A History, and to write it all off as "white" so as to conveniently ignore all the cultural/economic/political/historical/social differences that shape them seems as reductivist as lumping people from Spain/Mexico/Puerto Rico/Cuba/Columbia/Peru together as just “those Spanish speaking countries”. You seem like the kind of person interested in doing better and trying to promote diversity, so these comments were pretty surprising TBH

Sapkowski is an old *Polish* guy - which means he grew up in a country absolutely obliterated by the Nazis, lived through communism and revolution, watched his country and people rebuild. And then - at the age of 38, which um...is not actually that old? - he wrote the start of what would become an amazing series of books about power and politics and race and oppression and marginalized groups all dressed up as fantasy so people would read it. I do not know why you would demean his age or culture instead of celebrating it, especially as you otherwise seem to enjoy these books written by an "old white guy" *about* an "old white guy"?