@junebug I'm so glad that SPG is doing the soundtrack again

@junebug OH HELL YEAH!!

@junebug I think for the audience, that shared familiarity with the characters is a nice on ramp into a work (Folding Ideas talks about this as "skipping to the good stuff" in his 50 Shades videos), and for the author, it gives you a lot that you can lean on and get for free, and you can opt into doing more heavy lifting where you find it interesting. It's like the creative writing equivalent of a D&D module

@junebug then, when the opportunity presents itself to ask "why is this character like this?" the author has two moves: come up with an AU justification, and now it becomes and exercise in character development; or don't have an answer, and because the audience is familiar with the character they'll be like "that makes sense, because that's how they act in the source media".

@junebug I think everyone else has answered the big reasons why this happens (characters as dolls, characters as narrative forms, the AU as an exercise in speculation), but I would also like to add that there's a lot of utility in reusing characters for both audience and author. The big advantage is that an author, especially authors trying to learn and practice writing, gets the characterization for free, which is a big leg up on the whole process.

@junebug welp, I guess it's rewatch time!

@junebug also truly cannot remember for the life of me if the main character and the 600 year old 15 year old have any kind of relation. I feel like I remember it being fairly like, paternal and not creepy, but my mind may have filed it under "anime bullshit" and scrubbed it from my memory.

@junebug I ended up really enjoying it, I'd watch it again and if I gave it a good solid revisit might make a top 10 or 20 list for me

@junebug I remember it being none of the latter, and less of the former than I was anticipating. More "isn't trade and logistics cool" than the specific economic relations of capitalism