#(no more worrying about right or wrong. abt what do i owe the world versus what happiness do i deserve for myself)

[thebrightsessions]

Abt you not confirming any characters as poc: It feels a little performative. Like you go on and on abt how important representation is but you leave poc out in the cold. And this isn't even addressed in a way that makes it seem like you care or have thought abt it. I'm not trying to be rude, but it's a little (a lot) upsetting

I’m really sorry that it seems like I don’t care or that I don’t think about it - I do care and I spend a lot of time thinking about this exact subject. But, like 98% of my thinking, I tend to keep it to myself or conversations with close friends and collaborators. The internet is not always the best place to learn and grow. I even debated answering this ask publicly (or at all - as you guys know, there’s about 900 unanswered asks in here) because I’m always afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, but I want to be transparent about this kind of stuff so that I can learn how to be better. 

This is a long post because I want to be as blunt and thorough as possible, so the rest under the cut. 

Representation is important but by talking about how I think representation is important, I in no way want to suggest that I am perfect or comprehensive with representation in my own work. I apologize if it’s ever come off that way - that is not my intention. I’m still learning and growing all the time - as is the greater population and wider entertainment world - and this inevitably means that I’m going to make mistakes or be behind the times or have major blind spots. I try to stay aware of my blind spots and listen to people around me who are smarter and better, but that doesn’t mean I can instantly course correct. 

When I first started The Bright Sessions, never mentioning anyone’s appearance in the show was a specific intention. I wanted our listeners to be able to imagine whatever they’d like to imagine and, selfishly, I was excited to see different interpretations in fanart, should we be lucky enough to have people drawing our characters. I naively thought that was unequivocally a good thing. After all, I loved imagining my own personal versions of the characters in books I read or podcasts I listened to - isn’t that the benefit of having no visual reference? I realize now how short-sighted that was. I still do think there’s beauty in having a completely open sandbox when it comes to visuals, but I also know better now that concrete representation is vital. 

Since then, I’ve been grappling with different questions. If I were to confirm someone’s race, would I be taking away something from someone? What’s the balance of having concrete, meaningful representation versus leaving doors open for listeners to make characters their own? I didn’t think about race in casting - perhaps another naive choice - so in making any races canon, would I have to recast? Limit the character’s race to the actor’s race? Are the rules different in voice acting? 

And, were I to make something canon, how would I do so within the podcast? This might seems like a lazy, cop-out question to ask myself, but it is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Certain characters have voiced their sexuality out loud because sexuality is something you can’t see, but it might feel awkward or shoe-horned in to have a character identify their own or someone else’s race out loud. In TV and film, the representation is there because you can see it - it isn’t being told to you. But of course, people do talk about their own experiences as a POC in real life, but that would mean writing a conversation specifically about the POC experience, which I feel isn’t my place to write. So, then, ideally I’d hire a POC writer, except I only recently started getting paid for writing this show myself and the last thing I want to do is cash in on someone’s experience and talents and then not pay them. That seems like the way worse option. 

Now, you might ask, “why not just confirm it on here or somewhere else online?”. Because it’s one thing for me to answer questions about a character’s favorite food or birthdays, but in my opinion, something as important as racial representation only counts if it’s actually in canon. I’ve confirmed some things that are heavily suggested in the podcast, but I’ve tended not to give answers about things like sexuality and race because until those things appear in the show, I have no right to claim them publicly for my characters. That’s how I feel right now but, as with all of this, my feelings may evolve. 

(sidebar: I did confirm Chloe’s panromanticism on tumblr before getting to it in the show, but she was already out as ace and I had a pretty decent idea that we were going to talk about her exes down the line)

So those have been some of the many thoughts that have been running through my head the past two and a half years and I still don’t have perfect answers for them. They are not at all meant to be excuses - I’ve been fairly upfront about the fact that my two big blind spots as a writer are gender and race representation. I know. That doesn’t mean I know how to be better. To be totally honest, I’m pretty scared to tackle those subjects as a white cis writer. I feel more surefooted writing queer characters - even ones with a different identity than my own - and male characters - even though I’m a woman - because men have been represented plenty in media. But when there’s already such a dearth of good POC representation (and the spectrum of gender representation) it feels like a much weightier thing to take on. But that should in no way stop me. Just because I fear identifying a character’s race in an audio format might lead to clunky dialogue, doesn’t mean it has to sound exposition-y and awkward. If I want to be a good writer, I need to find ways to write meaningful representation in multiple mediums, without sacrificing smoothness of writing. If representation is important to me in my work - which it is - I need to walk the walk and make sure that I’m considering what the breadth of representation actually means. 

(another sidebar because it always bears repeating: not everything can be everything for everyone. I get a lot of asks along the lines of “will you ever have a character who is x” and the reality is that I’m not running through a checklist of groups to represent in my work because I think that does lead to bad storytelling. That being said, if I want to challenge myself by telling new and diverse stories (diverse in the broadest sense of the word) and if I’m someone who believes that entertainment can be a force for positive change, I will do my best to widen the spectrum of the characters I’m writing. But: I am not at all obligated to do so. If a writer wants to tell the same story about the same people in 900 different ways for the rest of their life, they are allowed to do that. I wouldn’t want to do it - I personally believe that if you’re making something for potential mass consumption (as anything on the internet is), you’d ideally have good intentions that it would have a positive influence on the world. But the entertainment you consume does not have a responsibility to you. An artist is responsible for their art - if you make something and it has an affect on the world, negative or positive, you have to live with that. But as an audience member, I don’t think I’m owed anything by what I consume because I choose what I consume, and all the baggage that comes with it. If I waited for that piece of art that is perfect in representation and entirely unproblematic, I would be waiting quite literally for forever. Which brings me to my final point...) 

To be completely, brutally honest, there’s a trend on tumblr/the internet in general that I’ve seen grow exponentially in the past ten years that really worries me. And that is the constant tearing down of anything deemed even slightly problematic. I’ve grown so much as a human and artist in the past three years alone and I live in fear of making a mistake that will end my career and alienate my audience forever. It’s easy to get the impression from the internet that there is no room for growth. I would be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor in me steering away sometimes from things where the chances of me fucking up and courting hate are high. Again - not an excuse. I shouldn’t give a rat’s ass what people on the internet think of me, I should stop being a coward and try things that are important to me, even if I do them badly on the first try. But I’m human and the truth is that strangers on the internet being mean to me actually really fucking hurts. And it especially hurts if I don’t even get a second try to do better. It is impossible and extremely dumb for me to wait for a time when I feel like I can tell certain stories without messing them up, but I think that’s an element of what I’ve been doing. That’s bad and weak-willed and I’m sorry. 

(final sidebar: this ask is not an example of the above. This isn’t a rude ask - you are well within your rights to be upset about this and as much as it stings to know I’ve disappointed listeners, it’s always good for me to know because that’s how I grow. I’m talking more about the hypothetical fear that I try to deliver on something that’s important to lots of people and fail and get a lot of means asks and then have a long cry about it.)

I don’t know if this sheds any light on my thought process or just muddies things further - I’m clearly still figuring things out. I think the main thing I’m trying to say is: I hear you and I know and I’m going to try and do better but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do things perfectly or even well. None of what I’ve said here makes up for the lack of representation or lets me off the hook, but I hope it gives you some insight into where I’m at now. The original run of TBS will unfortunately always be lacking in this regard - there’s nothing I can do to change that. But in projects moving forwards, I fully have the intention to highlight new voices and stories and perspectives. Especially now that I’m in more of a position to actually pay people. But I’m not going to sit here and promise you that I’ll satisfy you with my writing in the future. I have no idea if I will. I have no idea if I’ll even satisfy myself. All I ask, from you and all our listeners and my team and even myself, is that we continue being honest with each other and that we always, always leave room for growth. 

I’m sorry I’ve failed you, but I hope you’ll give me a chance to do better in the future. Stay strange.