#and very distinctively. lumping them together as equal parts of my identity as i feel the term “nonbinary woman” does doesn't describe me

[nowendil]

been thinking a lot about womanhood lately

[petekaos]

hi so ive been studying thai cultures of sexuality and gender for my (kind of not really) college thesis and obviously my research had been little limited because of the lack of english papers on the subject (so !! if you're thai and LGBT+ PLS correct me) but one thing that i've been wrestling with in criticisms of this show is how people have rallied against wife/husband discourse because it feels like a very Eurocentric look at how people express their sexualities. (And +

this comes from someone who hates top/bottom + wife/husband gendering myself!) Thai conceptions of gender/sexuality don’t really fit into the categories of LGBT(+) as easily as believed, especially since the terms people used can often differ based on the sexuality and gender of WHO they’re attracted to and also on the presentation of gender rather than what people feel they are! +

(Also the word phet means both gender AND sexuality, meaning there is not often a distinction between gender/sexuality and boy can you tell I have nothing to do with my time) Which is oh my god confusing but to give an example, when gay was first introduced as an identity marker people began to refer to themselves as “gay kings” v “gay queens” based on which dude was the sexually receptive partner. +

Lesbians are also gendered in a similar format: “tom” tends to refer to butch lesbians (and can sometimes be seen as part of the overarching kathoey third gender) and “dee” refers to femme lesbians. To clarify, I am Indian-American and therefore would solidly punch someone in the face if they tried to classify me and my (nonexistent lol) partner as the “wife” v “husband,” +

especially when the roles you take in bed become an essential part of how you communicate your identity within the gay community. In the states, you can call yourself a lesbian without having to qualify how butch or how much of a top you are, in Thailand the words themselves inherently hold that connotation. Not saying its right, but there is cultural precedent that I think is interesting to explore in asking WHY this trope is so common. +

I know there have been certain shows that have had characters say that they are bi/gay (ie. Mean’s character from UWMA, Ohm’s character from HCTM) but these are not words that originated from Thailand itself, they are loan words from English. That’s not to say they’re invalid in any aspect, but that DOES say that while people who do fall into gay/bi categories may have existed, there was little/no direct translation for these words in thai until the 1960s. +

When gender and sexuality are not considered distinct categories but are rather all lumped under the term “phet,” it is therefore Hard in Thailand to lump people together as ie. Bi without having an additional sex and gender qualifier in the term. “Seua bai” (which means bi tiger and wtf why is that SO cool) refers to /masculine/ bi men, but seau bai are also not seen as completely male because, +

again, seau bai as a phet implies that they are not 100% phu chai - male - which really only refers to heterosexual men. SO while I would love to see tine/sarawat say that they are bi/gay, I’d also equally love for them to express that they are bi/gay with terms inherent to thai, bc I think that offers a really interesting perspective to int fans (and straight thai fans who are unaware) on how gender/sexuality can be different in other cultures. +

They could also offer criticism on these terms if they feel too narrow, which would be really valuable coming from thai writers/producers themselves. Anyway I thought this would be good food for thought, and if LGBT+ thai people have different perceptions PLEASE talk about it if you feel comfortable bc your experiences and knowledge are very valuable and appreciated! Hope this was interesting, sorry for all the spam! i love ur blog rahul -bear

ah thank you so much for this! i have been wondering about this as well recently as more east asians have been speaking up about sexuality and gender in their cultures and how that doesn’t coincide with how westerners express their sexuality and gender. i mean, there are terms that overlap (in indian culture, we have some of those as well, but then we also have hijra and thirunangai and thirunambi in tamil culture) but there are some words exclusive to thai culture specifically. this was great food for thought and i’ll be more careful in the future when it comes to expressing my thoughts on terms for sexuality in bl shows. 

i think it would be really interesting to see these terms used and criticised, if need be, by actual thai lgbt writers and producers. it would be nice to see more of thai culture paid homage to in shows like these and to see the search for labels or terms that fit oneself, i know that has been hard for me personally considering english terms as well. the way we perceive gender and sexuality tends to be very eurocentric and sometimes we need to realise that we need to see things through a different lens and the influence of culture and society on the reason why a lot of these characters don’t use fixed english loan words to describe themselves. this was a super interesting read, thank you! i should have educated myself on it earlier as i got more into this fanbase, but thank you so much for coming along and providing us this information :’)

furthermore i think it would be interesting, as you said, to get input from actual lgbt thai people on this! so if you are lgbt and thai, feel free to send me an ask talking about your experiences and journey with terms and labels, both thai and english, if you feel the want to. y’all always have a platform here with me and i will try my best to provide my insight as well if asked or needed, be respectful, and listen! your knowledge and inputs are very much appreciated, especially when it comes to shows like these and the sometimes unfair criticism they get from people with a western-centric point of view.

thank you once again, my friend!

[doux-amer]

Okay, I have a lot of thoughts on Black Panther and I don’t want this to turn into a humongous essay, so I’m just going to list stuff I liked and thought was so great about it even though it wasn’t perfect (still great and so deep though):

The extravagant and lush visual aesthetics (WAKANDA!!!! The clothes and hairstyles. The colors. EVERYTHING)

The cast is so strong...and so beautiful

THE TECHHHHHHHH OH MY GOD! OHHHHHHH MY GOD! THE SUITS. THE “SNEAKERS” (I LOVE YOU, SHURI). THE NECKLACES. THE KIMOYO BEADS. THE SHIELDS. THE HEALING BED. THE CAR AND PLANE CONTROLLED FROM THE LAB. EVERYTHING!

Such a great score that sets Black Panther completely apart from the rest of the MCU and 99.99999% of studio movies

Inspiration drawn from a rich tapestry of African cultures

Multiple languages (look, some of their accents were...not that strong tbh, but yoooo, they spoke in Xhosa! And Korean! Lupita’s accent made me cringe so hard because it was really bad, but she tried and she spoke a lot more lines of Korean that I would have expected. Ad as someone who always sees Asian people and Asian countries depicted in a certain type of way, I was 1) flattered by what I just said, 2) surprised that the Busan scenes lasted as long as they did (I thought they’d pull an AoU where we saw two seconds of Seoul), and 3) excited that they showed different glimpses of Busan. Ryan picked Busan because AoU got Seoul and he wanted something different and wanted something similar to Wakanda in terms of that balance between being grounded in tradition while being futuristic and thought Busan was perfect.

An African country untouched by white colonialism that’s extremely advanced in every way possible

A discussion about the African diaspora and in this case specifically, the difference between African Americans and Africans? WHAT?!?! A MAJOR TENTPOLE FILM DID THAT! So important because people just lump black people together, but there’s a sense of displacement and loss, an identity struggle, and a lot of generational and historical trauma that a lot of African Americans feel (and Afrolatinos, Afro-Caribbeans, etc.). And Ryan and Chadwick talked about how they thought this movie would resonate beyond black people—and it is, considering how well it’s doing here and abroad (did you see the records they’re breaking? TRUST ME, it’s even more impressive if you go back and see what industry estimates were before the movie came out even when pros were accounting for all the hype and how historic this movie is)—and yeah, this was the part that really got to me and I’m sure that it did for a lot of people who live hyphenated existences because they’re from an immigrant family. Erik being seen as “lesser than” in the U.S. and being seen as an outsider and “not one of them” in Wakanda even though he’s both American and Wakandan...bruh, that was REAL. I mean, thankfully I’ve never had to deal with anything super bad, but if you don’t talk like them and you don’t act like them? I know friends whose relatives frowned upon them because they weren’t ____ enough and they were “too” American when they’re treated as inferior over here. But going back to the African diaspora thing, this is especially important because I feel like people don’t assume African Americans go through this as well (unless they get all racist and shout “Go back to Africa!”). I don’t know. It’s important for black people to see that on screen, for me as a non-black person to see that, and for other non-black people to see that this is a thing too.

The pain that black people suffered at the hands of white people being addressed and more importantly, being shown as something that not only continues to have a massive effect on how black people are treated currently, but also something that STILL continues to be a thing albeit in different forms (so so so brilliant to start the movie off in 1990s Oakland with N’Jobu after the monologue).

The criticism of colonialism, American imperialism (past AND current (Erik is not only a product of that, but he carried it out too)), slavery, xenophobia, and isolationism. 

The timeliness of BP when there’s a refugee crisis, racism is running rampant, xenophobia is a big thing, etc. and BP shows that, no, you can’t just shut yourself behind walls because people are suffering and if you can do something about it, then YOU SHOULD because otherwise you’re complicit (NAKIA WAS RIGHT)

GENDER EQUALITY. They don’t make a big deal out of it! The women are equal to the men and it’s just the way it is. And all of those women? None of them are generic Strong Women. They’re all so distinct in their own ways, and they play such big, meaty roles. Honestly, I’d go as far as saying that they actually outshone T’Challa. T’Challa literally “died” for a good while and I didn’t even miss him because the female characters were written so well and were so important to the story that it was their story too. I remember thinking in the theater what it would be like if any of the other solo movies did that and was mindblown because it would be SUCH A BALLSY THING TO DO. Never mind the women thing, it’s super risky to do that to your main character whom the film is about in general. But BP DID THAT. And it was all the more amazing because the characters who carried the film were black women. I’ve never seen such a balanced act before.

SO MANY WOMEN TOO. I’ve never seen so many women in one MCU film before. Same goes for the Netflix side of things (and uh, if you think Jessica Jones is the show with the best female representation, I disagree with you because Luke Cage exists and did better on female representation than JJ, don’t @ me)

Speaking of women, omg okay, I can’t pick a favorite character because is it Shuri? Is it Nakia? Okoye? (And then there’s M’Baku and T’Challa...and everyone....why is this cast so amazing???!?!!?!) 

Also, with Shuri, I love how you see the friction between tradition and modernity. What a super young POC experience. Really loved the contrast between her and some of the others who put a lot of value in customs and cultural values. Like the way she got fussy over her traditional clothes, the way she got bored with the ceremony? It made me laugh and think about some people I knew growing up. I don’t think they’ll ever get around to it because it’s not important to the story, but it’ll be interesting to see how the scales go back and forth on that for her. 

Speaking of traditions, I love the conversation on respecting them, but recognizing that there has to be change and there has to be progress because the previous generation failed (and it’s on the youth to not rectify the mistakes, but to surpass the previous generation and be better than them) and people got left behind and hurt in the process.

And omg I was worried that Everett Ross would play a bigger role than he actually did, so I’m so relieved at how he was essentially a plot device (same with Klaue). I didn’t think Ryan and co. would want to make him play a big role, but I didn’t know how much Marvel pushed for Ross to be in it. I was surprisingly not irritated by him and ended up liking him enough, mainly because he showed up very little and mainly because of the way he was treated in Wakanda. Lmao forever at “Don’t scare me like that, colonizer!” and M’Baku just shutting him up and judging him at every turn.

LOL I SAID I WAS GOING TO TRY TO KEEP THIS SHORT, BUT OBVIOUSLY I FAILED SO I’M GOING TO STOP HERE. THIS IS THE MOST POLITICALLY CHARGED, DEEP, AND UNIQUE MARVEL FILM EVER AND IT’S SO GREAT! I CAN’T BELIEVE WE GOT SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN THE MCU. 

[writingwithcolor]

Research:Large to Small Scale, Avoiding Homogenizing East Asian Cultures, & Paralleling Regions Appropriately

I’m currently working on a project set in a secondary world, but with nations that roughly correspond to major cultures in our world. 

By that I mean I’m trying to create amalgamations of cultural groups. For example, one country corresponds to Germanic cultures, one to Celtic, one to Mediterranean. There are, so far, also countries that correspond to Eastern Asia - a mixture of Japanese, Chinese and Korean, mainly - South America, “Arab countries” and so on. My first question, in that regard, would be whether or not this concept - creating a “vibe” that reads Eastern Asian, for example, but is not one specific culture - is offensive and if it is, what I can do to solve it. 

The project I’m working on makes use of so called FaceClaims, which means that, for example, actors are used to represent fictional characters. If I based the country on China alone, then I could only use Chinese FCs and would thus greatly limit the representation. A solution I thought of was to have each country be inofficially split up in itself, so the “East Asian” country would have a “Chinese” region, a “Korean” region and so on. Secondly, I have a desert region that I thought would be nice for an “African” (I am very much aware that there is no such thing as an “African culture”, so bear with me) cultural group. For this “country”, I thought of a loose union between different nations of people. There, I’m stuck - should I choose one region in Africa, let’s say West Africa, and base each nation on one specific peoples there? Or should I create my own “African-inspired” cultures? Or should I choose cultures from all around Africa and base a nation on each?

My third question goes along a similar line: The “cultures” I have chosen for the countries are by far not all there are in the world. There is no country for Native Americans, for example, none for South-Eastern Asians (unless I integrate them with my “India”), no Central Asian, etc. I know it is impossible to include all cultures there are in the world, but how do I choose which ones to represent in a concept like mine? I don’t want to exclude them, but I simply cannot create as many countries as there are cultural groups.

One possible solution I thought of specifically refers to Jewish people, since I feel it is important to represent them more in fantasy writing. My current idea was to have their story go similar to that of our world: Exile, long travels, and a split into groups, one of which would be the Ashkenazim, living somewhere near the Germanic country, and the other would be the Sephardim, which I imagined to live in between the “Arab” and “African” country, in a semi-autonomous city-state. But is it offensive to adapt what happened to the Jewish people in a secondary world or should I make it so that they have a more positive past and life, no exile like there was in our world? As far as I know, the exile is an important part of Jewish identity and cultural understanding, but I thought I’d ask anyway.

I’m going to preface this that some of this wording might sound very harsh, but I recognize you are genuinely asking out of a place of respect but you just aren’t sure what the best way to respect the world’s diversity is. The problem is it’s still not quite respectful enough, and shows sometimes glaring ignorance of nuances in the region.

I would also like to remind people that just because your exact question hasn’t been answered to the full scope you’re looking at, doesn’t mean you can’t get an answer as a whole. For example, we’ve discussed the concept of how and when to mix different cultures in the East Asian tag. Shira will cover your questions regarding Jewish representation below. 

However, I’m going to specifically tackle this from a research and worldbuilding perspective, primarily talking about a history of forced homogenization and how to avoid recreating colonialism/imperialism.

Notes on Language and False Equivalences

For starters, basically all of these groups are too broad. By a long shot. Either they flatten sometimes dozens to thousands of cultures (“Native American country” is in the thousands, “West Africa” is in the hundreds, “China, Japan, Korea” is in the dozens, if not hundreds, same deal with India). This language use makes people pretty uncomfortable, because it implies that the basis is stereotypes. It implies you haven’t done research, or, at least, haven’t done enough. When discussing nuance, it’s best to imply you understand there is nuance— like you did with Africa and Jewish culture, but neglected to do everywhere else.

You also go very broad with all non-European cultures, but narrow down a general homogeneous part for your European analogues, by picking Germanic and Celtic.

This double standard is something that is exactly what we try to draw attention to at WWC: to our ears, it sounds like “I’m taking Germanic peoples for Europe, but I’m going to mix three East Asian countries because those two regions have the equivalent amount of sameness that I can pass it off.”

While that sounds specific to just you, it’s not. We’ve received this type of question dozens of times in the past and it’s a general cultural attitude we’ve faced lots and lots and lots of times. Western society makes you think the equivalence is equal, because they’ve flattened all non-European countries with the single broadest brush, but it’s not.

I would also caution you on relying on media images for face claims, because media images only represent the idealized version of beauty. We’ve written multiple description guides that point out how much variety exists within all ethnic groups and how people seeing us as all the same is a microaggression.

You are right that you can’t tackle all of the world’s diversity into your worldbuilding, because, well, there is so much. The core of your question is basically how to narrow it down, which is what I’m going to tackle.

My suggestion is twofold: 

Research big, top level things, over a few centuries— namely, keep track of empires that have tried to take over places and look at what groups Western society lumps together when it spreads multiple regions.

Build small with a focus on a very specific place and group— namely, pick the smallest possible region you can and see what you have to build from there.

Researching Big

Researching big helps you catch what not to flatten, or at least, where flattening might be reinforcing situations that a government perpetuated. I’m going to focus on East Asia since that’s the bulk of your question, and it’s also where I’ve spent some time worldbuilding. The principles apply to all groups you’re trying to research.

East Asia— namely Japan, Korea, and China, although that is an oversimplification itself— is composed of two empires: China and Japan. This makes homogenization extremely risky because you’re touching two nerves of countries trying to take over in very recent history.

China has taken over a very large swath of land over centuries, and still has independence fights to this day from their recent history. As a result, they have both a roughly overreaching culture because the empire is so old, and a very fractured culture with over 50 recognized ethnic groups. When you think of “Chinese” you usually think of the dominant Han Chinese, but because of its old empire roots you can get a giant variety. In modern day, some provinces have kept their individual culture, while others have been part of China for so long there is a general “sameness” to them that can capture the flare you want.

Japan’s imperialism is similarly recent, only ending in 1947, and it left wounds across the Pacific (including Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysia). Many of their actions are classified as war crimes. They’ve also erased their own Indigenous population by insisting only one ethnicity lived in the country. Both of these factors make mixing Japan into an “East Asian” mix tricky. Japan’s culture, while heavily impacted by China and Korea, is pretty distinct because of its island status.

Big research also lets you see the neighbouring areas at a time borders might not have been the same. For example, in the 1600s, China was much smaller because the Manchu External Expansion hadn’t happened yet. As a result, places we now think of as “Chinese” actually weren’t, and you’ll have to account for these differences in your worldbuilding. You can determine this by looking up historical maps/empires, which might require book research (libraries are wonderful).

This does not mean you can ignore recent history, however. Because the story is set in modern day, people will be viewing it through a modern lens. You need to research both the modern and the historical context in order to understand how to go about crafting a respectful world.

So that’s stuff you would’ve discovered by big research. By tracking empire movements, you can see where old wounds are and what historical contexts exist within whatever region you’re pulling from. If you take North America, you can see how each individual tribe is cast aside in favour of settler stories; in Africa, you can see how multiple empires wanted to plunder the land and didn’t care who it was; in the Middle East, you can see both the recent military involvement, the historical Ottomans, and the historical Persians.

Build Small

You can also see what empires influenced their regions for long enough to create a similar-ish culture throughout multiple regions, which can help you extract the essence you’re looking for. I would add a very large caution to only do this for historical empires where those who suffered under the regime are not fighting in present day/ have living memory of it (such as incorporating too much of England, France, or Spain in the Americas, along with the two examples above).

Now you can build small. If you wanted to give a sense of, say, coastal China with a heavy amount of trade, you can pick a major port city in China and figure out the pluralism in relation to that city. What parts identify it as Chinese (architecture, governance, food, general religious practices— folklore changes by region, but the general gist of practices can remain similar enough to get a vibe), and what parts are borrowed from a distinct enough culture they’re noticeably different?

By going from a city level, you can imply pluralism by throwing in asides of differences “out there” that shows you’ve thought about it, without cramming your world full of cultures you can’t fit in the plot. You can then also narrow down what to include based on map proximity: if there’s an easy sea or land path to an Egyptian analogue, you’re probably going to at least hint at it. This is a known historical trade, btw. Egyptian blue and Han purple are made of similar substances, pointing to an ancient cultural link.

You can research this by simply googling the country and looking under its history in Wikipedia. If you look up “China”, you can see “Imperial Unification” as one of its history points. “Japan” similarly gets you the Meiji period. Turkey shows the Ottoman empire. You can also look up “empires in [region]” that will give you a similar overview. This even works for places you don’t think have historical empires, such as North America (the pre-colonization section notes several).

This also is a starting place for what the borders would’ve been during any given time period, and gives you places to potentially factor in military involvement and recent strife. This is where modern research comes in handy, because you can get an idea of what that strife looked like.

Hope this gives you an idea how to go about worldbuilding a diverse population, and how to avoid paralleling recent wounds. 

~ Mod Lesya

Regarding Your Jewish Characters

I think it’s valid to reflect our real history in fantasy although if you dwell too much on the suffering aspects and not the “richly varied cultural traditions” aspects you’ll probably lose some of us because suffering-porn written from the outside gets old fast (if you’re Jewish yourself you 200% have the right to write this, of course.) Human Jewish characters living in pockets in fake-northern-Europe and fake-Mediterranea and fake-North-Africa (or even Fake China and Fake India; we’re there, too) is actually injecting some well-needed historical accuracy back into a genre that’s been badly whitewashed, gentilewashed, etc by imagining a Europe where nobody but white gentiles existed until they conveniently popped into existence during whatever era the writer thinks is appropriate.

In other words, if your fake Germany has a Jewish neighborhood in its largest city, that’s a way of making pseudo-European fantasy more realistic and less -washy, and is overall a good move, despite the fact that the destruction of the temple is the reason we were in Germany in the first place. (I mean… it’s not like you’re planning on sitting there writing about Tisha b'Av itself, right? You don’t have to say “And the reason there are Jews here is because a bazillion years ago, we wound up getting scattered” just to have Jews.)

By the way, having myself written secondary-world fantasy where entire countries, plural, get to be majority-Jewish, and 100% free of on-screen antisemitism, I think both ways are valid.

–Shira