#bc racism is different to fantasy othering

[reunionandthen]

last rb

[undobutton]

Okay so I'm angry, feel free to ignore or whatever.

warnings: swearing, terrible grammar, possible spelling mistakes.

white fanfic creators will worship the white / white passing characters and get so fuckin mad when people " mis-characterize " those characters. when in reality others are usually exploring the character as a whole. maybe they're kind in a fic or the 'precious cinnamon roll' gets genuinely mad for a good reason. but that doesn't fit their view of said character and they feel so comfortable yelling at whoever wrote the fic and shitting all over them???

then they want to strip a black character of their blackness and pretend like racism doesn't exist in their little worlds and they make black readers feel so... false? like we don't even actually exist. like they won't even go through the bare minimum of finding new ways to express embarrassment it's ALWAYS blushing. or feeling your face turn red. and someones always playing with y/ns hair??

but god forbid a black writer create a black reader that other people can fuckin enjoy? or express that a BLACK character might feel uncomfortable dating a white person?? or the (black) character and their white significant other will experience the world differently?

and it hurts cause fanfic writers will spend hours up to weeks researching a time period or a fantasy race (elf, dragon, witch, etc) for accuracy but they won't consider it for a black character or reader? thats so sad.

especially when they take offence at black writers only wanting other people of color to interact with their posts. Like you kick us out of the chatacters xreader tag. but the xblack!reader tag is for everyone?

and then the smut. it's always borderline racist. like the character frowned or got angry once and now they're characterized as a toxic, rude, violent person? like if you want rough smut there are so many not-black characters who are word for word what you want. but you instead force those ideas onto the black characters with no evidence!

like they aren't porn-bots for your little kinks. they mean something to those black readers and writers who finally got some representation and now we've gotta scroll through pages of uncomfortable smut to find one fic where the character is sweet... but y/n is white as hell.

like i hardly write because im afraid of white fanfic writers taking my stories as a personal offence. especially with Hobie. since there's always someone in his tag with their "hot take" or actively yelling at a black writer bc we express these feelings.

like just shut up. please. or do some fucking research.

[creatingblackcharacters]

dia duit! i hope you are well. before i start my ask, i just wanted to say i rlly appreciate ur blog and the MASSIVE amount of work u do, its a testament to ur character and the website as a whole is better off bcs of u.

i was just wondering whether i could get input from yourself, or you followers, abt a character in a story i am writing currently. i myself am a white irish guy, and my story is set in a rural coastal village in the south west of ireland. one of two main characters is a Black woman called mary francis. her dad is a Black man from america whom her white irish mother met while working in america in her twenties, and they moved to ireland, back to the village mary's mam is from, when mary was a toddler. her dad was a professor of literature in [insert american university here], but tbh he didnt like lecturing much bcs he's not a massive fan of public speaking and so when they moved to ireland he rlly appreciated the solitude and space and time to read, and currently he works remotely for an irish university writing articles and the like. mary herself works at and runs the local newsagents, and she is the captain of the parish camogie team. she is a pov character and central to the stories conflict, which is based vaguely off the corrib gas controversy (when shell was extracting gas off the coast of a gaeltacht village, which protested the gas pipe and the onshore gas production as being dangerous to them and the wildlife, and were met with disgusting and disproportionate opposition from the gardaí (irish cops) and private security firms). mary is the head of the protest group against the company doing the mining of a strange new (unearthly) fuel found under the sea off the coast of her village.

my questions centre around 2 concerns. first is that mary is a Black woman in a small rural irish village and ofc there would be some prejudice and anti-Blackness directed towards her. however, i dont want her to be disconnected from her community and have her side of the story be a pure miseryfest while the white characters are havin a grand time. im torn between havin a realistic portrayal of the genuine struggles and racism Black people have to face in ireland, and not wanting mary to be disproportionally unhappy. altho the story deals with a lot of heavy things (environmental destruction, the impact of colonialism on the physical and emotional landscape of a place, neo capitalism, grief, etc) at the end of the day it is a fantasy story with a fair amount of escapism, and i dont want realism to come at the expense of the escapism of Black readers. i know there would be many different opinions on this ofc but i was hoping perhaps ur Black irish followers if u have any might weigh in le bhur dtoil a chairde?

the second concern is that in the real life controversy this story is (vry vry vry loosely) based off, the gardaí and private security firms used force against the protestors, which is true in my story as well, and im worried, given that mary is the head of the protest group and heavily active in protesting, there would be similarities to real life police brutality against Black people. do u have any thoughts/ideas/concerns abt this aspect of the story? as i said before, i dont want the story to be fierce traumatic for mary, and i was plannin that at protests the other protestors would make a point of protectin her and making sure she is alright and not letting the gardaí etc get near her.

thank u so much for all the effort and care that goes into running this blog, and i hope all goes well for u. sorry this ask is so long! also if anyone has any suggestions for what state/university mary's dad should be from, pls let me know bcs idk anythin abt america rlly. go n-éirí leat le gach rud atá á dhéanamh agat faoi láthair a chara <3333

Dia duit! I must admit, I respect so much that you're using Irish in this! I know that's right 😤 make me look that shit up! Thank you for introducing me to the game of camogie, that's some new level sportery. And thank you 🙏🏾

Mary Francis 🤣 yeah this is Irish, all right.

Well first, pick an HBCU!!! omg please pick an HBCU for Black Dad to graduate from, I would love that. They're organized by state on there, and granted if you don't know any states that's fine but given his background, maybe pick one with a literature program that stands out to you? Howard, Clark Atlanta, and Morehouse are easy ones too.

As for your story, well... You don't have to surround the story in her trauma. Like, there doesn't HAVE to be some overtly racist mf in her face making her life difficult. But you cannot have police violence in the story, via the police fighting against the protestors, without recognizing that yeah, there is gonna be some... Racial Context as to how we will be treated, or how her words will be translated versus if someone else had spoken them. For example, very often a Black woman and nonblack woman can say the very same thing, but only the Black woman will be deemed "aggressive" for it. So as a leader, she's gonna have to swallow stuff like that.

You mention that the other protestors recognize her position, and will try to keep her safe. That's another good example. In that, make sure you're able to convey WHY that is important. You don't have to say outright "well we've gotta protect Mary Francis because she's Black". Just a showing of the allyship in the moment, of people checking on her, of noticing when people are being more aggressive with her than they are with her nonblack and white peers- both when they're there and when she's on her own. Integrating things like that allow us as the readers to know that there are moments where her race is affecting how she's being treated. Because in real life, that's how it goes down. It's never really Stated, it's just a fact of life. Most of dealing with racism is just that; day to day microaggressive shit you have to maneuver.

And you're welcome!

[figscigfigs]

my favorite moments from episode 11 of fantasy high junior year!!:

“is that’s a problem”

“riz? do you need to go to the eye doctor????”

finally addressing all the angry npcs

“even you fabian”

the identity spell giving SQ meeting gnosis

“should we go start minor disturbances around school and see if we get beat up?”

adaine’s classic scooter

aelwyn and adaine being sisters!!!!!

“tell kristen not to come back, the children were very rowdy after she left”

fig invading ruben’s dreams as kelpflower corncob (rad as hell)

gertie x kristen!!!! (honeybees?? maybe)

devil’s honey is so fucking rad

“my friends no longer want to see me naked” “i do”

all the parents!!!!

telemaine’s elf racism was silly but also made me a lil upset (“was that supposed to be my name?” “no i was doing a different word”)

GILEAR!!!! MY CHOSEN ONE HAS RETURNED!!!!(“this may tickle you to watch my life become suddenly amazing against my will”)

fig and hallariel continue to bring me joy (“hey! it’s me! from the phone!”)

“how did she bring winter??” “how did she bring winter???” “how did she bring winter??”

“we really gotta talk up bee girl”

fig and sandra lynn’s conversation got to me truly (i need sklonda and sandra lynn to start a support group for mothers parenting children working for the applebees student presidential campaign mpcwaspc for short)

fabian and gorgug arguing over who’s carrying the gravestone and “the ball do you wanna-“ “too small”

princess nara (i love her im sorry she’s too real)

in fact all the kristen/nara/tracker energy was absolutely perfect for lesbian exes (“WORLDSTAR”)

ALL OF SECRET SYLVAN (i genuinely shed tears cried bc they all love each other so much)

things about adine: 1. blonde 2. wizard 3. elven oracle

riz/murph immediately taking charge and running secret sylvan is so deeply in character

(attempted tearing noises)

“stop showing hole and make ‘em!”

and as we all know the last 20 minutes were the most insane thing that’s ever happened to me but god fig watching the illusion of herself she conjured morph into her dad and get fucking impaled by the armor that he wore to save her from her own illusion not even a year ago is devastating.

[endykelopaedia]

I'm privileged for a completely different facet of my identity that works differently than gender. I was born White and am White and there's no moving away from that. People are AGAB and the societally approved thing to do is to stick to that. Those who challenge their AGAB are all committing the same violation. I cannot offend society with my race but a trans man and a trans woman are doing fundamentally the same thing to piss people off. The cishetpatriarchy wants men to be men and women to be broodmares, and see a "man" wanting to be that which is hated and othered as repulsive, just as they hate a broodmare trying to put themselves on the level of (cis) men.

The funny thing about all this is that while I think the idea of AFAB trans people weaponinzing their AGAB is massively overblown, it IS totally possible for them to have conditional "privilege" in radfemmy spaces...because radfems see them as "female." I have no idea where the overwhelming and bias-inducing love for masculinity outside the cishetpatriarchy comes from. I just plain do not see it. I've never even heard anything but horror stories about relations between trans men and cis gay man.

And the idea that trans men are liked better by the cishetpatriarchy for wanting to be men is so flabbergasting it makes me see stars. Surely we don't think cishet men love masculine "women" or that women throughout history could have simply said they want to be referred to as men as a get-out-of-misogyny-free card.

A lot of times it genuinely seems to me like a lot of trans men who support this framework get gender euphoria out of living out this weird fantasy world. And it's honestly creepy? Like what I'm constantly reading into this is "I'm such a man I could totally have power over you and use it to abuse you if I wanted to but of course I never would." Like that does not make me feel good or safe lol! I've had multiple tell me that they believe in transmasc privilege because they themselves used to be transmisogynistic or partook in sOcIaL mUrDeR, which is a wild own goal to me because all the transmascs I know are hyper-vigilant about hopping on transmisogyny as soon as they see it.

Like, yes, you are a man! You are. I agree with that. But the material reality is that transphobes do not treat you like one and the queer community is much more divided and fractious in a way that does not really advantage one group in particular. Like a given space can favor transmascs but it could also favor transfems, and the only reason the latter isn't considered a problem is based on the tautological argument that they don't exist so the ones that do exist are NBD. Like, I could give you example after example of transfem-favoring queer people being absolutely unambiguously vile about trans men, but it always just gets No True Scotsman'd. No matter how many times it's provably manifest it's always shrugged off as an anomaly, or justified by the same thing being directed at trans women, which is a problem for transfems and not transmascs just because.

only a white woman could comfortably say that white privilege & gendered oppression work completely separate LMAO and yk what i dont think you even really believe that bc why would you immediately come out swinging about my supposed racism against black trans men (MYSELF) specifically over a post that only talked about male privilege.

i know damn well you have a barely coherent prose tucked away about the demonisation of black masculinity being proof of societal misandry that works out REAL well for you when you're arguing with other white folk. i didnt say it before but im gonna say it now, you dont actually give a fuck about black people and you should keep us out of your salty mouth. moving on.

you neednt explain the basics of misogyny, transphobia and cisheteropatriarchy to me. one thing i notice about a lot of you transandrophobia folks is you really like to over explain yourselves. wondering if overwhelming people with words works out for you usually. makes it easier to hide your blatant contradictions and terf-y talking points, yeah?

Like: "And the idea that trans men are liked better by the cishetpatriarchy for wanting to be men" "Surely we don't think cishet men love masculine "women"" is nasty work. this is whyyy i asserted we arent just he/him females to you under the first ask you sent me. cuz i KNEWWW you didnt think of us as men fr. that platitude at the end doesnt mean SHIT. i LIVE as a man & get treated like one. transphobes dont see me as one on principle but a) not everyone i interact with is a transphobe and b) transphobes CANT always tell. but none of that matters cuz we just innocent little girls with a dream, of course. how could we possibly perpetuate societal (trans)misogyny if we only women who want to be men, right.

i assume this is your response to the TERF talking point "trans men are only doing transitioning to escape womanhood & get a slice of male priviege" but it being "what do you mean? trans men will NEVER really be men or seen as men so how could they use it to get male privilege?" ??? plot is LOST. youve gone back to sounding exactly like them.

hopping from calling me racist against black trans men, to realising i am a black trans man, to calling me (and men like me) creeps for the SICK tboy fantasy that is being openly aware of my ability to perpetuate misogyny. wild. WILD. dont even know what to say to you.

i dont feel good around people who hold me hostage to tell me how bigoted (usually racist in my case) they used to be against me either. but the solution wouldnt be to surround myself around white people who dont got the SICK racist fantasy of holding power over me in this society, and it isnt to shut my ears and act like i aint capable of (trans)misogyny at all either? you really feel less safe around trans men who know know that they can be bigoted against you vs ones who dont? i mean. thats you, i guess.

since i'm not a he/him female i think id rather listen to trans women who arent she/her males on actual transmisogyny in queer spaces, bc something tells me your attitude towards it is different from most.

and god, please spare me your examples. i can just look at my actual life and draw smarter conclusions than you have.

[saynomorefic]

Why are you over sexualising Simon? Is it because he's latino?

Soooo I got another ask like this. I understand where you're coming from anon, I do (probs referring to my threesome ideas). Here's the thing- having a character with a certain sexual fantasy (I e. Non monogamy, for example) is not over sexualizing someone. The context of both fics, ironically, is that it's Simon who has had less opportunities to explore his sexuality than Wille / his peers. And it's Simon who is a bit afraid to admit it, let alone go after it. So Wille, as his friend or partner or w/e, wants to help him explore that. (Spoiler alert - he's also super into it).

I'm gonna go ahead and say this - I'm a queer woman of color myself, and I try very hard to write Simon as a multifaceted and slightly different character in each fic I write. Not because it's a stretch for me, but because I've experienced the same things in my own life and relationships. The threesome idea came from me working through my OWN complicated feelings about being ashamed of my OWN fantasies as a brown queer person existing in the world. This is the bread and butter of my writing and why I love this ship so so much, and everything I do and write 100% centers Simon.

My longest WIP You Kill Me deals with how Simon has been over sexualized and experienced racism in previous relationships. It is the defining theme. Brown people ARE sexual (edit: not all of us, but many of us, bc we're not a monolith!), we are human and we have fantasies just like everyone else, and yet it somehow is more defining of us as a whole when the world witnesses us experience or portray sexuality. (Funny - I seem to remember this was also the case in canon when the video was leaked and Simon was disproportionately and uniquely shamed for it. It's almost like this piece of media has opened some cans of worms for us fic writers to process and work into our own stories, no?)

I will accept any thoughtful criticism on my handling of these issues if it pushes this conversation forward but I will not be shamed for writing a POC as desiring something other than one white man for the rest of his life! (I.e. Wille).

[jewishbarbies]

I didn't know about the antisemitism in hp because while I wasn't explicitly taught "this is antisemitic" I still learned those tropes. I just didn't know they they were tropes. The only thing I knew was nazi propaganda, because that was in textbooks. We didn't learn about everyday antisemitism. We didn't learn about the history of jews in any other country. And that doesn't excuse me or the school I went to. But I know better now, and I can look around and recognise certain tropes. But I can also recognise that jkr was hateful to so many different groups of people. Jews, the Irish, asian people, gay people, trans people, ironically women in general (Ginny Weasley in particular who only existed as a character for Harry to save and get married and have babies with) and women who like "girly" things (Lavender Brown deserved better.)

at this point, so much of pop culture is steeped in these antisemitic things (tropes, imagery, caricatures, etc.) and a lot of fantasy lore in some areas is just antisemitic to its core so while I’m angry I have to sift through the distressing nonsense, I try not to get angry at people who genuinely don’t understand. because you can spread antisemitism while not being an antisemite. the entirety of the witch aesthetic is stolen and twisted from jewish caricatures, antisemitic history, and practices appropriated from indigenous cultures - but that’s just The Witch now. same with goblins. that’s just what That Thing is to people now, so if you want to stop it, you have to throw the whole thing away and barely anyone is actually willing to do that. on top of that, they believe they don’t have to.

with HP specifically, I don’t blame anyone for not picking up on the bigotry from the books they read as children. now, if you reread it as an adult and still don’t get it, that’s another issue. but at least with the antisemitism, it’s much more obvious with the movies and a lot of people try to excuse JKR from it bc of that, when she had such a heavy hand in making those films. she had/has enough sway to change literally anything. and I think a lot of people understood the antisemitism more when they could see just what these goblins were supposed to look like, and that brought it all together. however, there are people obsessed with goblins (I think there’s a lot of neurodivergent people who have a special interest in goblins for one reason or another and that makes it more difficult to let go, in my experience) who absolutely refuse to come to terms with the antisemitic nature of the creature to begin with, when it’s antisemitic originally AND in JKR’s interpretation. I never got into HP so I didn’t know about the goblins, having not seen the movies, and it was really easy to not interact with it once I did. I can genuinely understand how heartbreaking it is to find out something you love goes against what you believe in, bc for jews it’s just part of our lives. we find out creators of and the things we like are nazis or antisemitic every single day. moreso than usual as of late.

imo the racism and general bigotry of JKR should be more than enough for HP fans who claim to care about other people, but it’s hella odd that antisemitism is the sticking point for so many people. they’ll say they’re streaming the movies and playing the games and reading the books but but but they’re not giving money to JKR and therefore not supporting her transphobia and racism, but you mention her antisemitism and the fact that the HP game was just antisemitism the simulator and they immediately dismiss it. her bigotry is embedded in the work. it’s in the imagery of the franchise. hell, there’s a storyline where a villain is a villain bc he wanted to stop the holocaust. that speaks for itself, and should be enough for literal adults.

(on the It’s The Thing Now point, it’s happening with lizard people as well. everyone is calling themselves a goblin and making lizard people jokes and it’s just apart of the young people dialogue now. I could go on for hours but I think I made my point.)

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

im thinking abt this post by @chuplayswithfire. thinking and considering and pondering.

people deny that ofmd is saying anything about homophobia by just denying that there's homophobia in the show at all. which is stupid, obviously, but i think people deny the existence of homophobia in ofmd for a few reasons:

homophobia is not depicted with Extremely Blatant Modern Slurs that are super recognizable to a modern audience

the existence of gay people is never questioned and nobody ever expresses shock or surprise when they learn someone is gay

ofmd doesn't bother with depicting your classic "gay sex is bad and unnatural" homophobia, and

a lot of the homophobia in ofmd is specifically about prejudice against effeminate men, which is more complicated than just Gay Sex Bad homophobia bc it intersects with misogyny and gender roles and masculinity to the point where you can't really separate any of these topics

but racism in ofmd is different because you can't deny that it's there. british soldiers call Black men "savages" and "slave" in the first fucking episode. but despite the fact that ofmd shows racism, there are still people saying ofmd isn't saying anything about it and that it's stupid for fans to analyze race in a silly romcom

i can't help but think abt how shows set in some historical time periods (or even like, high-fantasy settings) get blasted for being "historically inaccurate" for having characters of color—especially when the show doesn't have those characters face any racial biases. a neutral depiction of POC existing in a historical time period without being called slurs stands out to white viewers. they notice it, and it makes some white viewers uncomfortable.

but when POC are in "historical" shows and are getting called slurs, there's less of that discomfort. it doesn't stand out to white viewers quite the same way. there's probably still gonna be a few fucking morons who say shit like "um, Black people didn't exist in europe in 1411," but white people get less worked up as long as racism is being depicted as what they think is "historically accurate"

i feel like for the people who think it's stupid to analyze race in ofmd, they see the depiction of racism as neutral. it doesn't read as anything other than "well, that's how it was at the time." racism in ofmd isn't a theme, it doesn't mean that the show has anything to say. the racism just there, because of course it is. the existence of racism goes unquestioned.

and i think the fact that the racism in ofmd didn't stand out to people comes from the same place that has white viewers going "why is this character of color not facing bigotry in this show set in the 1920's? that's historically inaccurate!" many white viewers become uncomfortable when the bigotry they expect to see portrayed isn't there. so in ofmd, when the expected bigotry is there, there's no deeper meaning to it than "it's 1717, racism is supposed to be there"

[horizon-verizon]

GRRM literally put Mediterranean, Palestine, Moorish Spain and WALES in a oriental cauldron and created Dorne. On the other hand, ASOIAF fanartists be drawing Dornish women in sarees and ghagra cholis and fancast Golshifteh Farahani, an Iranian actress, as Elia. Be serious y’all.

Penelope Cruz, Nina Dobrev, Mila Kunis are olive-skinned but they’re still unambiguously white.

"Olive" skin/toned skin is supposed to mean:

moderate or lighter tan or brownish skin, and it is often described as having tan, brown, cream, greenish, yellowish, or golden undertones

Therefore, anyone of any race can have an "olive" tone to their skin, as you see above.

The Dornish who live around/closer to the coasts are described as having "olive" skin. Therefore IF we wanted to, we have a lot of justification to have white Martells AS WELL AS actors of other races play them....bc the Martells have married many different peoples of Dorne and beyond and Dorne is not a brown territory nor a PoC one. It's pretty diverse and there is no real "racism" within the actual territory where they recognize each other as socially different by skin color like in real life except to say maybe that that person comes from the desert/the mountains/the coast or from this-that house. And that' not racism. Maybe.

However, I also don't think all Dornish characters NEED to be PoC and Pedro Pascal is not PoC. There are white Latinx i can't totally fault people for thinking the Martells are PoCs bc many came into this series from GoT where some PoC actors played some Dornish people AND people want to see themselves on screen/fantasy genre and its fans can be and are often racist asf. I mean, look at HotD!

However, if we're talking about Dorne having been always a PoC territory bc of the show, that's just false. And Baelor Breakspear? I said this on Twitter:

I have a very long and repeatedly edited post for how/why Dorne is Dorne HERE. Proceed at your own cost.

[evergreen-dryad]

I don't know how to feel over all these strange fantasy names when it's supposed to be fantasy china (and Japan nearby). I would like annotations

it does directly copy and paste some stuff from China's history / Sun Tzu / strategist stuff

you can tell someone's important if they have a name from myth: eg Nezha, Jiang Ziya, Su Daji (femme fatale) There are some references to Journey to the West in some of the Cike/Bizarre Children but not direct borrowings- Baji (Zhu Bajie), Aratsha (Sha Wujing), Suni (Sun Wukong)

It's very readable (as YA tends to be). It's a more fast paced harry potter so far. I'm speeding through it a lot ngl.

Highlights: (wait there's no underline here still??)

- Rin beating Nezha (it's 2-1 so far but just Rin beating everyone up in the Tournament despite being excluded discriminatorily from class)

(And then them both working together like a well-oiled machine in the war!)

And oh, she turned out to be the last speerly! I think it works and also does introduce more tension over where to put her in terms of politics and all that, but I am also praying Altan doesn't die (I feel like he WILL) (and HE DID)

From what I remember of Babel (same author) -- well, there's the historical accuracy that doesn't deviate much, there's also the nostalgic romanticism of school (a safe and beautiful place with towers and pagodas, but also bittersweet with its bullies and racism) and having to work hard af (what a chinese thing tbh), wanting to excel There's the all-important teacher-student relationship and what knowledge does

Foreshadowing: where Runin was burning herself to study more for the Keju Exam, it ends up being foreshadowing for the god she'll call down -- the Phoenix. You watch her determined to go through anything to get stronger:

'How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.' 'Who couldn't she kill?'

After she kills a creature wearing Altan's face. Well, spoiler: she does do genocide

Themes/Symbolism: knowledge, the danger of adhering to just one branch/extremity of thought (esp reflected in the elitism of Sinegard and the north and south; in the way the other Sinegard students treat Runin; in the way Kitay is convinced of his rationalism over Runin questioning if shamanism exists; even in the military where military arts and shamanism are separated and hidden (for the latter); and how Nikara separated itself from Speer (the analogue for smth like Ainu people in Japan.))

Of what is the purpose of knowledge, if it cannot be 'utilised' for in present context, war?

Is 'an eye for an eye' right? What would you do to win or to get revenge? That there are difficult choices to make in such horrors like war -- do horrifying things done to you and your people justify genocide? What if your god that was your only hope was also cruel to you? Between gods and humans, who is really using who?

Also subtly feminist. I mean, it really delivers on the promise of female rage, and there are a couple important female figures

Characters: of course Runin is easy to like and easy to root for! She's way more determined than me bcs she's that unhinged/unhealthy 'do-or-die' when it comes to academics and martial arts!

Everyone else for students is a bit, hm, unelaborated on so far which is fair

Rin has 2 foils: 1) Kitay, and 2) Nezha. And prob also Altan -- how he seems so perfect and later on how they seem alike -- but are ultimately different

Tearza in the past who refused to sacrifice the world for her people, so the god killed her in retribution. But Rin did do so in vengeance and is thus still alive.

Nezha funnily keeps getting 'off-screen death scenes' which means he's definitely not dead

Character relationships: interesting to see how Altan is a 'better' teacher to Rin as they understand each other better in needs to war, but also gets abusive towards her with the pressure and needing her to summon their god, as he is a soldier first.

Jiang was the 'wiser' teacher as a peaceful scholar but wasn't there, sealing himself away in stone

Descriptions: lightly sketched so you don't get drowned in it

Tone: easy, simple, direct, not very literary/purple prose, often short sentences

Use of language: Past tense. Purely in Rin's POV, with one exception in Tyr's/and then omniscient narrator (to show the betrayal of the empress). Lots of dialogue/some worldbuilding descriptions. (R F Kuang seems to begin/end/spin with dialogue a lot which makes it snappy?)

Figurative techniques sparse. Shows the extreme cruelty of the world (even before the war). Also does not hesitate to say fuck.

What works for it?

-want to see what happens to rin as it's very action-heavy and you're rooting for the underdog (fast-paced, inexorable marching to war)

[cherriesandcharms]

What are your thoughts on the lack of elvish prejudice in DAV? As an elven rogue, I was pretty disappointed tbh

okay so beware spoilers below and im going to get rambly

also im assuming we're discussing the prejudice and hatred TOWARDS elves? if i got that wrong sorry for the unsolicited essay on the lack of fantasy racism lmao

im putting this below the cut bc it did get long

I will admit that this didnt cross my mind my first time through. but ur right, theres a distinct lack of "knife ear" comments. I haven't gotten far into my playthrough with my elf rook so idk how ppl react to them yet.

from what i remember there are comments from Bellara and maybe Davrin about the gods actions making things harder for elves but we dont see the evidence of this, which i would have liked to explore more

i have a couple of lore questions that i dont know the answer to that popped into my head while thinking about this:

do cities in northern thedas have alienages in the same way that the south does?

Is this something that the game doesn't show us, or do they just not exist and there is more elven integration, at least in the poorer areas we're shown (dock town in minrathous)?

with the way the class system and slavery in tevinter works, is the disdain shown towards slaves generally, regardless of race? Fenris was an elf, but his mistreatment was focused on him being a slave from what i recall

The Exalted March of the Dales was an Orlesian Chantry crusade in the south, without this kind of conflict in the north were tensions not as high between elves and other races (also potentially answering the alienages question???)?

maybe im stupid and easy to please but i can also rationalise the lack of fantasy racism with what we see in game

Factions:

the veil jumpers are lead by elves (or at least irelin and strife are our main contacts), spend all their time with elven artifacts, and primarily work in arlathan forest and are close with the dalish. makes sense we dont get racism there

the crows care more about their contracts, and again one of our main contacts (teia) is an elf, plus they're dealing with the antaam taking over the city, if ppl are gonna be racist im sure they have a target that makes more sense (sanitization of the faction attitudes is another issue)

the wardens are focused on trying to end the blight, and accept all races into their ranks anyway. i like that the first warden doesnt hate u bc of ur race but bc ur this random lunatic who strode in yelling about elven gods and distracting his wardens from fighting the blight. and then later on we're mainly dealing with Antoine, an elf (and his wife)

Lords of Fortune has Isabela and i am an isabela/merrill truther 😌(pls refer back to "stupid and easy to please") (also again, dont love the portrayal of the lords, but thats a different issue)

i feel like it makes sense that we dont get racism from the mourn watchers, theyre so respectful of the dead, i dont think u can care that much about a persons eternal rest and hate them in life

full disclosure i picked saving treviso, so in my experience the shadow dragons had bigger issues to deal with. im chill with the viper not being racist when he got blighted and is fighting a cult. but also goes back to my points about minrathous having a different way of looking at class systems

other world building points:

we dont spend a lot of time with royalty/politicians unlike in previous games. v easy to show elves being mistreated in the winter palace, or the arl of denerim's estate, but we dont get shown a lot of that in these cities

I do think it's weird that we have such a lack of bigotry to the elves with the history of the other games, and the fact that the old elven gods are tearing the world apart, it could have been explored more. however im not upset by the lack of. ambient racism

i know a big complaint that people have is that veilguard isnt as "dark" as origins, but i dont think a game needs bigotry to be a dark and confronting story

[qqueenofhades]

there definitely is the lack sympathy and solidarity between the oppressed groups of people around the world.

ethnic russians have been colonizing the central asia, the western asia, the caucasus, the eastern europe and oppressing the natives of these lands for CENTURIES!

russia has established the hegemony of the ethnic russians and hierarchy where the people of the caucasus and central asia are not considered as white thus are discriminated against. even other slavs like ukrainians and poles (who are indeed seen as white in the russian power sphere) are percieved as lesser disposables.

if the westerner leftists understood that the social constructs and power dynamics around the world are constantly changing, have changed throughout history and are different depending on the region and depending on which country/people are the global powerhouses in said region, the discourse would be much easier and more productive.

i'm west asian myself who used to be naively optimistic about the us anti-imperialist leftists, but ever since the war in ukraine, my delusions have shattered beyond repair... the us americans live in their own bubble and want to see the world through that usa-centric bubble's lenses. you see someone try to educate them about the situation and realities of other place and people and said usa americans will accuse those people of horrible stuff bc usa americans hate it when their simplistic worldview ideologically rooted in puritanism is being challenged.

a good example is how the middle easterners are either talked about as "white" or "poc" depending on whether or not the us americans want to sympathize with them and admit that the middle easterners are the victims of oppression/imperialism.

i can't blame the people of africa, latin americans and other people who suffered bc of europe and the us for falling for russian propaganda, but seeing ourselves as the only katniss everdeens of the world won't solve anything.

I mean... yeah. As I've written about a lot, the perspectives of so-called "anti-imperialist" American leftists, both in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war and overall, are generally absolutely fucking dismal. Both because they lack any sense of historicity, nuance, or attempt to deal with complex issues, and also because they are, as you note here, still myopically fixated on the US as the center of the world, the only agent of actual change, and the cause of everything bad ever. They are good at weaponizing the language of social justice and accusing everyone and everything of racism, but they rarely seem to have a sense of what that actually means outside the American context, and frankly for that matter, inside it.

A lot of "anti-imperialist" leftists are only opposed to American empire, which they think is the only empire to ever exist (as if European colonialism and empire didn't create America; as if the Roman Empire didn't create Europe, etc. etc.) Because the Republican right opposed the Soviets during the Cold War, plenty of modern leftists have now decided that that means the USSR/Putinist Russia is actually good after all!!! It's a meme ideology with absolutely no substance or internal coherence, because it's completely based on shallow and distorted mirror-images that they adopted solely out of contrarianism. They borrow the language and symbols of Marxism-Leninism in their fantasy online lives, they decide that this makes them Communist Visionaries, and they trade purposefully-misinterpreted jargon in their Twitter echo chambers without ever attempting to consider either what it really means or how these extremely fraught symbols were interpreted and used in the real world. They want to proclaim that Communism Good!!!, so they do that, and any and all nuance or actual example to the contrary is just Neoliberal Corporate Bootlicking. Or something like that.

What's funny, of course, is that the "anti-imperialist" leftists are still relying completely on a sense of Western exceptionalism and intellectual imperialism, wherein their own interpretations are always to be preferred over anything that the Savages might be saying; the Misguided Natives just need the Wise Western Man to correct them and show them why Tankie Communism is Good! Which, of course, is the exact vernacular of European Christian white-supremacist colonialism from the 16th to 19th centuries, and seriously calls into question any remotely accurate claim to being "anti-imperialist." Like, do you know what those words even MEAN? Or like, ANY words?

As I have said in earlier posts: yes, it's understandable, if disappointing, that people from Africa/India/Latin America, all of which HAVE suffered extensively from actual Western imperialism, have proven susceptible to Russian propaganda about how the current conflict is all the Evil West's Fault. But it's even more disappointing that presumably educated and "enlightened" Western leftists who trumpet their anti-imperialism have become such cheerleaders for a genocidal fascist imperial regime, simply because they think that anything America opposes is morally and/or structurally good. Which is just so facile and stupid on so many levels, not to mention ignores the reality of the Ukrainian war and its root causes on pretty much every front, but for them, that's basically par for the course.

[acerathia]

Trick or Treat? TRICK!

@solerate viccccccc, here u go, elf kakashi hueheheh, also, i did almost mention the size difference bc u r small hehehehe

You're desperately looking for a travel companion, and it seems like you've just found one.

wc: 1.0k

cw/tags: elf kakashi, mention of fantasy racism, reader literally just picks him up bro like a wet kitten, fantasy setting,

Since forever, you have always wanted to go on a big adventure, to travel through the world and to discover new foods and games. And no matter how much time passed, this dream did not change, rather it became more developed, more thoroughly planned. The only thing you still need is a partner, someone to travel with, to build trust and a relationship with, because there’s nothing better than to share your joy with another person. Even if you have no idea where to get someone willing to travel around without a proper goal, and how to convince anyone to just start wandering around with you. But you decided to try nonetheless, so you tried asking around, asking the people you know if they might know someone willing. But nobody ever had the slightest idea about anyone. They only suggested you ask the guild, but you don’t want to do that, you don’t want to spend money for such a measly thing, and you wanted someone who really wanted to be there to be at your side. 

So, with no other option, you make your way into the closest pub, hoping to finally meet someone open to your idea. If this doesn’t work, well, you would need to think of something new. 

With a sigh, you take a seat and let your eyes travel amongst the masses, trying to discover someone sitting all alone, just like you. Only it’s a bit different, isn’t it? 

Finally, you spot a hooded person sitting all alone in the corner of this place, and you immediately know why: from that spot every possible exit is visible, and you cannot be surprised from behind. But you shrug, you have no malice, so why try to sneak up on them in the first place? 

After a couple of steps you stop in front of the table, leaning forward to press your palms against the table. “Hello there, mind me joining you?” you ask, and still sit down without waiting for a response. 

But he doesn’t seem to actually mind, as he barely reacts, aside from shifting his focus towards you, and you’re able to discern a dark eye, while the other is hidden by a patch. Half of his face is hidden behind the shadow of a cloth. He seems to have seen quite a bit, but what can you say, more experience is better for your endeavors, supposing he does join you. 

“So, you’re alone, I’m alone, let’s make a deal,” you almost wince when you realize the possible implications, so you make haste to continue explaining your plans for the near future. “You see, I plan on being a traveler, but I still need a companion. What do you say? Me and you, going on the adventure of the century, wouldn’t that be amazing?”

A sigh as he leans back, his gaze hovering all over you, probably calculating whatever worth or trust you might have, so you smile, while also trying your best to not look like you can’t do anything on your own. 

*Fine. Meet me tomorrow at the backdoor.” With these words he just stands up and exits the building, leaving you all alone to process what just happened. 

And once you do, you can’t help but let out a celebratory ‘yes’. You did it, you managed to find someone to join you for the biggest adventure of your life, the only and first adventure of your life, but hey, aim high to get the best results, or something. 

You hurry back home to finish the last preparation for the next day, barely able to fall back asleep after it, the nerves making your body feel too jittery. Yet you manage to finally take a bit of rest. 

The next day, you make your way back to the pub and go around it, heading for the backdoor he had mentioned yesterday. To your surprise he’s already waiting there, leaning against the wall with the hood low on his head. And the closer you walk to him, the more you realize how well built he is, even with the cloak hiding the definitions of his body, his broad shoulders tell you more than enough. Still, you’re not intimidated, rather this makes you more excited as his experience will definitely help you in the long run. 

You walk up to him and greet him with a good morning. He returns the greeting with a more causal one, before he decides to speak up again. 

“I wanted to clarify something first before we actually head out…” he explains before pulling down his hood, revealing strands of pure silver, almost like the moon had given him this glow as a present. Silver hair, something common within the volk of the elves, and then your eyes snap to his ears, to his pointed ears, poking out of the strands of hair. 

With this, you realize why he had been alone, and why he revealed this to you just now. Some people have some sort of twisted prejudice against elves, one you just don’t understand, even if you never had met a real elf before. That doesn’t change your opinion one bit. He trusted you with this knowledge, and you won’t break his trust. So, you do what you always do.

“Oh, I love your hair. I don’t see a problem. Rather I’m excited to finally start, come on!” you grab his hand and start dragging him along, grinning widely at the prospect of exploration. 

His fingers clutch a little tighter at yours and if you had turned around you might’ve seen a smile twinkle in his eyes, even if his face remains hidden for a little while longer. 

This is the beginning of your journey, one filled with joy, excitement, a blooming trust, and most importantly, more than just being companions, maybe even more than friends. And maybe this adventure won’t be the greatest of the century, but it is the greatest one to you, one you will never forget.

[trans-leek-cookie]

the thingw the orcs in dunmeshi is sth i skirt around bc like u said it is. not a great modern take on orcs. obv not the worst it could be and kui at least did engage w trying to write a more involved lore on them rather than just having this be the same “orcs are big uncivilized brutes” version 8000000 but that element is still there. and i do think “its not the worst” is hardly what i would want to set my highest expectations to jdhdgksgd

tumblrs being a bitch n not letting me put images in so I'll just paste the text from the other ask

Nodding. ty for the info on the ways halfling racism can be compared to irl examples in “the middle east” like that rly is such a close comparison i wonder if it was at all intentional… AND FR on the whole . wishing we knew what they called themselves bc the “halfling” “half foot” thing i rly cant help but think abt how it feels like irl examples of certain groups being denigrated to category slurs its like. LOL. dunmeshi makinh me feel party to fictional racism and microaggressions against my will...

Idk Abt skirting around bc I think it's smthn we should face head on, but at the same time I'm not in a place where I can really add onto the discussion wrt orcs as a white/East Asian person. IIRC ppl have said tolkiens orcs are black and/or central Asian (Mongolian I believe) coded, which is meaningful cause he's influenced so much of modern fantasy, and thats. Y'know. Not great. Also the orcs in dungeon Meshi are essentially an indigenous group from what I remember so that's also a whole mess. Again, my opinions arent very meaningful when it comes to this, but I feel like it's incredibly disappointing to see an author who's clearly capable of nuanced and interesting commentary on racism in the context of real life and fiction (even if it's not always great it's clear she's thinking about it in some depth) really just. Fall back on tropes. Bc for the other races - human is a wider category than usual, tall men aren't always the Everyman, elves are long lived but that doesn't make them wiser, and halflings are mature, worldly and resourceful, which I feel like does a lot to break free of typical fantasy pigeon holeing. But the orcs are just sorta... The Bad Guy but Not That Bad I guess? Theoretically it's a departure from the "super evil forever no exceptions" idea of the but it's still so far behind what needs to be done to make it less of a lazy, racist trope.

Yeah, again I'm not west Asian or Arab like I said, but between reading stuff ppl online write n talking to my Iraqi friend + rereading dungeon Meshi and really trying to analyze it, it kinda stood out to me. I will say I was a little unconfident posting about it bc it's 3 things (4 if you count the name note) but theyre still really notable at least to me. The hand/foot cutting is I feel the most explicit? Because that's such a fucked up stereotype it just stands out immediately. I don't necessarily know if the half foot/middle east connection was intentional, because I assume Japan/Asia in general has a different relationship with West Asia (since they are the "far east" in comparison, so "Middle East" wouldnt really make sense?), but it could be one of those things that colonialism managed to spread. I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but even if it wasn't intentional I think it's a very interesting parallel in how language can be used to categorize people as "normal/other". So i can't say if its intentional or not, but it's definitely an interesting lens to consider the story thru. Id also say I believe halflings are said to be native to a place that's east from where the story takes place, but not the eastern continent (which is p much easy Asia). I've seen some ppl take this to mean eastern Europe, and I don't think that's wrong, but I think u could also think of it as west Asia? Idk if we ever got much info on it in story, so I might be missing some details. (Honestly I'd personally HC that halflings are generally mixed Eastern European/West Asian- not to conflate the two, but rather Im imaging the majority of them are in a kinda blended culture).

[the-storming-sea]

also also read ur intro post just now may i politely ask about your opinions of asian media and rep. is it specifically for fantasy? or just lots of genres with general trends or themes youve noticed? 👀

omg i wrote that so long ago and my brain is kinda fried so i'll be a little brief. may expand on it later but eh its all good. these are just rambling thoughts

a lot of asian rep in media mostly revolves around the east asian experience, which is valid bc god knows they need it, except often times it leaves out literally everyone else in its wake, or it keeps grouping up certain asians together. currently south east asian cultures are particular victims of this. But sometimes what ends up happening is that there is a "fantasy asia" world where the world is not technically Asia, but it might as well be given the inspiration behind it. in my personal opinion its kinda orientalist and a bit fetishistic of the 'exoticness' of asian cultures. Like it wants asia but without all of the real people in it

like for example the world in raya and the last dragon. it was great seeing someone who looked at me on screen but goddamn they couldn't at least set it in south east asia, let alone have distinct cultures instead of just taking little aspects of culture and making fantasy. it was a great movie for diaspora sure, but anyone actually from south east asia was disappointed. Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a two part video on it that elaborates more on it better than i could right now–i say compiled bc she doesnt do much talking in them aside from the beginning of the video; everyone else talking in it is south-east asian.

another fantasy world heavily inspired by Asia is ofc atla's world. my problem is that While its a good representation of east asian cultures, south east, south asian, northern asians, and western asians are left behind.

and what bothers me is that there are many places where they can fit in. Like the swampy tribe areas and the ancient firebenders from the dragons era feel like they should be south east asian inspired somewhat, and if you wanted to make a commentary on how these lands have been taken over and colonized (or at least there was an attempt on colonization) would be interesting. or how it feels like it makes more sense for katara and sokka to be more north asian inspired than american inspired. and of course there was the one (1) south asian inspired character who was. more of a caricature than anything else. im not saying the indigenous american rep is bad. obviously any representation is great, especially for indigenous americans. But if you are going to create a clearly "asian inspired" world (like nearly every aspect of this world is asian in culture and the main character is clearly a buddhist monk, it would be hard to argue otherwise), then at least take inspiration from asian cultures?

(side note people making fun of the swampy fog people is not great. does not feel great. regardless of whether they believe they're south east asian rainforests or the american bayou)

other small things are more of fan issues than creator issues. specifically the way people treat some anime characters like they're white instead of japanese/asian and then hold them to white cultural standards. all might is a great example, where despite being named Toshinori Yagi and being from a world where the mc has green eyes and green hair, people still think hes white bc hes blonde haired blue eyes and loves america? which–side note, you dont have to be an american to love america, lots of older people who got really into the american dream still like america. another thing was when i read a bnha fanfic that described someone as looking "asian" which. yeah i sure hope so. the story takes place in japan. and then theres some people not recognizing that asians all look very different from one another even if they're from the same area of the world.

more recently ive noticed the fandom racism in dungeon meshi specifically towards shuro, who despite being from a fantasy world is clearly japanese, and from a japanese-inspired culture. and its his culture which leads him to respond to laios in the way that he does. im not saying its racist to be upset that shuro responded to laios that way, but like. different cultures come with different cultural views and different ways of responding. shuro and laios come from two very different cultures. it happens.

this is kinda a lot and may not make sense bc im super tired rn jhfdbgdhjfbgd but i didnt want to forget this ask and just never respond to it

[dateamonster]

what’s your opinion on monstrous transformations (both fast and slow), and also more controversially what do you think about having monsters/nonhuman characters serve as minority allegory (as opposed to society’s hate for them being being an allegory)

ohhh hold on this is a rly good question i think abt a Lot actually.

ok getting the first bit out of the way, love a good monstrous transformation. fast, slow, its all good. i personally like gradual slow shifts the most but its a situational thing. transformation is one of those things that like just always has to be symbolic. even more than the degree to which Everything is symbolic ya know. so like context rly matters when it comes to how to invoke it most effectively.

MOVING ON

i think from the phrasing of the ask ur looking for something more along the lines of like. for example shapeshifters as representation of nonbinary people or aliens as representation of different cultures rather than like monsters vs humans as allegory for racism. but im also not sure you can meaningfully separate the two! the latter i think is more overused so it like registers more as an immediate red flag, but its like. if the aliens from avatar werent being violently invaded by humans it wouldnt make like their reskinned stereotypical indigeneity anymore tolerable i dont think.

which isnt to say i think every story that draws connections between fantastical fictional species and real world people are inherently bad. i dont really think theres any trope that i believe cant be handled well by anyone under any circumstance. the super easy fix to bad rep via monster or fantasy creature characters is basically just have actual humans who also represent those same identities and communities and experiences so that the audience isnt drawn to connect the traits of any one group with your fictional species.

the harder fix is to like seriously analyze why you want this character to be a monster and what that says about them and what that says about you and your own experiences and biases and what you actually want to communicate with the inclusion of this character. and when applicable hire a sensitivity reader. its kinda crazy how many pieces of media seem to prefer half-assing the hard way over just doing the easy thing and not assigning the status of token minority to a literal monster.

of course once again all of this is ya know circumstantial. im speaking to like my own experiences and the things ive observed. and its weird too! bc im also speaking as someone who like is trans and nonbinary and thinks of myself and my gender expression as inherently intertwined with monstrosity. and as someone who is autistic and thinks of myself as a changeling. and as someone who is a fat person who represents themself with a pig themed sona. if i talk abt cringeass hollywood blockbusters engaging in High Fantasy Racism i feel like to be fair i kinda have to talk about independent own-voices creators who write stories and make art about their own identities in the lovely language of monstrosity. theres not rly a way to draw a hard line around the former without the risk of catching some of the latter.

so umm as usual i dont rly have a snappy all encompassing answer for how i feel abt this kind of characterization. im simply too much of a Nuance Enjoyer. i do i guess think this is something that generally turns out better when it is someone making art about their own experiences, but also unless i believe minority artists are a monolith, which i dont, i need to accept that artists will inevitably make stuff that is beautiful and resonant to some people and totally repugnant and offensive to others, and that both of those responses can be like totally justified and correct. thats art babey!

anyway slight digression but i think any case where a character feels more like an allegory than a fully fleshed u know Character is gonna flop for me no matter how relatable it is. tbqh, id rather more ppl try and fail to make beautiful grotesque frightening sensually moving monsters out of their lived experiences and their empathetic connections with others than succeed at creating bland toothless universally approachable Good Rep tm. if u know u know. if u feel me u feel me. that is all.