#but it's not all stories based on and written by and for cishet white men yknow? and i am soso glad for that

[amaraudermind]

Okay the one thing I will say before I go to bed tonight is this:

I love Pedro with my WHOLE heart

[yanqings]

oh wait I misread that prompt whoops 🔥okay how do you feel about fanfiction as a medium and how people engage with it

hiii cor!! This is a good one and the answer is kinda long but here we gooo

Okay starting with fanfic as a medium, contrary to (what i assume is) popular belief, i dont hate or dislike ff. I think as a medium, it’s something that’s meant to be enjoyable and used to explore topics/ideas with stories you like! Very self-indulgent. It isn’t and doesn’t have to be deeper than that, which brings me to my issues with people’s interaction with it or at least the attitudes we’ve seen in the past few years. Literally none of what I’m saying here is new, but the way people are pushing to make it a “genre” of literature is weird and also defeats the purpose of its existence. ff has a distinctive structure and style that doesn’t allow it to stand on its own; often times fics jump straight to the point, there’s no building up or background given for characters bc thats what the original content is for! Even with AUs that are written from scratch, people only read it bc of the characters, not bc of the author themselves. That’s not even getting into the fanfic-y writing style per se or the whole copyright thing, but you get what I mean. ff doesn’t work that way and thats a good thing! It’s not meant to be a medium that’s elaborate and needs dressing up, it’s supposed to be self-indulgent and creative and fun.

Honestly I think that the root of this whole mess is that people are ashamed or afraid of being cringe. You can’t be cringe if you read and enjoy fanfic if fanfic isn’t cringe anymore. This also includes the whole anti-intellectualism that’s often tied to this type of stuff; trying to argue that fanfic is better than a classic bc “it isnt written by a cishet white man” instead of judging it based on quality (while also showing that you haven’t read a classic since high school helloo there’s plenty of writers who aren’t cishet white men) . Bc again if fanfic is now “literature” then now I’m also cultured or whatever. like at the end of it all who gives a shit!!! why be so obsessed with appearing well-read?? not only is it not good bc ur doing this out of fear of what other people think of you, but you’re also taking away one of the things intrinsic to fanfic: enjoying stories you already love in new ways, whether they be simple 1k stories or 300k monstrosities. tldr BE CRINGE BE FREE

[mlmxreader]

As someone who loves the American Psycho book and movie. I hate that Patrick Bateman is idolized by teens and young men because Patrick is the definition of toxic masculinity. He isn’t a good person yet people put him on this pedestal and act like he’s a god. It’s so stupid. It’s one thing to like American Psycho whether the movie or the book and like Patrick in some weird twist way. But it’s another thing to think he’s the shit and start acting like him. Like why act like him. He’s a misogynistic piece of shit and there’s nothing attractive or hot about the way he acts towards women and men. Also I’m not lying when I say this but when I see people that act like him it makes me want to not be a man anymore because its so cringy and disgusting.

listen, I've read the book and watched the film more times than I can count, and while I DO make jokes about killing Jared Leto (but in all seriousness I 100% would given that Leto is a fucking vile cunt), I don't like the whole "Pat Bateman sigma male" bollocks. bc I have common sense, for starters.

the whole point of the book (written by a queer man) and the film (written & directed by a woman), is that Patrick is an irredeemable bastard in every sense of the word. he's not JUST misogynistic, he's also homophobic, transphobic, a capitalist, ableist, racist, and an elitist. the whole point of it isn't that he's a "morally grey" character, bc he ISN'T, but what he IS is a satire and, essentially, the personification of cishet White American men as a whole as well as things like privilege, wealth/capitalism in general, toxic masculinity, performative activism, and many, many other things.

the people who idolise Patrick and try to "justify" anything about him (music taste being the ONLY exception) completely miss the entire point of both the book AND the film; they entirely miss the fact that Patrick's murder spree ISN'T caused by mental illness in the slightest - it's bc he is a greedy, bigoted, wealthy man in a society that protects and excuses repulsive actions by greedy, bigoted and wealthy men. Patrick Bateman is the cops who brutalise citizens based on skin colour, he is the men who get away w assault bc they have enough money to bribe judges.

the film was, quite frankly, beautifully made. Mary Harron did an absolutely wonderful job w it and she managed to keep the core elements of both the story and the MEANING behind it, which is difficult to do at the best of times. but she DID IT!! she gave us the best adaptation of the original novel that anyone could ever ask for, and tbh, I don't think that fans of the book OR the film give her enough credit for her direction and her writing. Mary Harron did something that, in my honest opinion, no other filmmaker can do again. it is a one of a kind film, BECAUSE of her - and she ought to be recognised for it more.

the book, on the other hand, is just as good! Bret Easton Ellis did an absolutely fantastic job at providing us with a satirical, comedic, yet harrowing and disgusting novel that's engaging to read but also INCREDIBLY blatant and in-your-face with what it's trying to say. to write from someone like Bateman's view ALONE is a difficult job when you're, yk, not a shitty fucking bastard. but to write it and to be so BLATANT with saying "he's a cunt" is another feat altogether.

however, onto the sigma males bc I could honestly talk about the creators of American Psycho for YEARS.

sigma males are, quite frankly, cunts. they're transphobic, ableist, misogynistic, homophobic little bastards. they want to be "suave" and "cool" the way that Patrick PRESENTS himself (not how he IS, how he PRESENTS) whilst also making jokes that are on-par w "comedians" as vile and hateful as Ricky Gervais. this whole "he's just like me" thing w Bateman isn't bc people are genuinely having a laugh, it's bc of violent and shitty men seeing themselves within other violent and shitty men. even if that means purposefully neglecting the actual message of the material they're consuming. even if it means purposefully being ignorant towards it on every level.

"he's just like me" = "I am also violent and shitty".

and it has nothing to do w mental health, like at all. I have shit mental health! I'm fucking schizosphrenic! but I'm not violent OR shitty. why? bc I'm not a cunt.

and that's what these "sigma males" are at the end of the day. they are just cunts.

I honestly do believe that young men should turn more towards OTHER role models, such as Steve Irwin and Malcolm X.

but unfortunately this IS a side effect of society in and of itself; a society of which upholds capitalism, White supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, and other forms of cunt behaviour will only ever continue to produce more of these violent, shitty men. it didn't just come out of nowhere, it was taught and it was allowed and normalised. we need to combat it as best as we can through protests and riots and other organised acts of defiance. we HAVE to do better instead of just letting shitty violent men have their way all the time.

I don't think there's any shame in BEING a man, like, at all. and nor is there any shame in presenting in a masculine way; as long as you're not a cunt, you're probably alright. I'm not ashamed of being a man, it does nothing to help anybody to act like I hate myself - but what DOES help people is to do things for others; donate to charities such as the refugee council.

help women w buggies cross the road when they've got a load of shopping. help an old man find directions. give money to homeless people. support charities that are involved w aiding indigenous people push legislation. help your immediate and local community as best as you can, in any way that you can - even if it means, say, handing out leaflets for the socialist party or doing a bake sale for a local charity or even something as simple as offering to lend a hand when you can see someone struggling.

go to protests and actively demonstrate politically and publicly; talk openly about the things that are going on, such as the heatwave in the northern countries of Africa that's been absolutely devasting. talk about things like how the Anti-Trans movement is one of fascism AND misoginy, HELP TRANS PEOPLE! there's plenty of trans women, especially (and even more especially Black trans women, who are less likely to receive the donations and attention than White trans people), who need financial aid on social media who you can actively help by sharing and spreading their links or their gofundme or whatever!

basically: just don't be a cunt, innit? like, as long as you don't act like a cunt, you'll be fine.

[brw]

What’s your thoughts on Scott Summers?

Hi anon! I like him, mostly! He's not a character I think I'd read a big solo title of but I'm not angry when I get a character focused issue from his point of view bc I'm interested in getting things from his perspective; couldn't tell you what issue it is but there's this comic from X-Men Unlimited I always think about where Scott gets mugged, his glasses are thrown off and he manages to fight them all off without seeing, and then perfectly retraces his steps to find where they got thrown, which was both really cool but felt like a good study of him n now dedicated he is despite, beyond having eyes which are portals to the punch dimension, being mostly a regular ass person.

That said, I do get frustrated when he gets put in an opposed position to Captain America or whoever. And this is a bigger problem with the way marvel writes the mutant minority metaphor but it happens a lot specifically with Scott n Steve n it's always like. these r both cishet white abled (in the stories they're being written in, that issue I mentioned was a good look at Scott as a disabled man & Steve was chronically ill in the 40s) men, I do really think they need a better mouthpiece for voicing the minority group and it makes me dislike Scott when they use him for it. I feel similarly about Emma; these aren't characters I want to see representing what it's like to be X Y Z, because to the minds of the writers they belong to zero of those groups n the writers, largely not belonging to those groups either don't know how to code them effectively or at all.

This isn't to say I don't mind Scott as a radical but I don't think he should be leading those groups. A field leader, sure, but I dislike him as the figurehead. It feels ill-considered by writers and while some people like it as a character beat as him growing from Charles I think that could be established without centering a cishet white guy in a group fundamentally based in minority coding.

But as I said, I do like him! I like him as a character with an unwavering sense of responsibility & as an awkward weird guy who doesn't quite know how to interact with people from being an orphan and then a child soldier, with bunkloads of trauma he's never really learned to go through and that's why in part his best romantic relations are with telepaths; he's not going to talk abt his feelings verbally. I like him when writers don't shy away from having him be disabled with a visual aid and chronic headaches and I like him when he's a good leader at the expense of having a good life. I enjoy him trying to move on from Charles' politics and I like the tension between him and Emma :) I like Scott as a character, but I dislike him as a symbol for how Marvel treats the minority metaphor and what type of character they feel comfortable with voicing certain opinions or stances.

[bum-ju]

Could you go into more depth about the racist tropes and zukka please?

sure!

i’ve never been super into zukka, and i don’t usually read fanfic, so my explanation likely won’t hit all the points since i’m not familiar with them. also note that while i’m a poc, i am light skinned and japanese (similar ethnicity as zuko is implied to be).

that said, the biggest points here are firstly, the common z//utara trope of the fire monarch. secondly, the dynamic between the two and the archetypes (based on racist tropes) they are often written as.

the z//utara tropes. fire monarch tropes (fire lady katara/fire prince sokka) are bad because it makes a water tribe person, someone directly negatively impacted by the fire nation monarchy, part of the fn monarchy. it also comes with moving away from the water tribe and living full time in the fn. this means that these characters are made to abandon the culture they are, in canon, very connected to, which reeks of gentrification. it’s also plain insensitive to the pain that the fire nation has caused the water tribes... no water tribe person would want to live the rest of their life in the halls of the people who gave the orders to commit genocide against their people.

the dynamic/archetypes. the dynamic between sokka and zuko is generally that zuko is the fragile and highly targeted firelord in distress, and sokka is the strong, dependable warrior who protects him. this is racist on two fronts. sokka is a dark skinned moc. many darkskinned people, especially men, are stereotyped as strong, warriorlike, uncivilized, protectors. this is harmful because it suggests that men of color are dangerous, other, and violent. only portraying sokka as the protector encourages this harmful view of men of color. this ‘strong’ stereotype also leads to a disregard for the emotional and mental wellbeing of moc. it means that sokka’s feelings are often pushed down to make room for zuko’s. 

zuko is a light skinned asian man. light skinned asian men are often infantilized, and portraying zuko as a damsel in distress only fuels this stereotype. this happens to overlap with the fact that a considerable part of the fandom considers zuko to be neurodivergent/autistic coded, a group who are also constantly infantilized. when he isn’t infantilized, he is sexualized. he is a sixteen year old child from a children’s show, you should not be sexualizing him (either of them) at all.

not to mention the ‘top vs bottom’ dynamic that many people obsess over in queer pairings. disregarding the disgusting idea of sexualizing children, this also plays into the racist and homophobic dynamics: that the light skinned, feminine character plays the submissive role, and the dark skinned, masculine character plays the domineering role. queer men are not substitutes for already misogynistic heterosexual dynamics (submissive woman vs dominant man). they are not self inserts for heterosexual women (straight women imagining themselves as zuko, therefore deciding to feminize the bottom character). 

there are many more layers to this, i’m sure. but this is the most of it. dark skinned men of color are not violent, dominating protectors and deserve attention and care. light skinned men of color are not helpless, dumb babies, they deserve to be listened to and respected. queer stories are not for cishet women to insert themselves into. shipping two men does not make you a gay ally, educating yourself and supporting queer people does. white people/cishet women do not clown on this post. queer poc feel free to add.

[belfrygargoyles]

I Answer Questions I Get About Star Wars Fanfiction

So, when I made this post a while back, I did end up getting quite a few people coming to me for advice!

And while I was happy to give what help I could through tumblr DMs, there was also quite a bit I was realizing was a bit Much to be conveyed just through the DM format.

So, while this is by no means a catch-all, comprehensive list of what to do and what not to do, I thought I’d make a post going into a bit more detail! I’ll specifically be addressing questions/concerns that have been brought to me, mostly

Because of the specific subject matter of the original post, most of the question askers were white/cis/het women, so much of what I cover will be directed at authors of that specific demographic.

The brunt of the post is about writing reader-characters of different demographics and why “gender-neutral” reader-inserts tend to fail to reach that mark, but the first two points I address are related to racism and fetishism in writing. Because of this, I want to preface: I am White, and I will never be an authority on what is or is not racist or fetishistic. These are questions I, specifically, have received, and needed more space to elaborate on. Everything I say, I have learned by listening to fans of color speaking out about the ways they and characters of color are treated and by doing my own research into the subject- my experience and advice is not exhaustive, I cannot cover every important facet, and my word should never, ever come before that of a person of color speaking about the same subject.

If while reading, you come across something that is not true, is offensive, harmful, or otherwise just not good advice for me to give, please contact me and I will remove or edit as needed.

I’m a White, cishet woman, and I like to write fanfiction about characters I find attractive who are men of color. How can I avoid writing fetishistic or racist stereotypes? 

To recognize fetishism, you first need to understand racial stereotypes and why they’re harmful, even if they’re “positive.”

First thing’s first: there is no such thing as a positive stereotype. All stereotypes bring with them the very real potential to harm people, demean or belittle them, isolate them, impact their social life, work environment, and how they interact with the world and the people around them, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, or body type.

It is very important that you seek out and listen to the word of these people themselves. Understand why it is harmful to write a story about a “savage” tribal man seducing a White colonizer (and why “savage” is a terrible word to use to describe someone in the first place). Understand why it is suspicious to be obsessed with the sexual prowess of dark-skinned men. Understand why the common tropes and stereotypes you see associates with people of color are harmful, and understand that this is not about you. This is not about what you want to see as a reader, this is not about the specific fantasies you want to write out with a certain character, this is not about your fulfillment and enjoyment, because you are the person writing and putting your writing into the world for others to see and consume. The way you portray your characters and the situations they are in is important.

Second: you need to learn how to step back and examine your own thoughts and behavior for bias, conscious and subconscious.

Would you think the same way about a character if they were a woman? Would you write a character with the same personality if they were White? Would you think two characters have the same romantic tension and chemistry if they were different genders?

For example: In the game Subnautica: Below Zero, the player character is Robin, a Black woman. At some point in the game, she expresses defensiveness in response to unintentionally rude remarks about the human body, from a source that would have no idea that it was rude. Her offense and defensive tone is not at all unwarranted or unreasonable, nor does she hold a grudge, but upon first playthrough I found myself thinking, “man, Robin’s kind of a bitch.”

Then I remembered the fact that Black women are frequently seen as aggressive, rude, and “pushy,” and that Black women in media are commonly seen by (White) fans as “mean” in comparison to other (White) characters who act the same way, if not worse. I realized that at no point in the game does Robin ever act spiteful, cruel, selfish, or vindictive towards the source of the offending comments. She was someone who was proud of her physical capabilities and the hard work she put into her body’s fitness, and she was not in the wrong for getting offended at the implication that her body was flawed or inefficient. Throughout the game, Robin is patient, driven, compassionate, and forgiving, and expresses grief, frustration, offense, and anger as is appropriate for the situations she finds herself in.

What I had done was subconsciously put Robin in a set box of character traits based off of racist stereotypes and characterizations frequently seen in media and fanworks. I didn’t realize I was doing it in the moment, and had to take a step back to examine the source media and my own behavior, and realized I was projecting a completely false idea of what Robin, a Black woman, should be like as a character.

That is an example of subconscious racial bias. Subconscious racial fetishism can look more like...

- Believing male characters of color all have insatiable sexual appetites and massive penises

- Automatically headcanoning characters who are large, burly, strong, or aggressive as Black or dark-skinned

- Putting East Asian women on a pedestal for being beautiful, pure, innocent- or, on the flip side, as beautiful and “please queen roundhouse kick me” treating her as “beautiful but fierce.”

These examples, alone, in singular instances, aren’t fetishism- headcanoning a single man of color as sexual and being well-endowed isn’t fetishism alone, headcanoning a single physically large and strong character as Black isn’t fetishism, thinking an East Asian woman is exceptionally beautiful and elegant isn’t fetishism.

It’s how you do it in relation to how you interact with other characters. Do you only ever write about a male character of color in a highly sexualized context or only ever talk about how big his penis is and what you want him to do to you? Is that large and forceful character the only one you headcanon as having dark skin? Do you fawn over East Asian women as beautiful goddesses and “dragon ladies” but never actually explore them as anything else but just being there for decoration?

(Warning for the next paragraph: intersex fetishism, racist tropes in Star Wars fandom)

Something I commonly see in the Star Wars sphere of fandom is, particularly with the clones, use of the word “savage” or “feral.” For the sake of not singling anyone out, I won’t use URLs, but an example I recently saw firsthand was a prompt about Stewjonis (e.g. Obi Wan) all being intersex and “fertile” and as such exceptionally desirable to the clones, described as having a “hunger” and having “savage, animalistic instincts,” including having a violent, animalistic rage they unleash when they think the White man they think they own is in danger.

The author is fetishizing intersex people (making Obi Wan, a White man being paired with brown men, intersex for the sole purpose of making him “fertile” and able to be impregnated for the sake of a breeding kink- he’s not written as intersex just to be intersex representation, he’s written as an idealized fantasy of intersex for the sake of keeping him “male” but also able to get pregnant to fulfill the author’s bioessentialist fantasies of aggressive, animalistic cis men of color inherently desiring and being unable to help their “instincts” around a “fertile mate.”) and using a common racist stereotype for brown men: that they are “savage,” “animalistic,” sexually aggressive, sexually driven, violent, and sexually dominating over “smaller” (Ewan Mcgregor is 5′10, Temuera Morrison is 5′7. Even if you headcanon the clones as 6′0, as Wookieepedia defaults every adult male human to, that’s still only two inches of difference) light-skinned love interests (who have a vagina).

At a very, very basic level, I can get why the idea of such a dynamic might be appealing: the idea of someone finding you desirable and protecting you/fighting for you without reservation, the idea of “instincts” showing someone’s true feelings they can’t fight for you, etc. etc.. When that’s what you’re going for, it’s a case of you really, really needing to think long and hard about the characters you’re using and how you’re portraying them. I mean, you need to really think about it.

And I get it if it’s a trope you really like or a dynamic you really want to write, but I repeat: this isn’t about you. It’s about the image and stereotypes you may or may not be reinforcing about people of color, men of color, and intersex people to yourself and your readership.

This is the best advice I can give you: Take a step back. Check yourself. Check the way you think about a character, the way you write them, and the way they are portrayed in canon. Think about why you want to write the situation you want to write. Think about how you are portraying the character, and how it might be interpreted by people who aren’t in your brain. Ask yourself if you really think the character would act that way, or if that’s just how you think they should act, and then ask yourself why.

If you find that what you are writing might be falling into fetishistic or derogatory tropes or stereotypes, that’s where you stop. Identify what, specifically, about the situation or scenario appeals to you. Identify why the characters appeal to you. See if you can use those elements in a way that doesn’t reinforce those stereotypes.

2. When does a smut fic involving a man of color become fetishistic? What if an author is simply exaggerating pre-existing character traits for the sake of a smut scenario? Is writing characters partaking in specific kinks or tropes fetishism by default because they’re played by men of color?

I’ll go down the line:

- The short answer: when you use fetishistic tropes. The longer answer: when you use tropes in a context that could be considered fetishistic, and do nothing to add depth to the situation. Show that you put thought into your decisions, and show us why you believe the character would do/act/think that way. If you can’t because it doesn’t make sense and it’s just something you want to happen to engineer a specific trope (E.X. Clones never getting any sex ed ever and freaking out at the thought of a vagina), don’t do it. Are you focusing on a character as a dominant party in bed? Then analyze how you’re portraying that, if you’re using animal comparisons, references to how small and petite his submissive partner is, if you’re portraying it as a healthy sexual relationship or if you’re implying that he’s always possessive, domineering, and intimidating towards his partner- it very much helps to have beta readers.

- Then the author needs to put effort into the scenario they’re writing and really examine why those are the character traits they’re exaggerating in a character of color. Why, of all the character’s traits, are you choosing to play up his strength, size, and aggression in the way that you are? If you still really want to write it: write the characters discussing it as a BDSM roleplay scene or show aftercare that tells us that’s not what the character is normally like, but was an act he was putting on in a pre-agreed scenario. Oftentimes, the issue can be that the author makes no effort to show that this isn’t how the character acts outside of the bedroom, or even erases that line completely by showing no difference between how the character treats his partner in day-to-day life and in bed.

- Not at all. You can write Boba Fett being a Dom and having kinky sex all you want- but it needs to make sense. By that I mean-  writing OOC, shallow smut isn’t a sin, but when it involves men of color, especially in situations where they have already been highly sexualized and fetishized, you, as an author have to think about how you’re writing them. You have to think about if you’re just using them as sockpuppets to write out a dom fantasy you already had pre-engineered, and you need to think about why, exactly, you want to use that specific character in that specific role. Are you writing about the character, or are you using their name and face as a prop to play out the fantasy?

3. I’m White/cis/het/female and I write reader-insert fanfiction, I...

a. ...try to keep my readers ambiguous, but I think I still mess up.

First: Accept that some measure of character description is needed for your readers to not feel like they’re inhabiting the fictional body of a ghost. You’ll never be able to be 100% ambiguous, and that’s okay. Parts of who we are and the way we experience the world will always leak into our writing, and that’s just part of the experience. What’s important is that you’re able to recognize where your experiences are not universal, and decide on if that’s something you can change in your writing.

Next: Some basic tips for common whoopsies that are easy to overlook.

- Hair length, color, and texture

Instead of saying something that implies a particular hair type, such as the way it blows in the wind or how the reader-character brushes or styles it, you can reference that they just have hair without going into detail, such as:

“He found himself unable to sleep that night- normally, he would count the rivets in the ceiling until they blurred together, but now he had a new distraction catching his eye. Your hair against his pillow was new, novel- he found his eyes tracing the strands from root to tip, the way the dim light catching on the strands almost hypnotic, and before he knew it he was delicately tracing his fingertips along a patch near your ear that had grown in what was, to his sleep-deprived mind, an utterly fascinating whorl.” Vs. describing a character running his fingers through the reader’s hair.

- Body type

I will say: sometimes, it makes a reader-insert infinitely more engaging if we have just scant details about the reader character, but that’s usually if the details are uncommon in the genre. By this, I mean: if a reader-insert specified that the reader-character was actually buff and very tall, I would already be more invested, because I never see reader-characters like that.

This being said, when you want ambiguity, when it comes to body type avoid referencing the reader’s weight, size, musculature, height, and build- nothing about curves, nothing about hips, nothing about stomachs.

Again, you can reference that the reader has these things, but without specifying that their stomach is flat or their hips are curvy or that they look small and delicate compared to the love interest. What I see the most of is references to the reader being notably shorter, lighter, or weaker than other characters. If someone is targeting the reader over, say, Din, because they look like they’d be an easier target, instead of saying that it’s because the reader is the smaller, “weaker-looking” target, make note of it being because of some other vulnerability- armor, lack of visible weaponry, hands aren’t free, distracted, because they saw the reader choke on an apple seed in the market earlier and it made them think they were incompetent and easy to take out, etc.

- Skin color

This one is the most basic, but also easy to mess up. Along with things like hair type being correlated with race (ie if you describe a reader-character with long, fine, straight hair, you are excluding the possibility of the reader-character being Black), something that can be easy for lighter-skinned authors to forget is that blush, flush, sunburn, and pallor aren’t easily visible on all skin colors.

If you want to write things like that but don’t know how to portray them without indicating skin tone, try instead using temperature. Reference the reader feeling heat rise to their cheeks, or the uncomfortable warmth radiating from a minor burn, or how cold and clammy their skin feels.

- Unnecessary references to the reader’s gender (E.X. gendered bathrooms, dressing rooms, calling the reader-character things like “the girl” or “the woman”)

If you’re writing a fic with a gender-neutral reader, you do not need to use any of those in the story. I promise, you don’t. If you have to, either find a way around it or just... don’t. If you want to make the reader gender-neutral, you don’t need these. I promise.

If you’re writing a gender-neutral but explicitly AFAB reader: also don’t use these, because it defeats the purpose of you saying the reader is supposed to be gender-neutral. In fact, make the reader’s gender the absolute LAST thing you put in the fic. Write the whole thing as if the concept of gender doesn’t exist.

- Typically gendered characteristics such as voice pitch and tone, face shape, chest, hips, hands, height

See above. The thing is, none of these things are inherently indicative of gender, but for many people, they are. If you say you’re writing a gender-neutral reader, but include reference to very feminine-associated traits, you’re telling the reader that you wrote the reader-character as essentially Girl Lite.

Something not enough people realize is that there are AMAB nonbinary people, there are cis AFAB women who are very masculine, and so on. “Gender-neutral” shouldn’t mean “Female 2″ or “tomboy.”

- And think to yourself: Would I write a male character acting this way?

This is... self-explanatory. And also very important. And why I say to make gender the absolute last thing you put in the fic. I’ll talk more about this specifically at the end!

Something important to note: Nonbinary is not the same as gender-neutral!

Nonbinary specifically refers to the gender identity in which you are neither strictly male nor strictly female- your gender identity exists outside of the male-female binary.

Gender-neutral means that references to the reader’s gender are removed and it can be read by someone of any sex or gender without being taken out of the experience by gendered traits or situations.

...want to start writing readers who aren’t like me, but don’t know where to start.

Just do it, really. That’s the best way to do it. You don’t have to make it a major part of the fic!

I can only really speak on the experience of being nonbinary and reading fics written by cis authors, and again, at the very end I’ll go more into personal feelings and experience, but I really do mean just write it. Get a beta reader, or friends to look it over. Ask people from different reader demographics what they want to see. It doesn’t have to change the entire course of your writing.

...am afraid of writing a different kind of reader-character and getting something wrong.

It happens! No one can know every experience under the sun, and if you’re not writing from experience, you’re bound to get one or two details wrong.

But! That shouldn’t stop you from doing it! This is where getting a beta reader or having a discord server really helps, you can get viewpoints from people with different experiences to tell you what does and doesn’t work.

At the end of this post I’ll talk about things I, specifically, would like to see as a trans person, and how being nb affects the way I see things.

4. What’s wrong with dysphoria fics?

from here on out is personal conjecture

Nothing. I just don’t like them because, well.

They’re basically the only time I ever see fics with an explicitly trans reader, and they all follow the exact same formula: Someone or something triggers reader’s dysphoria, the reader is sad and having a bad time, the love interest comes in and validates the reader’s gender and it’s all better.

One: I’ve never seen this done with a trans woman reader.

Two: It’s... tiring, having the only representation you ever see of yourself being about dysphoria. A lot of the fics are written as personal comfort fics or were requested by a trans person with dysphoria, and that’s fine, but I want to see a grand, multi-chapter fic with an engaging plot and reader-character engagement that just... has a trans reader. It’s not a thing, they just are, because trans people’s lives don’t constantly revolve around how trans they are.

There are more “nonbinary” reader fics than there are fics about trans men or trans women. And all the nonbinary readers are AFAB- I have not seen a SINGLE AMAB nonbinary reader-insert in the Star Wars fandom.

It’s just one of those things that is just... it’s not bad, it’s just kind of exhausting? I’m the kind of person who wants to see stories of people like me just on adventures, not more about how miserable we are because our bodies are wrong or something.

I don’t speak for every trans person, I don’t and I never will. But I think a lot of the people who request dysphoria fic... don’t actually want to read about that. Body dysphoria is touted as the defining trans experience, and a lot of people genuinely believe you have to be dysphoric to be trans. Not only is this not true, but it’s also harmful. Hating your body sucks. Hating your body specifically because you know people use it to judge how to treat you super sucks. Thinking you have to hate your body or else you’re not really trans and are just pretending? Ultra suck.

I’m nonbinary, my partner is a trans man. I’ll paste his thoughts on the matter (minor edits to punctuation and paragraph breaks):

“But in all honesty it’s very very tiring, I think the majority of people asking for a dysphoria fic don’t actually realise they want something else. Many trans people feel dysphoria, myself included, but not all of them do, and it doesn’t make them any less trans, but the overall focus on dysphoria has made it this be all end all thing in and out of the trans community. It’s what people often think of when they think of trans people and while it’s certainly a thing, I think the focus has become entirely too toxic. I think newer trans people tend to internalise dysphoria a lot, especially if they don’t experience it to an extent which is ‘acceptable enough to be considered trans’.

Given that context I think that what a lot of people are looking for when they ask writers for dysphoria fics is actually validation and gender euphoria. They want validation of their gender identity because they’ve recently experienced dysphoria and are looking for escapism. It’s something I myself have only come to realise recently despite being out as trans for a considerable amount of time. I don’t expect cis writers to fully understand the intensely personal and nuanced relationship every trans person has with gender and identity, nor do I blame them for using dysphoria as a go-to, especially when the request was for a dysphoria fic. I am however asking writers to instead try more validation and less focus on the bad aspects of being trans such as dysphoria and discrimination.

Again, this is a very complicated subject, and I am only one trans person and one opinion. However I do believe people get stuck in that focus on dysphoria, and it’s not a healthy mindset to be in. For cis writings including trans people in their reader inserts, I’d recommend making them explicitly trans, whether it be male/female/nb, because you cannot have gn pronouns and call it a day, especially not if it’s an nb person because it’s simply not the same as gn pronouns in a fic. Cis writers tend to have a stereotype when it comes to trans people, especially on tumblr where trans men are always seen as soft twinky UwU Bois and it gets real old real fast. I cannot name a single fic I’ve read that’s had a trans reader not in a binder or on hrt. You don’t have to transition to be trans, but it would be nice to see some variation and have some guys only have top surgery or only have bottom surgery or have no surgery and be okay with it. Medically transitioning is by no means the be all end all but every trans experience is unique and it’s very bland to see the same trans story every time you read a reader insert. I am of course speaking from the point of view of a trans man, I can’t imagine what it must be like for trans women because those fics are even less common!“

5. Okay what was it you said earlier about stuff you’d come back to?

Glad you asked!

Look, I’ll be straight up and honest, this is something that’s hard to put into words because it’s such a nebulous experience, and I don’t know how to describe it to cis writers but.

Sometimes the way gender neutral, nonbinary, and trans male readers are written really comes across like the author wrote a female reader and just went back to change the pronouns.

The reason why it’s hard to explain at times is because there’s nothing overt, but there are specific patterns in the way authors write reader characters and their love interests, like... female-coding.

The way the reader-character interacts with the world, the way they’re written interacting with characters, the way characters are written viewing them, the way their body language is described- things that, if you take a step back, you’d realize “oh, I wouldn’t write a cis male character like this.”

Again, it’s... really, really hard to put into words, but it’s a pattern my partner and I have both noticed that’s made it hard to enjoy a lot of trans/nonbinary reader fics. The issue isn’t that the reader-character is feminine in any way, the issue is that that’s all anyone ever writes them like.

Reader-insert fics already have a very homogenized experience of “reader-character is extremely passive in their narrative and has little agency in their story other than to exist alongside a canon character for him to eventually fall in love with.” Even in fics where the reader is explicitly a cis woman, there are these... unnecessary references to her being female that, to me, just seem to serve no purpose.

This is. Incredibly just Me saying this here. But it’s genuine, from someone who hasn’t actually Had A Gender in over a decade now: Is... being a woman really that prominent in cis women’s lives? Is it really that big a part of who you are? I want to know, because it’s so wildly different for me, and if I’m going to give advice on how to write reader-characters of other genders, I kind of. Really need to have that one ironed out.

If your gender plays a large role in who you are and your perception of yourself: that’s great, chase your bliss, it’s good to know who you are and what you’re comfortable with! It’s just a theme I keep seeing in reader-inserts that... takes me out of it? Someone whose gender is featured so heavily in their identity and the way they interact with the world might not realize that, say, a nonbinary person, just... has a completely different relationship with gender.

And I’ll say this, too: Trans men’s experiences and relationships with their gender is also wildly different to that of a cis woman. There is overlap in some places, yes, but it is still a completely different relationship, and cannot be treated as the same.

I think this is where the problem lies, and why I never see trans woman readers or AMAB nonbinary readers: consciously or not, cis female writers write what they know, and are applying their experiences and relationship with gender to trans AFAB readers assuming it will be the same or similar enough.

I will say, as a general rule of thumb: it really is not. Do not treat it like it is, please. This is why I say to write as if gender doesn’t exist. Just write the character, write the story, and then worry about their pronouns. Don’t even think about what they look like or their voice if you find that stopping you.

Write the reader as a character, not as a woman.

Now that that’s out of the way.

6. How can I make my reader-insert stand out?

I’ll let my partner, Felix, take over for this one again:

“People write what they know so expand your knowledge by talking to others.

Reader inserts are often very passive, too. Try to have your reader become the driving force instead of letting plot happen around them. For example, try to imagine why the reader and the characters would have a reason to talk/bond, what would be reasonable motivations for the reader? Why would the characters care about the reader?

Easy ways to do this include having an already established relationship between the reader and character that you can draw from, the reader has to accompany the characters for an amount of time on a joint goal, anything other than ‘reader is sexy lamp and characters like reader because reader is sexy.’ If you’re gonna write about a one night stand, then write about a one night stand, but don’t try to shoe horn in a whole relationship.

if you’re gonna write tropes then you have to:

1) Make it your own. “School for superpowered kids” is the core of several IPs: my hero academia, Harry Potter and xmen, but all of them are very different to each other. If you’re writing for reader inserts, a common trope is ‘reader whisked away by character to start a new life.’ This trope is everywhere, and it’s fine, but art is all about that execution.Think more about why these things are happening; why is the reader being whisked away, why does the character care about them, why would they stay together after the initial danger has passed? Don’t explain it to me either, show me the events leading up to the scene you want. Don’t tell me ‘ever since character rescued reader he’s been in love with them,’ show me those events, show me the lead up, show me why I should give a damn. If the fanfic wasn’t specifically reader insert, would it still be interesting?

2) Execute your tropes well. Execution is the most important thing when it comes to art. You can have the most brilliant idea in the world but if you don’t execute it properly it’s worth about as much as dirt. A movie can have a great idea, but if the pacing is off or the lighting bad or the sound design shit it’s not gonna work is it? Best example are the original Star Wars trilogy vs the prequels, I could go on for ages about the differences between them and the behind the scenes, but the gist is that during the filming of the og trilogy Harrison Ford, Carrie fisher and mark Hamill were constantly rewriting the script during scenes to flow better and sound better, Lucas’ wife was the editor and was the reason we have those great scenes that are seared into the memory of our society.

With the prequels many people had credited Lucas as being the sole reason the og trilogy was so successful, therefore he had more free reign and bogged down the movies with things that, yes, might have been interesting lore wise, but served no purpose for the actual story. His execution was bad. Your execution of your fic doesn’t have to be on the grand scale of a million dollar budget movie, but you do have to make the effort if you want to make a good story. You wanna write a horny smut fic? Power to you, do research into bdsm and healthy safe sex practices. Go into depth about how that makes the characters feel and how it connects to them as people. You can do a fantastic character study just from bdsm practices because of how personal and intimate that situation can be. Even without hard smutty stuff you can still write a deep and personal fic about a character falling in love with the reader if you just take the time to actually develop the relationship between them.”

Phew, that was a lot. Those were really the Main Big Questions I hopefully answered to a satisfactory degree. Ask box is always open, though!

[yoitscro]

First thought: Homestuck^2 should've just been called Beyond Canon, and more people should call it that. 

The 2 was put on for chuckles; HS trending the day it was announced with it being a sequel spoke enough about how such a thing shant be underestimated, and why Homestuck is ABSOLUTELY more than just our small twitter crowd (and the scrap of us still on tumblr). I say that because remembering the Beyond Canon part slightly reassures me about the fact that this is a fanwork that will do some weird shit, and things I don't agree with, but isn't something that I have to subscribe to enjoying all the way with how I engage with Homestuck.

Homestuck 2 is not the canon continuation. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, is an OFFICIAL continuation.

Not having it on such an important stool and as the only content we all are only allowed to digest should come from both people who obsessively dislike it, and people who defensively support it. If a character says they kick babies then I can say, hey that's weird, maybe not great writing, but I can pretend they don't in my content, and i dont have to send threats or call people cishet white men for it! and, it's an absolutely great thing that we were all encouraged to create our own ideas without anyone who's influenced us to do so squinting their eyes when we actually go through with it. Glad I don't have to put this story up to the expectations of being a sequel to a 11 year, worldwide IP that's shooketh the internet landscape since it's merely optional, Death of the Author persists, and ideas aren't just dominated and revolved around the perspective of a 1% in this entire fanbase.

That said.

As an OFFICIAL continuation versus a canon one, HS2 is ok. It certainly has that fanfiction vibe, and a story it wants to tell. I can't really tell what that story is since we have like, 10 sub plots rn though. There's not a real a clear indicator on where the focus of main conflict is that connects all these stories together.

I thought that the prose in replacement of Vriska's battle was jarring, but not teeerribly surprising for the format HS2 is going for. It's more so using drawings to compliment text versus Homestuck's usual of panels being side by side with visual importance, or even itself being the one compliment. It sorta feels weird tho that it brought old fans back in with art just for them to get sneered at when they get a bit upset that there won't be main staples of art known to progress the story forward. 

Also people who mock people for “having to read homestuck” knowing there’s language barriers and struggling focus from those who’ve been use to something that was never so dense, are ridiculous.

Personally this could be solved by knowing how old flashes worked, having way more artists on the team, maybe even an art director if not already, and noting that we're not asking for the next Cascade. Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rose Ride sure was, and Homestuck’s animation is absolutely not the same as a 12-24 framed 12 minute cartoon. That, or just snuff the illustrative art as a whole since it's very clear on where the focus is.

I’m sure you’re not here trying to see my opinions on how the outer workings are though, versus plot.

Uuuuh, let's see. Yiffy's still a name I don't care to use until I eventually get tired of any of my art that do not show up in tags. This is fine and not as offensive as people are saying it is. Minors who want to cosplay this character don't have to call themselves this character. Not wanting to be one letter away from accidentally entering a very NSFW space of twitter is fine. Also the lot of people call Tavros, Tavvy.

I hope Kanaya's anger at being cucked is actually seen versus being implied through fan guesses and another character having to say she was.

Roxy needs to be more of an involved character. Where are they during all this?

Jane should have a mention of her relations to HIC being a main/bad influence on her current parallels to Alternian dictatorship.

The PRE-RETCON GROUP should have a fun one-shot update for fans who like them, since they oughta be around if they fell through the ghost hole. Most of them. The sprites that aren't Jasprosesprite should also show up too, since they're around.

Aaaaaand I think we should be extra careful going into the future when it comes to the alien rebellion. It's weird that a lot of the writers are white and toy around with concepts that can be a not so great parallel to racism. Currently not great timing rn! If the characters are going to remain aracial, but with them still doing not much to reference other non-white earth cultures or getting new hair cuts that have different textures (looking at you, Rose), we shant make the species with actual biological benefits a racism commentary. the xeno joke at least had a play on words. If any writer has happened upon this then a, please don't get mad at me again haha, and b, consider having more black writers or directional assistance on your squad. You know who they are.

In the future. I casually want the ghost from the Dream Bubbles to be shown since it's a big elephant in the room to not have a single one of them in the bg despite a load of them appearing from the ghost whole. Don't gotta give them speaking lines, especially the dancestors. I personally don't know if I want that right now.

I also hope in the future that we don't get HS content that is only going to revolve around HS2, if it's optional enough to engage with without being the only option. That's why PQ could ended a bit better for me, and why I hope it's not the main thing that's keeping Hiveswap on the backburner. I don't think it's farfetched to consider that multiple HS content could come from more than just one team; to relieve work load, but to also strengthen the idea that Homestuck can be a various amount of perspectives when it comes to the ideas fans have. The most dedicated fans leading the direction of the story is not just a handful of them. If anything, at least acknowledge the massive ass fan projects going on once in awhile to showcase the different avenues.

"Hey Cro, you sure have bitched about this alot. Do you have anything good to say? Why don't you stop reading if you hate it so much!"

Not every comment needs to be golden, love. Again, some of these decisions I eck at, but ultimately they're just words on a computer that I'm not holding anyone at gun point to do, and I'm curious to see how the story handles itself going forward, since again, it's just a fanwork. Sometimes I wish to not only see where the plot goes, but to see a writer's craft in action.

Good Things:

The Art. Again, please have more artists. It'd help so much, especially since the main one is also double timing for VE. That said, HS2 sticks out to me because of the way the color composition is used. Aside from hair and other tiny things, I haven't seen black used a lot, which makes colors pop. It's really nice to look at. I hope we get more sharper styles of character in the future, since it builds on nostalgia and makes the trolls feel much less like they're from Repiton, but I can deal with it for the most part. I also like that one panel where the omega kids and vriska are talking in the dark room, and based on where they're standing, the text aligns. Tasty as hell.

Meat and Candy still do hold neat logic in the direction the stories go. Candy, while it could be more tasteless in some areas, is chaotic and too much of a good thing. Meat is having something a little more straightforward, though I'm not sure quite yet where it's going. I always found Candy to be the part of the epilogue that actually entertained me the most, from how much of a surreal Robot Chicken skit at 3am it felt. Sometimes the jokes slapped real nice and made me wonder, going in, how is this monkeys paw gonna play out and, hopefully, make people laugh or smirk like they got a good roast at themself?

The slightly episodic feel of each update is what I wanted from the Epilogues, so it's interesting to see that play out when it comes to switching different perspectives.

The bonus updates get points for featuring characters that a lot of us have been wanting to see for ages.

Hopefully this isn't unpopular, but I think the tension of Yiffy's introduction was nicely composed and written (ignoring some of the things I wish for Jane). It leaves you with enough want to see what'll happen next time. You could also say that despite her growling and making a lot of noise, it's not actually bad writing: I see it as the audience being forced to see her in the same perspective that Jane see's her; a dog. Upon no context we're seeing the same thing while knowing things are obviously off, and once we see this character in a new environment where their personality shines, it'll have a bigger impact her own character being humanized. So I like that.

Okay, I think that's all I got. I improv wrote most of this; hopefully I won't be taken out of context since I don’t think that HS2′s writing should ultimately be a judgement of the writers as people, nor treated as if they should hold the same unhealthy work environment that Andrew forced himself to do when writing the og comic. And I'm still like, donating to the patreon and everything, lol.

[runs away]

edit: i was going to put the cw as another positive thing for the comic...but...yeaaaah.

[deimcs]

sorry @alexi-ohs​ i'm gonna reply about this here just for convenience sake since the word limit on the replies is a joke. 

i absolutely hear you, as i see it there are two macro-cosmic issues that always get mixed up when it comes to this kind of discourse. like, i’m not trying to dictate how people should feel about the character, you simply don’t like him and don’t want to play as him? that’s your business and your goddamn right, you have that choice you take it. i’m not here tearing at my clothes screaming in indignation just cause we have different views on a fictional dude, thank god i’m not 10 anymore.

but i do find it ridiculous that so much of the focus is projected onto the CHARACTERS when sometimes these feelings are stemming from issues that are very much REAL. is this industry incredibly misogynistic and catered to cishet white men? very much YES. are they the ones to give in into hysterics, whining for days on end when a non-white, non-cishet protagonist is announced? also yes. these are real issues that exist and have always existed and it’s always valid to discuss them and to fight against them.

and again, it is kinda weird to me that much of this vitriol is directed at alexios that does very little to embody the usual stereotypes of the typical male character. as you were saying, most of his interactions are emotional, non threatening, him and kassandra are funny, they’re determined, certainly stubborn but they are never portrayed as forceful, controlling, gruff for gruff sake because “real men don’t care” or whatever bullshit they usually try to feed us with. 

personally, personally, personally, (personally) i am particularly fond of alexios, for the same reasons i’m fond of geralt in the witcher games. he’s written just as soft, just as vulnerable, just as fragile and hurt and confused as his female counterpart because the only stark contrast the player should be focusing on is the one with deimos, whoever they are. the emphasis is on their shared tragedy and their different but not so different  upbringings that led them to become who they are in the present. gender plays little to no role in the game but it’s surely something that we need to talk about outside the story itself.

i don’t know if i managed to get my point across, it’s 1AM and it’s also not that deep, but yeah i mean, i’m emotionally attached to ALL assassin’s creed protagonists but you mean to come here and tell me that alexios is somehow any worse than edward or ezio or even jacob and altair on the base of what exactly? but most of all do not start shit under a post of someone who clearly doesn’t share your view on the matter or i wouldn’t be giffing him in the first place. that’s really it, i don’t mean to make a big deal out of this, i know how socials are, i’m not trying to start anything i’m too old to give a fuck about fandom drama but yeah, that’s just something that still leaves me ??? after all these years.

[travisphelpsofficial]

Wait what about Steve putting racist and homophobic stuff in the game? I still haven’t had a chance to watch chapter 5 yet :( what happened?

This'll spoil the plot 1000% but it was easier for me to watch after hearing about it first, because I knew what was coming.

TW: racism, homophobia, self-harm, child abuse

Travis' whole story being about how he's violent & homophobic because he's in the closet is a homophobic stereotype from the jump. Most people who make homophobic jokes are just that, homophobes. To imply otherwise makes it harder for gay men to both come out, and critique those who make homophobic comments about us.

Personally, I also feel like the joke Sally made in the bologna incident is very, very out of place ("do you kiss your dad with that tongue?") given that Travis' dad is a) obviously abusive b) known to be homophobic and c) what most cults are known for doing to children. But that's not a common complaint people have.

Travis is never allowed to be happy, as a Brown gay man, he is abused throughout his time in the game. Which is, not okay, at all.

He dies trying to kill his father. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand and wanted his dad to be killed off, but Travis didn't have to die for it to happen.

That 1/3 of the cannon gay characters dead, and one of the few Black/Brown characters dead as well.

Todd's only character traits are that he is a nerd and gay. He does not have any kind of real story to him. He's just the token gay in the main 4.

The trauma p*rn only continues when Steve decides that, Todd, again one of the few pieces of representation in the game, needs to become a demon. (Which,, one could argue has a religiously homophobic tone to it... "oh he's gay let's make him a demon!!")

That's 2/3 gay characters and he doesn't technically die, but he's tortured and only exists to be gay, smart, and become a demon.

Neil, one of the few Black characters, and the last canon gay man is killed. Violently by the cult. His dead, naked, bleeding body is shown during one of the last scenes, for quite a while.

This demonstrates the bury your gays trope and that Black and Brown people truly only exist for Steve Garbage to torture. Extremely distasteful and ignorant.

Neil's only character traits also just so happen to be: Being gay, being kind, and being Todd's boyfriend. Not a well rounded character at all.

The fact that Neil was written to be so calm in the face of death, was also very disturbing. Sal didn't really want to die, Larry only killed himself because he had to, and Todd but up enough of a fight that he didn't get eaten up by a demon, but Neil, one of the 2 Black characters just accepts that he needs to die. All the white characters put up some kind of fight, but Neil, like the kind Black man that he is, just accepts death. Weird!

He kills off Robert, too (in chapter 4) and he's like the only other Black character we see more that once.

This isn't racist or homophobic, but the fact that he makes it so Ash has to try to kill herself in order to bring Sal back, is fucking awful. It comes out of nowhere and is very triggering.

Apparently he said that their high school mascot was a "Native American". I've never seen that, but I've heard people talk about it and obviously that pretty fucking racist.

THEN he decides that he'll add this weird as Native American lore into the fucking story?? And the legend he writes for it so misguided, racist, and ignorant, it sounds like something you'd write in second grade in a southern elementary school. I feel like we probably wrote shit like that at some point, and I still knew was wrong.

There's this fucking girl in a cave and she's got tribal tattoos and is like "my ancestors made these cave paintings" !! What!!

Natives don't have a universal culture. Not all of them did cave paintings. Not all of them believed in certain kinds of deities. Not all of them had tattoos. It's a gross generalization of a hundreds of cultures. It's racist.

He also tried to make it sound like the legend, that his dumbass wrote, was just some crazy Native jibberish. He has the legend written out, and then is like, yeah that's probably fake but they believed it any way.

All of this culminates into giving the cult part of that "oh ancient Native American demons better watch out!!" Trope. Which is, again, racist as fuck.

The end of the game leaves a lot to be desired and just fucking sucks honestly.

The game just ended up being torture p*rn made by a cishet white man, who obviously has a lot of bigoted tendencies lying beneath the surface.

* let me clarify that torture p*rn rarely conveys NSFW attributes and has a purpose of putting certain minority groups into painful/torturous situations and usually gives way to a white savior complex.

In this instance, Ash & Sal, two cishet white individuals "save" the town from a cult run & created by Brown people at the expense of the lives & souls of all of the Black, Brown and/or gay civilians (that we know of), which is a small price to pay, for them.

The fact there was never even the slightest "this game contains sensitive content, proceed with caution and care" at any point also rubs me the wrong way. Like, okay you don't want to spoil the game or lose revenue because very few people would buy a game with such fucked up views in it, but a small warning was more than necessary. Especially so considering this game ended up attracting a fan base filled with individuals that would be directly harmed by the shit.

I could go on, and on, and on about my personal grievances about how the game was written, how little research was obviously done etc., etc. but those are the main problems with it.

[full-course-identity]

Give me your thoughts on uuuh Jake

wew boy

okay. gonna word dump this, and probably other interpretation asks, so I can get the words out there.

from my POV, there’s 3 types of canon Jake + 1 fanon vers + my personal interpretation. lemme explain what they are;

Book Jake, who I don’t have enough experience with bc I STILL haven’t finished the book… >_>;

2River Jake, who is kinda oblivious and very in-the-moment impulsive (not so bad he’s jumping place to place ADHD like Rich, but like, not considering that maybe dropping everything to seduce Madeline or Christine is a bad idea when he clearly really likes Chloe). these are debatably survival mechanisms bc of his family (and wealth, if you want to go into the “being rich actually traumatizes you and locks you into dissociation” theory–but to be fair, this is partially reliant on thinking Jake is Genuinely Rich. … well, not Rich as in… yeah); ignoring any pain he feels in favor of getting dicked down and forgetting about everything for a while. very “I’m not sad, I’m busy!!!!!” 

Bway (possibly the new canon general for all Jakes since it sounds like London’s is modeled after him but just… toned down), who is still oblivious, but towards other people’s emotions instead of himself; he’s manipulative, a little impulsive but a lot more malicious about it, and he knows exactly how hurt he is about his parents. this jake’s awareness of himself makes him act worse because he knows this is the only thing that seems to help and it’s basically the only thing he actually has control of. his wealthiness is undeniably present and Bad here because the reason taking what he wants and not caring that it hurts people is his main coping skill is pretty much only because he’s been allowed that privilege all his life. i tend to think this version of him should be done by a white cishet dude (despite jake’s actor on bway being genuinely FANTASTIC) bc being marginalized in a high school should’ve curved a lot of the “endless power and privilege” he gets for being rich (Not That One). 

[i… think this jake has ‘better’/more nuanced writing in BWay… but i don’t think it fits the musical nor is it the overall direction i think it should’ve gone. BMC feels best to me when there’s a heavier element of Dark Humor that briefly nods to a Larger and more Fucked Up world behind the bit we see in the musical. making it largely a twisted comedy, maybe even ramping that up further with more whiplash lines like jake’s “which means the house is empty, so that’s fun”]

Fanon Jake is… like most of the fanon characters in BMC, a bit… “bipolar” (like, radically shifting depending on the situation). the BMC fandom has been born with heavy engagement from minors in the current fascist climate of fandom as a whole. as a result, you have three general uses of jake that as “approved of” by somehow the exact same people despite being conflicting in a lot of ways. THIS IS NOT ME SHITTING ON FANON, i actually think most of this fandom is just a casual romp for most people and that shouldn’t be snatched away from them nor mocked nor treated like you HAVE to be logically consistent when this is just a fun hobby for most… but there are still trends i notice:

1: Jake the sweet bi disaster who loves their significant other and is just a little bit hopeless in their silliness and Down For Whatever-esque personality. this is often used for shippy pictures and memes and cute little oneshots, plus, of course, fluff.

2: Jake the tragic abuse victim who is extremely sad and has to learn to love again and has always been selfless, plus or minus a permanent disability post-fire. this is of course used for hurt/comfort, plus in combination kinda with michael in the bathroom-esque posts and tragic art, often also used as an example of the squip being the worst for jeremy or rich guilt trauma. also: aesthetic and moodboard posts.

3: the one I have the least good will towards: Jake the “why does everybody woobify mlm? You can’t portray him without flaws! queer boys aren’t your fetish!!!” with an attached, clunkily written reasons why he was an asshole that is also simultaneously watered down so you don’t think he’s a Monster bc then you’d be vilifying queer men (well, more like they’d feel bad about their cutesy-er ‘emotional support’ art and writing which is Totally Different from all the other cutesy emotional support art and writing). 

basically, Meta Trying To Make Jake Reasonably Flawed But Not Evil in this fandom is RARELY genuine–it’s more often than not moralistic hand-wringing made so that they can wash themselves of the guilt for actually enjoying something with a character they portray as mlm, or otherwise the guilt of enjoying anything romantic or sexual involving men or queer people period when we’re apparently not supposed to do that anymore, as decreed by the radfems infesting our spaces. 

and, well, or you’re an mlm writing this post, you’re probably young and still feeling extremely sensitive and scared about your identity. i once saw a very wise post by a trans person who had been trans for a long time, who said that when you first come out as trans (or queer in general, but especially trans people who are beginning social or physical transition and coming to terms with themselves) you are obvs on High Fucking Alert and so you’re insecure and scared of anything, ranging from “obvious transphobia” to “just trans people enjoying themselves and exploring transphobia in fiction or else their own sexuality”. again, this can relate to a lot of identities tbh, and as such young mlm either cis or trans can get very Itchy about people enjoying mlm content.

anyway.

wrapping it back around to me: i edit jake on a case by case basis (sometimes i even make him eviler or meaner based on what’s set up during Bway, he’s just not my usual go-to villain), but i tend to think of him as a tragic Mr. Peanutbutter-y sweetheart who kinda knows he feels like shit yet also knows that if he stops to assess it, it would make his life a lot harder in a time where he can’t afford that. his relationship with chloe is extremely toxic (chloe abuses him horribly, specifically), and so he tries to claw his way out of it only to be continually back in by chloe and her bullshit. 

this is why he doesn’t really get... well. he genuinely thought the thing with christine was going to be permanent; he wasn’t jerking her around, he thought he was over chloe and wanted a girl as cool and fun and genuinely nice as her. afterward he Gets It, and so feels Really Bad--at a time where he doesn’t have his house, his legs are broken (i don’t tend to put him in a perma-wheelchair), his parents have abandoned him, and he best friend is in the hospital. guilt crashes in on him from all sides, and he just has to... pretend it isn’t, even as he can no longer stop himself from thinking about it.

if i was to do a jake focused story, it’d probably be a dating sim where you play as him and watch his life change in conjunction with his attempts to find happiness again; you can either choose decisions that help him greatly or ruin his life so ver much... hmm. lets file that under hashtag “story ideas i’ll never use even though they could be great”

to wrap this up: i like jake. i don’t... really enjoy most of the written content (fanfic, meta, sometimes even the storylines on ask blogs) in this fandom about him or... really, most of the characters, which i feel bad about--i’d enjoy it more if it was every in conjunction with my usual Wants in a fic, which is, like. extreme angst.

BUT

i do still like jake, and i can super enjoy his portrayal in memes and visual art

he’s just not my total fave, but like, the reason he tends not to come up a lot in my content is more what i’m focusing on and why. i’d be happy to use him in stories if his presence fit.

as a bonus

here’s the ships i’m happy to use him for, generally: deere, michael/jake, brooke/jake, toxic chloe/jake, and of course, different ocs/jake

his identities/labels: cis, bisexual/romantic... tho sometimes i actually go for bisexual and aromantic! outside bway and eviler jakes, i’m good with him being any race, and even then it’s just a matter of suspending disbelief re: privilege theory. also, PTSD probably, and maybe generalized anxiety as a result. maaaaaybe autistic too? adhd would be a hard sell for me since he seems super put together in a way that’d be extremely difficult for every form of adhd, but i can see him being neurodivergent on the spectrum + like dyslexia maybe. oh, and i sorta-kinda think he may be color blind? but really i’d drop that at a moment’s notice if it’d be easier to write him without it lol.

his interests: one is more or less sports in general, tho i think that, unless he went straight for track or swimming or something Olympics (which he probably can’t do now...), that’s a high school or some college only focus for him. so, besides sports, i think he’d kinda like the satisfaction and steady growth of Collecting Rare Things That You Have To Look For, like cool rocks, bugs, etc. 

as for careers... some form of doctor something, maybe a businessman of some sort but he’d likely try to curve his power in that field as much as possible; he inherits his parents' assets and company or whatever, but he probably takes a backseat to that and only really has it out of a sense of ‘it’s my job as my parent’s kid to keep the company going--without engaging in the same awful legal issues they did--for as long as i can’. one of my fave jake-is-there stories, vanceypant’s spicy bis-focused fic 1999, has him owning a restaurant, and that was cool as hell.

also jake loves dogs. especially golden retrievers. yes.

[diindjariin]

Is the Witcher any good? I've been looking for new shows to get into, and it looks pretty interesting. 🤔Also hi, I hope you have a good day!!

Yes! The Witcher is super good!

I’m a big fan of fantasy stuff (lord of the rings being my favorite, of course) and i think it’s a super cool + unique look at the genre. There’s war and politics but neither of those things are the plot of the story, so it isn’t a carbon copy of lord of the rings which, to be honest, is what most fantasy written after LotR is. The main plot/theme of the story is destiny - is it real and, if it is, what does that mean for the people involved? Where does free will end and destiny begin?

If you’re going to try it, i highly suggest that you make it through episode three even if it doesn’t immediately catch your fancy. The first time i watched it, i really didn’t like the first episode and had no desire to watch the show. But my family did, so i powered through. Episode 2 was better, but not anything special, but episode 3 was incredible. Amazing storytelling, visuals, message, etc. I was so impressed and happy and then the rest of the season was great!

Not only that, but the main character is the definition of non-toxic masculinity. I’ve read some super interesting feminist-based writings on this lovely tumblr site about Geralt of Rivia, and they’re really interested. Geralt is super gentle and feminist if in his interactions with women, all while being strong and masculine and having lots of sex and being a cishet white man. In fact, there’s a lot of really interesting commentary on women/feminism in this show: our lead female character (Yennefer) starts as a weak, passive character and transforms into an absolute nightmare goddess (in the best way possible); Queen Calanthe, a powerful warrior and leader, is in charge of her kingdom both in the court and on the battlefield; a very important moral battle near the end of the show (though involving men) is primarily fought by fierce, incredible women.

So yes, i would definitely say it’s good, and highly recommend watching!! Also, in case you need some lore recs after you finish that, i recommend True Detective, Preacher, The X Files, Stargate Atlantis, and The Mandalorian.

Also: Hello to you too! I hope you also have a great rest of your day!!

Edit: oh my godddd i also forgot to mention Jaskier who is literally the funniest character ever because he’s a bard so he sings dumb shit and this is a lot less cool and meta than the rest of the shit i said but JasKieR

[famous-aces]

Alfredo Guttero

Who: Alfredo Guttero

What: Artist and Art Promoter

Where: Argentinian (active in Argentina and throughout Western Europe) 

When: May 26, 1882 - December 1, 1932

(Image Description: Retrato del pintor, Victorica, 1929 [a self portrait]. It shows Guttero in his apartment. Outside is a very geometric skyline of smokestacks, steep roofs, and a brown sky. His room is slate colored and he sits in a chair in the foreground. He has a jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His pose is casual and he looks as if we [the viewer] have just distracted him from painting. He sits with his legs to one side, turned almost unnaturally toward the viewer. One leg is lifted slightly and one hand is on the chair's seat as if he is in the middle of turning completely to the viewer. He is a man with a receding hairline and a high forehead. He has a dark mustache and dark hair and low eyebrows. He is wearing a white shirt and bowtie and has his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his collar is ruffled and loosened. The whole thing hangs very loose but you can still see some of his body's lines of musculature. His tie undone and hanging around his neck. His pants are ordinary and green/brown. His expression is calm but confident and he looks directly at the viewer. The colors are bold but not really bright. The style blends geometry and flatness and realism in a way I am explaining very poorly. End ID)

Guttero is not terribly well remembered today, which is too bad. Looking through his oeuvre I quite like his work. Maybe it is because he lacked the bombastic personality of many modernist artists, maybe it is due to his diversity of styles without one that seems to define his work, or maybe it is because he was one of so many talented artists of his generation. He was well renown in his era, however, and used his popularity and skill to foster the next generation of Argentinian artists.

Guttero's life began mundanely enough. He always loved art, appreciating it and creating it, but pursued a legal career instead. But he was unhappy with his life as a lawyer, so Guttero left it to become a painter. He pursued his dream and passion, inspired and pushed by other Argentine artists. In 1904 his reputation was good enough that the Argentinian government sponsored his move to Paris, then the epicenter of the truly exciting and revolutionary art world, its influence expanding outward. He studied there for a few years under Maurice Denis before appearing in the Salon.

He remained in Paris until 1916 when he began to travel extensively across Western Europe for more than a decade, first to Spain, then Germany, Austria, and beyond. He traveled to nearly every country in the area between the years of 1916 and 1927.  His work was shown in various exhibitions around the continent from being featured in the Salon in Paris to a major solo exhibition in Genoa.

After that he returned to Argentina for the first time since his initial departure in 1904. Guttero remained active in his native country including creating free art classes called, aptly enough, Cursos Libres de Arte Plástico, with other Argentine artists. During this time he focused on his work as an art promotor, perhaps even more than his own art. During this time he introduced and showed new Argentinian artists to a wider audience. Indeed he created an organization for this purpose: the Hall of Modern Painters. He was dedicated to promoting and preserving modern art in the face of a world growing increasingly dark and reactionary. He died young and without much warning.

His art is undeniably modernist but trickier to pin to a specific movement. He has many different styles he utilizes with different degrees of naturalism and curves vs geometry. His scenes are by and large mundane and human, he uses bright colors, often huge central subjects, kinetic poses and positions, modern settings, and by and large human or urban subjects. He often painted on plaster using a "cooked plaster" technique of his own devising.

(Image Description: Martigues for Charles Jacques [1909], a brightly colored painting showing a scene in a Martigues canal. It is not completely realistic nor completely geometric and abstract. He favors color over outlines. In the background is a bright blue sky interrupted by yellow buildings with tile roofs, maybe houses, lit by the unseen sun. One of the building's lower doors is open. There is a small tree to the far right. In the foreground in the sparkling water of the canal are several small work boats, probably fishing boats judging by the silvery nets lying over the hulls. On the right a boat is coming in, there is a pale skinned, dark haired man working on one of the nets. His sail is red and white. On the left is a pale man in an orange hat and yellow shirt. He is stooped and just by his pose appears older, both of the men are too far away for many identifying details. End ID)

Possible Orientation: Mspec ace, gay ace, or aroace with an aesthetic attraction to multiple genders. (I am so unsure I have changed "probable" to "possible.")

I admit this one is a stretch on my part.

I am classifying Guttero based largely on absence, i.e. the absence of a remembered/recorded spouse, sexual/romantic partner, or liasian. I have no quotes or historical documents to prove my point. I have none of his personal philosophy or writings to draw from. Just the fact that he dedicated his life to art more than human relationshipa. That this is something I have seen before: Cause and its role in the life of many aros/aces/aroaces (outlined in Weil's entry the other day) and the fact that he had no recorded romantic/sexual partners that I can find in hours of research.

This illustrates why it is so, so difficult to find aspecs in history. We are not, as aphobes believe, impossible to locate, there is externally visible evidence, but it is less obvious than most other orientations. And cishets would rather we didn't exist so we are often buried under excuses. The easiest ways to find them are 1) if they were notably "married to their job" in their lifetimes (e.g. Jeanette Rankin and Carter Woodson), they talked/wrote about it in some capacity (e.g. T.E. Lawrence or Frédéric Chopin), they were distrusted because of it (John Ruskin and James Barrie), they made it part of their persona (Nikola Tesla and Florence Nightingale), aside from that I really need to search deep into their personal lives. Information not always available.

And often even when people essentially say "I am aromantic and/or asexual" the general population will not accept that. After all Newton is often remembered as allo and gay, despite never expressing interest in men. Chopin is often listed as allo and bi. Rankin is often considered cishet but too deeply concerned with her work. Barrie gets called a pedophile despite showing no interest in children. For eccentric aspecs like Weil/Tesla/etc. their being aspec becomes part of their oddness. If they weren't Like That they would be allo. Their being aspec becomes a symptom of their weirdness and would be unacceptable in a "normal" person.

History with a capital H does not want to acknowledge aspecs and, as with other queer identities, will go to insane measures to erase them. But even other queer historians will do this to aspecs. I am shocked how many people do exactly to Newton/Lewis/and the like what cishet historians do to Alexander the Great. In the case of Alexander the cishets ignore the obvious accounts that he loved Hephestian in nearly every way possible and queer historians and history buffs call them out, then often the non-aspec ones look at Newton and Lewis who had no interest in men and say they must have been gay. And it isn't really just history, Tim Gunn is by his own admission both gay and ace and the second part of that statement is either erased or, even crazier, I have seen aphobes say that he is mistaken about his own identity.

Anyway the root cause of this lack of nuance in the discussion of sexual orientation is a long sidebar that this is not the place to explore. I have left Guttero behind paragraphs ago. I have written a lot about how aces and aros end up getting erased from history and this isn't about that.

This is about Guttero and the difficulty of finding aros and aces. The presence of something is so much easier to find than the alternative, obviously, like if Historical Figure X exclusively slept with/courted men and was a man we can say he was (most likely) gay. But if Historical Figure Y didn't sleep with anyone/court anyone it is harder to prove. This is obviously severely simplifying identity but for the purposes of this example I beg your apology.

Long Story Short: the absence of evidence of something is not proof of the absence of something. A lot of aphobes will point this out and utterly ignore the fact that sometimes it is.

So, Guttero. The only thing I can say conclusively is that he never married and he was romantically or sexually tied to anyone as far as I can find. He was, in his time, very active in the art world. If he had been involved someone would probably have taken note. Especially considering his art is often very appreciative of the human form, especially the male one, it would not be hard to believe he was allo and gay or mspec.

I am going to take his art another way putting some dusty analysis/critique/art history skills to good use. Here's the thing, those who follow me on my personal blog or even here know I find the Death of the Author extremely important but it is also extremely complicated (it was actually the topic of my senior thesis). I don't want to use an artist's work to talk about their personal lives because art is often not reflective of life, but there is always some cross contamination in one way or another. I am going to explain what I mean on a superficial level, using myself as an example so I can say this is 100% accurate. I love the found family trope, and I think those relationships are the best in the world. So whenever I write something you can be damned sure if I can get some found family goodness in there I will. What I am saying is, I don't love or even approve of everything I write about, but I do write about some things because I love them and want to explore them and experience them on some level. The same may be true for Guttero and the subjects he painted.

Guttero often pays a lot of attention to human form. Look at his work The Market (I couldn't find a large enough image to put it in this post) and you will see his appreciation for amab musculature and on the other side of the male spectrum...

(image description: Retrato de Lucien Cavarry [1911] It shows a thin, lanky, and well dressed young man reclining on a green floral patterned couch and a black pillow. He is pale with neat, dark hair. He has a shadow of 5 o'clock shadow on his super hero jaw. His suit is white, his slightly rumpled tie is black, as are his socks and polished shoes. One arm is across the back of the couch and a red and gold pillow the other is dangling. This style is very different from the other portraits I showed/referenced. Still a modern but more realistic style, more flowing, less geometric. The man is drop dead gorgeous by Western beauty standards. End ID)

As for women...he seems to find them colder, more distant, but there is still a physical appreciation there. (Linking Mujeres Indolentes so I don't get flagged for "female presenting nipples" or whatever Tumblr's BS is. [The name alone tells you a lot]). Or the somewhat judgemental gaze of the woman below:

(Image Description: Georgelina. It shows a portrait of a pretty young woman sitting in front of a field. She is pale and long and beautiful. She has red hair, sharp eyes, a long flowing white dress with a gold sash around her waist, and a white hat with a black bow that is blowing in the wind. She takes up most of the frame and her expression is challenging and she holds eye contact with the viewer. The colors are bright and she is almost porciline in color. The background is mostly flat planes of color. In style it is somewhere between the self portrait and the portrait of Cavarry. End ID.)

Not all of his portraits of women have them so sour/distant but they all have a sort of challenging look. Beauty tinged with something dangerous, while the men always seem more innocent.

So here is why I say aspec rather than allo using his work alone, none of his work is particularly sexually inviting even with the sexiness/physical European attractiveness. The men are bashful or unaware of the viewer, the women are certainly not interested.

And back to the self portrait at the top: Guttero is in a fairly sexy pose, but it is sexy without being sexual. He is rumpled but the thing he was doing was painting, there is a sexless explanation. He is looking at the viewer, but you are distracting him from working. At first glance I thought his legs were spread, but they are simply in motion so he can face his guest more comfortably. This all could mean nothing, but I found it striking that this is how he chose to depict himself, at first he appears to be inviting the viewer in for a more physical interaction, but then it seems he is doing exactly the opposite, his passionate energy has been instead put into painting.

And in reality toward the end of his life that was what he did. He dedicated himself to his own art and the art of others.

So again, this could mean nothing. But...it could mean he is aspec.

And that is how the person I am least sure about got the longest entry.

(image description: Elevadores [1928]. A painting showing a factory complex. There is a raised platform running around it and several buildings in bright colors. There is a tree to the right side and a green hill. The building in the near-center [lightly left] is red. The sky is yellow and blue, perhaps the unseen sun is rising up behind the right-hand buildings. In style it is mostly geometric and flat color. End ID.)

[zalrb]

OK! So.

The first thing I did for this post was look for gifs of romantic relationships between black people on relatively popular TV shows outside of 90s sitcoms

I’ll add all three of Issa’s love interests because Insecure, for the most part, navigates romance through black relationships 

(and I do note the serious lack of dark skinned couples) 

Compared to:

Now to the point, I high key wish there was as much investment in onscreen relationships between black people as there is regarding interracial, specifically wm/bw, romances and more critical thought as to why it’s so rare to see black love in television shows.

While it’s very much still progressive to see [...] leading women who unapologetically wear their Blackness onscreen, pairing them each with a Black man of similar or complementary virtues is apparently a no-no [...] It appears that the only place Black couples can be seen regularly on prime time is via reality TV. Shows like Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta and VH1’s Love and Hip-Hop almost exclusively showcase Black men in relationships with Black women. The only problem is, nearly all of these relationships are based in gross disrespect, betrayal, dismissiveness, and even violence. And since these are real-life couples, it further promotes Black love and Black rage as different sides of the same coin.

Like I get the fact that fandoms are anti-black and that when white male characters are paired with black female characters, they go crazy because how dare a black woman sully a white fave and they’ll find every excuse to render the ship non-romantic or toxic or abusive or whatever else, I get that, but legit, it’s as if people fail to see the systemic anti-blackness in the fact that a well-written, earned love story between two black people is so rare to find in television in general (but teen television specifically) and most of the time if a black relationship is portrayed, it’s along the lines of:

Bonnie and Jamie share one kiss in 3x20 and then Jamie is just never heard from again and he was clearly a rebound after Jeremy and after Jamie, Bonnie and Jeremy reconcile and then it’s on to Enzo.

Or Edison and Olivia 

where his purpose was basically to reveal to her how much she wants to be with Fitz.

Michaela and Aiden were engaged when the show started but it turns out he didn’t really love her and she didn’t really love him

she’s attracted to Caleb but oh wait, he’s a psychopathic murderer

A one night stand with Marcus that doesn’t lead anywhere.The framework here is basically Michaela has a idea of her “perfect black man” but the only relationship that actually fulfilled her that we had seen on the show is the one she had with Asher.

The erasure of black love is even in background details like how in The Good Place when you see the “soulmates”, it’s white couples or interracial

same in The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s either white couples or interracial couples 

(and I didn’t even put gifs of all of the ww/bm relationships there are) 

Another example of this is when it comes to the representation of LGBTQ relationships. 

So often, gay lives in America are coded as white, and the forces that shape the lives of queer people of color – say, how immigration affects being Chicano and gay in Calfornia, or how police surveillance affects being black and gay in the New York – are ignored, as gay identity is usually swept up into whiteness.

For instance, in The Get Down we have a predominately black cast, a narrative that explores the rise of hip-hop and disco through the perspectives of black teens but when it comes to Dizzee exploring his sexuality, the show goes to a white space as if New York in the late ‘70s didn’t have a black gay scene. Even in Black Lightning, we see Anissa with another black woman for all of two seconds and then that relationship is shunted to the side in favour of an interracial one,

which is why Damon and Ricky in Pose were such a refreshing dynamic to see (as well as Chiron and Kevin Moonlight and Kena and Ziki in Rafiki but those are movies and I’m focusing specifically on television).

There is a dismissiveness or a refusal to look at the fact that the only way to see black characters in loving relationships or relationships that are meant to have substance is when they’re married to whiteness or non-blackness:

Added to that, I feel like there has been this unspoken yet spoken idea that for [cishet] black women to be desired and loved onscreen, the goal is to pair her with a white man.

To find a black woman as a love interest for a white man in which a stable and loving relationship follows is rare when relationships with white women are staple. A black woman paired with a lead white male in a giant franchise is almost non-existent in media. Uhura is breaking stereotypes and showing that black women are desirable, in which one is so desirable that the most popular and loved Star Trek character, Spock, falls in love with her.

Clearly the above section is from a tumblr post defending Uhura and Spock specifically but I think the ideas here permeate the way bw/wm relationships are viewed as being the Golden Standard for black female characters because she inhabits a role white women usually inhabit, because popular, typical white leading men are intrigued by her, there’s a form of validation there that I think we should unpack because I find this idea myopic because whiteness is still centered. I’m ready to move on to more Nakia and T’Challa, Ziki and Kena, Damon and Ricky relationships as being staple relationships, to seeing functional, romantic, lustful, healthy, playful nuanced black relationships onscreen. 

And this isn’t a call to stop shipping interracial ships, I have quite a few myself, I love Ashburn and I love Micasher and Silvermadi and Sasil and Jesus and Lafayette and Alisha and Simon and Chris and Jal and Kevin and Raymond etc. I have breakdowns and “love letters” to a lot of these ships, but this has been bothering me for a while so I decided to just post about it.

[battlestar-royco]

Not anti-SJM but something I need to get off my chest: I HATE the term “forced diversity”. You can’t force diversity - world IS diverse. That’s a fact. And so should be your story, especially if you’re writing a fantasy one, making your own rules, your own reality. It’s just an excuse to say that you don’t want to force it. You’re lazy and don’t want to do your research, that’s what it is...

Having POC/LGBT+ characters is just representing real life in books. Forced diversity is an excuse for authors and if they paid attention when ppl complain its not: « there’s a korean person and 2 gays! That’s too much its not realistic! ». Its more: « stop trying to ram this character’s sexuality/skin color in every page like : he stood walked away, bisexualy or the cave was empty and dark as dark as his skin ...”

I don’t know if these are from the same anon or not, but they came in at the same time and are closely related, so I’ll answer them together. YES, I completely agree. Granted, some geographical areas or organizations are incredibly homogeneous, but that’s still no excuse for writing a homogeneous story. Even if someone is writing about a historical moment or a heavily male-dominated business, the writer is still making an active decision to keep the cast that way. They can still write about the women, POC, LGBTQ+, etc who existed in that time or who were involved in the business in some way. Certainly these people did exist and faced different challenges; they were just erased. Applying this excuse to fantasy is even more egregious because the entire point of fantasy is that you can CHANGE the world to however you want it to be. If you are writing a fantasy about only cishet white people, you have to evaluate why. The “historical accuracy” element has to be unpacked. So many facets of humanity have been erased to fit this “but only white men existed in XYZ context” narrative. Why are only certain people allowed to exist in fiction without precedent based on how they look while others have to prove their existence time and time again? Why is it not forced to write the same white cishet couple sixteen times but all of a sudden it is forced to write in one gay character who survives until the end? Oh right, homophobia. Honestly, a cast like SJ/M’s will always seem way more forced to me than a cast like the one in SOC or Sense8. The latter two accurately represent the diversity of the world and there’s nothing forced about them whereas SJ/M went out of her way to make sure all her characters look and act the same.

To answer the second ask: yeah, I think the difference here is well-researched and well-written diversity versus tokenism. The former diversity represents demographics in an accurate way and the latter is a lazy way for authors to say they have diversity but only put in minimum effort because they want the majority of their cast to be white cishet and they can’t conceive of the character’s personality beyond that which makes them different from the norm. Having more than one POC or LGBTQ+ person in a cast is completely realistic. There are friend groups, towns, cities, workplaces, schools, etc that are completely diverse in gender identities, sexualities, body types, religions, ethnicities, and more. Writers just choose to write about the same milquetoast group of people over and over because that’s all we’re given in the media.

[meggannn]

(based on your previous ask) do you mind if I ask how you feel about lok? is there a general consensus if it's good or bad? youre really insightful and just wanted to know if there were any major issues you had with it

yeah sure, i’ll do my best. if you want a quick answer to your question, here is a link to some of my other korra posts where i say pretty much the same thing as i do here, just in fewer words. cause this post will be mostly an unhappy summary of my experience watching the show. this post will contain spoilers, and disclaimer, i am a really biased, disappointed asshole, so i’ll just admit that now. 

short answer: i liked the concept of lok more than the product we got. a lot of that is because you had a physically buff brown wlw protagonist written mostly by cishet white men and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t handled great. when i think of lok now i tend to fluctuate between bittersweet nostalgia and quiet, simmering rage.

if you don’t care about the show summary, skip at the middle paragraph break down to my tldr.

so for those who don’t know, LOK was really my first “big” fandom on tumblr. when it was announced, a bunch of ATLA purists were already hating on it because 1) brown woman, 2) it was unrealistic to go from ATLA’s technology to streampunk in 70 years, and 3) it wasn’t ATLA, basically. it was my first big interest that i got to participate in as it was airing, and i was really excited about it. i defended it, i wrote meta, i liveblogged, i wrote tons of fic and spammed theories/wants before the damn show even had a release date. all that is to say, i was Invested, and i believed in it before i even saw it. people called me a bnf, i’m not sure if that’s true, but i did gain a lot my followers in my first few years on tumblr by posting korra stuff. a lot of them – hello – i think are still around today (i’m not certain how all the video games hasn’t scared them off yet)

i should say at this point that my opinion of LOK the show has been really wrapped up in the ugly stain left by the fanbase. korra the character has been the subject of tons of racist, misogynistic criticism since the moment we saw her back; when she showed up on screen as a proud young woman who fought with authority and stood up for herself, that was the nail in the coffin for her reputation. i agreed that she had a bit of growing up to do, because ATLA/LOK have always been stories about coming of age and maturing, but i disagreed strongly with this notion that she deserved to be “humbled,” which is what a lot of fans were looking for.

the overall consensus on if it’s “good” depends on who you ask. most people agree that ATLA is better overall: it was better plotted because it benefited from more writers in the room and more episodes to flesh out the world. opinions on LOK specifically range based a lot on their opinions of the K/orra/sami pairing, if they were involved in or what side they were on in any of the fandom wank, and also just complete random chance.

i’ll go more in depth into my ‘history’ with the show below, but i just wanted to mention that all the while the show was airing, korra was being hit with waves of criticism by so-called fans for basically being a confident brown woman who were calling for her to learn her place, respect her elders, etc. another common theme was fandom’s brilliant fucking idea that asami, a light-skinned feminine non-bending woman who was more polite and reserved than korra, would’ve made a better avatar. because you know why. (korra was often described as brutal, rough, unsophisticated, next to pretty, perfect asami. and asami is a fine character, to be clear, but that’s what she was – fine. nothing really stands out about her, which is a fault of the writing, because she had a lot of potential too.) so anyway all of this did sour my mood toward engaging with other fans outside my friend circle.

–

it was around maybe the middle of book 1 that i realized the writing for the show was simpler than what i was expecting – not that it was childish, which it was (because it was written for children, i understood that), but i felt like the plot meandered and the twists came out of nowhere. it felt like they were making it up as they were going, and it opened threads it didn’t answer. one of the biggest threads was the equalist revolution, which was a very sensitive topic that got jettisoned when the leader was revealed to be a fraud, and that devalued the entire movement in an instant. really disappointing, because i was looking forward to seeing that addressed. for a lot of people, this was a dealbreaker, and they started walking. i stuck with it, but loosely.

book 2 aired, focusing on the spiritual world and some really cool history. it still suffered a lot from awkward b-plots and loose threads it didn’t know how to tackle. korra lost her memory and then regained it 2 episodes later with no consequences, mako flip-flopped between korra and asami because bryke don’t know how to write teenage romances without making it a love triangle, and at some point bolin kissed a girl against her will and they didnt acknowledge that at all? i honestly don’t remember. anyway at the end of book 2, even though korra saves the day and prevents the world from descending into darkness for ten thousand years, due to events beyond her control, korra loses the spiritual connection that ties her to all of the previous avatars – aang, roku, kyoshi, wan, everyone. and people hit the fucking ceiling. “korra’s not a real avatar if she lost her connection to the old ones! that’s the entire point of the cycle! this show is bullshit, it’s not canon anymore!” (the entire point that finale demonstrated that korra’s power alone was enough to save the world and she didn’t need anyone else. but people found that ~unrealistic~ i guess). as you can imagine, being a fan of LOK is starting to get a little tiring by now.

books 3-4 is where the korra haters got to love the show again, because they were both straight-up torture porn. after everything she did saving the world, this is the arc where korra got beat down, tortured, dragged into the dirt, swallowed and spat back out. book 3 is a lot of people’s favorites because it was the first book that felt fully plotted out before it was put on air, which is why i enjoyed it too. but for me it was difficult to see a girl, whose identity revolved around being the avatar after being raised and sheltered to think it was all she was good for, effectively abandon her life and even her name by the beginning of book 4 because the events of book 3 were that traumatizing for her. somehow this was character development. we were encouraged to stick with it because we hoped korra would find herself again. and she did, sorta.

but it makes me furious that people who had quit in books 1-2 came back during 3 because they heard these books were better – aka book 3, the book that featured korra the least, and books 3-4 in which korra got her ass handed to her in some of the hardest fights vs some of the cruelest villains of the series. (nevermind that the book 3 villains suffer from the anime villain curse: they quickly went from “cool character design” to “wait, how does this rando group of villains show up with powers literally no one in the universe has ever heard before?” – questions no one ever answers)

anyway book 4 is a mish-mash of… i’m not sure. i’ve rewatched all the books but i don’t know if i’ll ever touch this one again. the culturally appropriating airbender wannabe, zaheer (a complete rando who somehow masters airbending enough to fly, which was a huge middle finger to airbending masters aang and tenzin for no reason) a guy who literally tortured korra one season before and put her in a wheelchair, is the one who the writers send korra to for her spiritual awakening that lets her save the day. not tenzin or jinora, her spiritual teachers with whom she has positive, healthy relationships – they send her back to her abuser who terrifies and degrades her a bit more before deciding to help. this was a pattern: the writers made both korra and asami face their abusers (in asami’s case, her father) for catharsis instead of gaining peace over their trauma another, healthier way because…. i’m not sure why. there is no reason why. and then there’s the guilt tripping nonsense of asami feeling as if she had to forgive her father, who tried to kill her, because he said he was sorry and sacrificed himself for her in the finale. it’s angst galore, if you like that kind of thing, which i normally do, except this is less angst and more just the writers trying to hammer in torture porn, grimdark, and poor attempts at morally gray nonsense into their finale season.

anyway at the end of her journey, korra, our buff brown woc, learns that she had to suffer to learn how to be compassionate and relate to her enemy. i’m not exaggerating, she literally says that. which is lovely.

–

tldr: i wasted a lot of emotional time and energy into this show and was extremely disappointed when some of the ending’s notes were “you had to suffer to become a better person” and “forgive your abusers/villains because aren’t we all the same in the end?”

but also on a strictly narrative level, LOK also bit off way more than it could chew both emotionally and thematically. it had an amazing premise, but it was not committed to

utilizing the steampunk genre to its best potential in the bending world (after the creativity in the rest of the worldbuilding, the LOK series finale was literally fighting a giant robot – seriously?)

giving its hero the respect and character arc she deserved. and i don’t say that because i think korra had no growing up to do in b1, she did, but she didn’t deserve for it to happen like that.

so basically i realized that a lot of the writers that made ATLA great weren’t brought back for LOK, and it showed. i realized that the LOK writers, when they listened to fans, were listening to the fans that whined the loudest, or (more likely, since they plan seasons years before we see them) they thought from the beginning that it was a good idea for korra to go through years’ worth of pain just to be spat out a humbler, “better” person

the reason i told you all that about me defending LOK in the beginning is because i need you to understand that i believed in LOK longer than i probably should’ve. i wanted it to be everything i was expecting in a diverse children’s show with an unorthodox female protaganist. but just because they had a brown wlw heroine doesn’t mean that they deserved to be praised for it when they treated her like garbage.

and korra and asami walk into a beam of light together in the last second of the show and i’m supposed to applaud the writers for their bravery or something

[colorisbyshe]

how are you dragging cate blanchett for wanting straight actors to play gay parts when you defended live simon

I really wish I didn’t have to write a dissertation every time tumblr forgets that like Nuanced And Realistic views exist.

My Love Simon take was a realistic view--in a world where Hollywood chases trends and only lets cishet white men/narratives about cishet white men fail and have second chances while everyone else languishes, it feels weird to make Love Simon the thing we “boycott” as “social justice.”

As a teenager, I didn’t have options for the gay media I consumed--it existed but a lot of it was obscure, hard to find (especially because the internet was smaller then), or just not relatable to a kid--so I ended up consuming a lot of shit I shouldn’t have. I watched and read Loveless (a story about a 6th grader kissing his dead brother’s adult boyfriend/slave?), Queer as Folk (which tbh DID have a lot of merits... but at its heart was still about a high schooler and a nearly 30 year old), and a lot of fucked up fanfic.

I would have died to have something as wholesome and maybe even relatable as Love Simon which was based on a book that not only tackled homophobia but also antisemitism and racism. Realistically? While it matters that a woman we can only assume is cis and straight wrote it and that a man who we can only assume is cis and straight played Simon, a lot of things... matter more. Kids getting positive rep matters more. The fact that a gay man directed it matters more. The fact that it was written at the request and under advisement of LGBT kids matters.

And the fact that we only get picky about cishet’s involvement when its projects we don’t care about but we’ll all collectively ignore it when it’s projects we like (Brokeback Mountain, Moonlight, whatever gay flavor of the month tv show is floating around until it eventually becomes problematic) matters too.

We have to acknowledge the fact that LGBT rep will always involve a level of compromise until we force Hollywood to change, until we force society to change, until we can find a way to make our narratives--by and for US--hit the mainstream and that that means that sometimes an actor who never actually commented on their sexuality will play a gay role.

And I personally don’t think protesting respectful LGBT narratives is the way to accomplish that change and make LGBT narratives more mainstream and successful. I personally don’t think this is best accomplished by grilling content creators and actors about their private lives to ensure they’re 100% gay and willing to be open about that to earn their right to play a role. I PERSONALLY think we can support LGBT actors and LGBT content creators by directly supporting their works while also creating a Hollywood atmosphere that sees their projects as profitable and successful with wide audiences.

I am coming from a place of recognizing that the best hope we have at change is through incremental change.

This is not at all contradictory towards scoffing at a pedophile-apologist cishet woman saying “I am proudly a straight woman and I deserve the chance to play LGBT roles and pretend I’m a victim of homophobia and maybe get to say gay slurs.”

An LGBT person saying, “I’ll take what I can get,” is not the same as a cishet saying, “You will take what I will give you, you owe it to me.”

Me saying we can manipulate the status quo to work for us (ie use cishets playing gay roles to make it seem more “acceptable” for gayness to exist in hollywood so gay actors can at least get in the door) is not the same thing as a cishet saying “Keep the status quo for my sake.”

I understand the confusion at the possible overlap of my views and Cate’s but they’re not at all the same.

Mine are “Push for LGBT projects to make it to the top, get involved when casting is happening and say something, put your money and mouth behind projects by and for LGBT people, but also don’t feel bad for watching LGBT content that isn’t 100% LGBT controlled because most things in hollywood are created by cishet men, so we gotta work with what we have.” and Cate’s are “I love Roman Polanski and also the chance to maybe say the d slur.”

See the difference?