#it's specifically written about being biracial

[chekhovs-insurrection]

[1960z]

how people go about interpreting dr bashir I presume? really frustrates me sometimes ngl especially the “jules bashir died” scene.

like that whole scene is about julian revealing the depth of how deeply his augmentations fractured his sense of identity and who he is - which feeds into the themes of the whole episode surrounding how disability and then by extension disabled people are often viewed as a problem to be solved and because of that are often denied the ability to have fulfilling lives because the able bodied people around them don’t believe that they can.

but… idk, when the fandom talks about it there’s always seems to be a push to read a trans allegory into it that I don’t think is really there? I keep mulling over this post in my mind and when I initially reblogged it I didn’t really want to talk about this because the post is about how stories about racism can be hijacked by white people to be made about their own transness and it felt like as a white person, using that post to complain about ableism would be missing the point. but it really helped me articulate in my mind why the trans reading of this episode feels off to me because the same general principle seems to apply and that is taking a story trying to discuss a specific type of marginalisation and putting a trans reading above it because you can relate more to it personally.

“jules bashir died in that hospital because you couldn't live with the shame of having a son who didn't measure up!” this scene is the culmination of julian expressing his pain about what was done to him as a disabled child by his parents due to how they viewed his disability. but often when I see it being discussed, people aren’t really interested in talking about that. instead supplanting it with a trans reading instead which, in my opinion is an allegory that doesn’t even really work when you think about what’s going on in the broader context of the scene.

julian didn’t stop going by jules because he came to the conclusion on his own that the identity didn’t suit him similar to the way a trans person questions or rejects the gender they were assigned at birth, he stopped going by jules because he felt like the identity attached to that name was taken from him because of what his parents did. it’s not julian affirming who he wants to be it’s grieving over who he can’t be and to me at least, it’s honestly kind of harrowing.

and as an aside: when people read transness into a story about parents who change their child’s body and mind at a very young age without consent, which is literally a narrative projected onto trans people by transphobes to justify the curtailing of trans rights, that also doesn’t sit well with me. I think people latch onto this reading because of the idea of “killing a name” but again in the context of the whole episode the trans reading really doesn’t feel appropriate.

I think it’s okay for people to have trans headcanons about julian of course or literally any character they want to really, but I think saying that specific episode codes him as trans isn’t all that great honestly.

[androdetective]

As a poc, I have a complicated relationship to vbros. On one hand, the world is really immersive and the characters can be really great, on the other hand it is a very white show and has a racism problem. Many of the white characters have done racist things when characters have gotten punished or killed for less. There's also barely any side characters of color. And even then, many jokes get made at them regarding their races, because they're not seen as the norm. Also because it's an adult swim show made by white guys.

Off the top of my head, there are 4 side characters of color (Orpheus, Jefferson, Kano, and Dr Z). If we want to be generous, we could include Al. Maybe even Triana with her being biracial, albeit entirely passing as white. Even with those characters, Orpheus became whitewashed over the years.

However, ironically enough, he's the best written character of color. He's a very nice, multifaceted character. He's even become a fan favorite. He's also had no racist comments made towards him in the show. Which was a pleasant surprise. Especially since he lived on the compound with Rusty of all people. As happy as I am with that, it feels off because why did they spare only him but not others? I'm not sure if his race was ever figured out as the writers. It never got brought up, unlike other characters. I won't lie, that gives me a feeling they didn't write him as a brown man in mind. If they did write him with that in mind, he probably would've been written worse. It feels like they could only relate to him and made his character good by thinking he's white like them. Hell, they even projected their weird breakup feelings onto him.

With Jefferson, his character is a mixed bag. He's a cool character and very capable. He's a solid character, all things considered. It's just that he gets racist jokes thrown his way. And just, the show has one black side character, and they can't even act right. Why is racism, the hatred and otherness of one's entire existence, so funny. I noticed that each episode except one that he was in had at least one antiblack joke. That's an insane ratio. The worst joke was in the Halloween episode, where he was at the party. They specifically made his character open the door to a side character, red mantle, doing blackface. It was to make a shitty reference to some niche movie and just oh my god, can you stop being shitty white nerds for a second? People who think shit like this is funny makes me want to project years of racial trauma into their brains so that they could finally Get It. Again, this is the best black character they have, but they to make him go through cheap antiblack jokes.

At least with Kano and Dr Z their skin tones stopped being yellow. The other times we see characters of color are when they're background characters. They're either there to make a scene feel full or they're labor workers. The worst is when they were what I'd describe as background antagonists. One-off antagonists that aren't really villain villains. Moreso regular criminals. These tend to be depicted as black and latino. This was more common in early seasons and stopped happening over time. Which obviously great albeit bare fucking minimum, still doesn't change that it happened.

For a world that critiques the old mentalities from previous generations and even specifically denounces generational toxic masculinity. They don't say shit about the blatant racism of the Johnny Quest times they parody. And the times they try to, it's just showing racism and doing nothing about it. Princess Tinyfeet is the worst example of this. She's a blatant racial stereotype. Who for whatever reason, used to be married to Sgt Hatred, an American soldier. And Sgt Hatred is a whole can of worms.

With Dr Z who was apart of the Quest era, at least they tried to give him a character. The thing I will say is that he's voiced by a white guy (Publick) doing a stereotypical vaguely Eastern Asian accent. Something I wished when watching the show was for Dr Z to mention the old racist era he lived through, and maybe even how the present is still rough. The toxic masculinity of the era got mentioned, so why not that too. It would've been so obvious too.

I won't lie, a part of me is glad they didn't try to handle the racism because it would've been a horrible train wreck. I can get why they didn't delve too into it, they're white after all. I just wish there were more poc in the team and sensitivity writers because they were desperately needed. But for a show that can't even handle white women, I'm not surprised they can't handle people of color. For a show whose best thing they were able to tackle was toxic masculinity, I find it ironic how misogynistic they still were. Like quick, why were the side effects of misogyny that affect you 🫵 handled the best.

The thing is, if they did try to critique the racism, they'd alienate the audience, and it'd also be strangely hypocritical of them. Venture Bros'/Adult Swim's main audience is white cishet men. The ones least affected by bigotry. They're able to laugh at bigoted jokes, and they're the most marketable people. White guys will appeal to other white guys. In the early 2000s, white creators were able to get away with much more. Not because it was alright but because it was easier for them to shut down minorities calling them out. Despite how "normal" it was, that doesn't change how that fed into a very toxic, bigoted culture. Despite today still being hellish for minorities, it was even worse just a couple of years ago.

Venture Bros obviously did not invent racism/bigotry. The show is very much a product of their time and environment. And whenever I think about that, it feels draining. Especially having had to live through the 2000s. The show can be amazing when it wants to be. There's so much potential and a lot of charm and character. I really enjoy it, and that's why I'm so critical of it. Not only because I want it to be better but because I want something better for fans of color. We barely get anything, and the least we should get are characters that look like us and are respected. Just like their white counterparts. It's like, how am I supposed to feel when Sgt Hatred gets redeemed and made a main character before we got a character of color that didn't face racist jokes/got whitewashed. Or even before we got a female character whose existence didn't hinge on their relationship to a man. Obviously, the show doesn't hate people of color. They've tried to better over time, which again great. But it barely felt like they respected poc enough.

With the movie, despite its own problems (not helped by Adult Swim screwing them over), you could tell they were trying. And it was really appreciated. Jefferson had a big spotlight, and there weren't jokes against him. We even got to know a bit more about him. It was genuinely his best. Ignoring Orpheus still looking like he's in a perpetual state of winter, that aspect of the movie was alright.

I'm very glad to see fans who are critical of these aspects. It makes me more happy seeing them vouch for poc. However, there's still a large majority that ignores or even excuses the racism. Unsurprisingly, these tend to be the white dude bro fans. But I've seen even the more liberal fans excuse/ignore stuff. The fanbase is very white, just like a lot of other fanbases. I can get why a supportive white person feels they wouldn't be best to call out the show's shit. I just wish they'd mention it more with a simple "oh there's xyz in this episode and it wasn't alright." Something as simple as that carries a lot of power in very white environments. Also, of course, uplift other fans of color, especially when they talk about or face racism. Things as simple as that make me breathe sighs of relief. It personally encourages me to interact with communities more.

I'm unsure of how to close this off. This feels like a topic you could talk about all day. All I wish is for things to be better, you know? Hopefully this all makes sense. I just wrote shit off the top of my head. I'd love to hear thoughts expanding or adding on to stuff. Really hope this reaches the right people

[cancerian-woman]

yes the mikaelsons running in and taking things over is a racist tidbit idc

but you know what would have made it a bit more palatable? hayley being native, played by an actual native or brown woman OR bonnie being hope’s mother so we get a bi/multiracial hope and overall less white mikaelson family

I can’t accept the whiteness lmaooo accepting that a white outsider from a family of white abominations would unite the factions? Please.

also ansel, klaus’ dad was supposed to be native right?

these writers didnt care at all. no research into the rich setting they chose. they just wanted the optics of a cool setting

You’re absolutely correct. They couldn’t be bothered to find native actors until it was time for one to play a villain. I hate everything about the hallow and its origins. They describe her as power hungry and crazy everything about her reads: “Angry native woman wants to kill innocent white girl and others…” is just so racist and disrespectful.

If Hope was biracial, with a WOC mother or even Bonnie in the position the fans would’ve been ruthless and extra racist as hell. Though it would’ve helped the diversity in the show and characters if the writers really wanted to show NOLA properly. When I used other platforms and here I’d always get met some type of backlash for mentioning Klaus liking witches and his that easily could’ve led to Bonnie.. There’s only one character Greta was physically similar too and that’s Bonnie.

Vincent was honestly the best leader of NOLA. He was over the petty fights between the Mikaelson’s/Marcel and just wanted the best for the people there no matter what they were and that’s so important. Hayley’s want to have Hope unite the factors is an unfair burden when it isn’t something Hope spoke on.

I think in some way if Marcel was written better, I’d think he was supposed to be like Louis from ITWV specifically Jacob Anderson’s portrayal.

Ansel is such a mystery and throwaway character. We spent so much time with the hybrids and Klaus’ needs to not feel so alone but have someone like him to have nothing done with his wolf side. How did they give Klaus a cousin in Cary but never do anything—

Which is why Hope should’ve had a witch mother to begin with. Hope couldn’t even get a pact mark from Klaus? All he got was watching her turn. Nothing but daddy issues huh!

[genderqueer-miharu]

I remember this one time i came across a youtube video before and was interested because 1) It was p2 related and 2) it claimed to be a "critical" review of the duology which sounded really pretentious to me so i decided to check it out and had to almost immediately tap out because i could tell from the intro, the description, the comments, and the time stamps that i would not like that review and that whoever made it probably didn't know what they were talking about. Like to start they seemed to have this very...weird impression that p2 is considered to be the best game of the franchise and that every following game after it it's BAD. Which i wonder where they got that from because the common consensus from the majority of the fandom is that those games don't exist and they constantly treat them like a punching bag because not even Atlus wants to acknowledge them. So well regarded by the majority they sure aren't because the majority of people don't even bother learning about them.

Secondly and probably the thing that made me tap out is that they had a whole segment talking about the female characters of the game and again i didn't watch the actual vid but the title of that segment was worded in such a way that they thought the female characters in p2 weren't super well written and i guess they were comparing them to the characters in 4 and 5 (specifically i remember they had a whole section comparing Ann and Lisa), which like, i don't think they understand what people are talking about when they criticize the girls in p5 and p4. Like p2 obviously isn't perfect but like when people criticize Ann's character for being a "fan service" character they are not reducing her to that stereotype, rather they are criticizing how the game actively reduced her to that stereotype completely ignoring the themes and message of her storyline, you know her story of sexual assault and manipulation from an adult figure. The game actively goes against that by giving her the most sexually revealing outfit and suggestive animations and having all her male teammates constantly make perverted jokes towards her body (EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW WHAT SHE WENT THROUGH) is just bad writing "Oh but she is reclaiming her sexuality and agency" please be for real do you really think the writers actually cared to portray that? Do you actually think that was what they were thinking of when designing her panther outfit or her battle poses? And don't even get me started on the p4 girls. P2 obviously isn't perfect but at least it respects these characters more to have them assert their own agency and to have nuanced and complex relationships withing the cast and the story. The most they do is making fun of Lisa for her crush on Tatsuya but even then they gave her a great story about dealing with being biracial in Japan and how dehumanizing that feels (something they also tried to do with Ann but dropped the ball again)

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss embraces technology and his mixed heritage in his Broadway premiere

Late last month, I spoke with Darren Criss for his upcoming Broadway premiere, Maybe Happy Ending, in which he plays a robot (a Helperbot to be specific) named Oliver who’s been deemed obsolete by technological standards. Another Helperbot, Claire, asks to borrow his charger, and thus begins a unique friendship between the two.

Maybe Happy Ending was written and produced in both Korean and English and has had performances all over the world. This production features Asian American creatives both on stage and behind the scenes. Criss himself identifies as half-Filipino on his mother’s side, and has said his feelings on his identity have evolved over the years. In 2018, he was quoted in Vulture saying that he did not identify as Asian American. In 2020, he would later shift his perspective after playing a half-Filipino character in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, telling People: 

“It’s a tricky cocktail in America ... Anyone who is biracial can attest to this: No matter how much or how little they look like their respective mix, it’s a constant work in progress … I’ve always been proud of my heritage, of being Filipino. Just because people don’t see it, doesn’t make it any less real to me.”

I got the chance to speak with Criss not just about identity, but about his career at large, how he relates to the character of Oliver, and what audiences will take from Maybe Happy Ending.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Bri Ng Schwartz: As a biracial person with Asian identity, how does it feel to be working on a show that’s been produced and written in both Korean and American? Darren Criss: This show isn’t categorically an Asian show. It is very much a universal human’s show, but it happens to celebrate and represent a large degree of Asian-ness. Anytime you can show up for your cultural identity, that’s always a very exciting thing. It’s very exciting that the vast majority of people working on the show, on stage and off, are of Asian American mix and descent. The Asian experience is not a singular experience. It’s a very large breadth of backgrounds, so it’s been fun for all of us to bring our own experiences and stories to the table. 

BNS: I saw you about 10 years ago at the Belasco when you were starring as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. DC: Oh boy. This will be a little different. 

BNS: Yeah, definitely different. As you return to the Belasco for Maybe Happy Ending, how do you think you’ve evolved as a performer in the last 10 years? DC: I hopefully have evolved as a person. If I’m the same person that was 10 years ago, then we have a serious problem. I’m just still trying to learn, still trying to connect as many dots as I can. Hopefully I never know the answer to that.

BNS: We are forever learning as humans. DC: Exactly. 

BNS: I spoke to your former on-screen father, Jon Jon Briones, a couple of months ago. DC: He’s the best, and he was part of this production! This show has been around in many iterations for a long time, and he actually was part of a reading several years ago. We find ourselves connected yet again, me and Jon Jon. He’s awesome. He’s the best.

BNS: Do you take any advice or inspiration from people like Jon Jon or other seasoned Broadway vets in your work? DC: There are these goalposts that artists may think are the be-all and end-all of what makes a successful career. Jon Jon’s consistency and longevity are the goalposts. He’s one of these guys, if I mention his name, half of the room knows him or has worked with him. There are a lot of guys like Jon Jon who just are constantly a part of things. And that’s the goal. Success in devoting yourself long form to the craft, which he has done in spades.

BNS: In Maybe Happy Ending you play Oliver, a Helperbot 3. Do you think there are any parallels between you and how Oliver perceives the world? DC: I am endlessly curious and endlessly trying to download and learn as much as I can from the world around me, whether consciously or unconsciously. I happen to be a human being, and Oliver is not. 

I’m still getting under the skin of this guy, of this robot. I’m finding a lot of parallels as far as the desire to please. I always say I’m in the service industry. I service ideas and emotions and people. That is my vocation. My programming.

BNS: Do you think that audiences are going to walk away from this show feeling differently about their technology? DC: Technology becomes more human in the way we treat it. When people put away their phones, they get sad. They’re like an appendage. We’ve already started to ascribe emotional connectivity to our non-human components. People will walk away with perhaps a more emotional experience with the human components they have in their life.

The battery life that our devices have are a microcosm metaphor for our own battery life, our own shelf life, and our own energy. The finite amount of time that we have, and really coming to peace with the idea that we are a transient technology ourselves, considering that, and hopefully, making sure that your battery life is spent on the right things, I think is the thing I hope people walk away with this show.

On top of hopefully singing the songs, because they’re beautiful. 

BNS: They really are. Thank you so much for taking the time today. On behalf of mixed theater kids everywhere, thank you. I don’t think I would be who I am without having you to look up to. DC: Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

[acourtofthought]

“Lucien had been there, Cassian recalled. Had gone with Nesta’s father to the lake where Vassa was held captive.”

I loved this post, btw. I can’t wait to see what SJM writes for Lucien and Elain, specifically when they bond over their relationships with her father. But question - did SJM retcon this specific detail? That Lucien went to the lake with their father? I thought in ACOWAR, Feyre said that Lucien met up with their dad *after* he freed Vassa? I do feel like if she retconned it, it’s even more important/telling for Elain and Lucien and all the conversations they get to have in the future!!

I wonder if in ACOWAR she was so eager to reveal Papa Archeron's grand gesture she forgot to think forward in that moment about the plot of future books.

It's during the scene with Drakon that we learn how Lucien met them along the way, how he ordered them where to go but that it was the girls father who freed Vassa from her curse. Feyre even thinks it was Lucien who found her but Drakon says, who? Oh the one-eyed male. No he was pushy telling us we had to come now but it was actually this other guy ............which then cues the ships heading into harbor led by Papa Archeron.

But then when Sarah started writing SF and (hopefully) plotting the setup for Elain and Lucien's book, she remembered / realized Lucien needed to have actually been at Koschei's lake for the things she wanted to write and that's why she had to tweak the events of what actually went down.

The inconsistencies in this series can be frustrating at times but at the end of the day, I do think the most recent information being written is the most important information. Just like Beron was Lucien's father in book 1 but in books 2/3 we learn that she went a different direction. That, with this information Lucien is biracial and Helion's son and that's the new direction we're going.

Like how what Az's shadows did before around Elain do not matter as much as Sarah confirming in his POV that they tend to disappear around her.

And how Sarah wanted us to know as of the most recent book that Lucien had been at Koschei's lake with Elain's father.

Even without that addition, it is meaningful that Lucien got to know him on their travels back to the war, that it was her mate who she can now trade stories with when remembering him.

[gudvina]

Biracial Native here. I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding, work is kicking my ass and I'm tired, but your points bother me.

You cannot whitewash an ambiguous character anymore than you can brownwash them - and attempts to claim otherwise more often than not fall into racism against groups like Natives due to blood quantum BS and mixed race people's due to "if you look X you have to be Y" (which necessitates "if you don't look sufficiently X you can't be Y"). (You can research how this is still used in part to deny various Tribes and Bands recognition, how Lumbee and Melungeon peoples particularly have been oppressed in this fashion which really makes the ambiguous writing paired with racially binary and stereotypical readings a painful issue.)

At the end of the day, Collins is a coward who refuses to explicitly racial characters beyond a select few (I can't remember if she explicitly, unambiguously racializes anyone who isn't Black or Very white?), and fans have latched on to some extraordinary bigoted stereotypes to "prove" ambiguous characters are [insert Ethnic group]. I'm not saying Collins didnt insert those stereotype for the same reason, but they are an extensively problematic and laboriously vague move that allows for way to much wiggle room eithe way for many reasons. I know a few people have written at length on theoffensiveness of the Covey, I know other Natives have written about how the reading of Seam as Native is a Pocahontas esque mess that hits on a multitude of fucked ideas (again we're the poverty stricken drunkards and savages, Katniss being mixed but still hitting European beauty ideals and signalling stereotyped Native looks, falling for the white male savior in Peeta who is so good and noble and pure and from a better class, no reinvented or secretly passed on tribal lore or anything tying Seam people to specific pre-existing Natives which is a huge slap to the face), I'm unsure but wouldn't be surprised if Asian writers have tackled how choosing to read District Three epitomises Techo-Orientalism (and erases Desi diaspora while doing so).

Am I saying anyone who reads ambiguous characters as racialized is Bad? No. Please go ahead and do it! Diversity is an unambigous good. I'm no ones mamma or the fandom police here to take away your barbies. What I'm saying is you can't present it as The One True Reading, and people on either side of this issue need to understanding the underlying problems with how these characters are written. Meaning if you (speaking generally) want to read Katniss as Native, then it's on you to listen to Natives explaining why they disagree or why it's a problematic portrayal (copy paste for other relevant characters). If you choose to create with Native Katniss in mind, you need to educate yourself extensively. It is just as as much a problem in 2025, just as backwards, to write a superficially Native character and pat yourself on the back for it as it is for Collins to dodge and duck from raciallizing many of her characters.

And concerning Whitewashing, movie continuity is clearly different to book continuity and presents pre-existing characters as different. (Whitewashing also isn't technically accurate here and is a disagreeable term when other characters like Beetee were not cast as White but also don't exactly follow their book description. It is not equivalent.)

Finally I need to say that it is egregiously painful that THG is written and often read as a future that somehow slid back into 1910s style segregation and that is not tackled either in fandom or in canon. That it is not even remarked upon in canon let alone dismantled or explored tells me there is no thought out reason for it, meaning it is a racist choice of the author in order to lazily signal how bad the dictatorship. Racial mixing is almost non existence or frowned upon, too. That fandom at large rarely deigns to confront this honestly while lording itself progressive for reading all these slave-caste characters as brown is the worse betrayal.

I hope this made sense. I'm not targeting you, I hope you understand, but this discussion has been going on since the debut of the first book and it is supremely frustrating to see common fandom attitudes refuse to go beyond "but brown!!!" And actually acknowledge criticisms and do the work. (Not letting studios off the hook but there's no way to slay that dragon whereas ideally fandom would actually sit back and listen one of these days.)

First of all i understood very well this was not a target, and I thank you for your insight.

I do agree with you with the fact that The Hunger Games does not have #one true reading and it is widely applicable to a lot of realities, and that the writing does not present an unproblematic vision of District 12 as an allegory of Native American experience within its world. I also do agree with your first point, and I want to sit on it so I thank you for making me notice how much of a slippery slope it can lead to discuss about white washing (i won't speak on my own experience here, but it could also be relevant for it, so i thank you for the callout).

I understand movie continuity is different (though i was not referring to them), especially for the timeline the og trilogy movies came out, but I think in the year of our lord 2025 Suzanne Collins had no reason to actually shy away in sotr from flashing out better what seemed to be the commentary on racism in the og trilogy. Or at least an attempt to. And that is maybe what I have a bigger problem, given the way the fandom praises her for the way she presents Panem and the characters.

But as you also pointed out, the setting of THG also does not give any explanation for its division in districts other than "keeping the poor devided", which does not work when we're not given any actual insights on the war and how they got to that level of segregation.

I am not sure my own answer makes much sense, but I thank you for your ask and will definitely reflect on the points you brought up!

[chaifootsteps]

Also in terms of Viv being kinda goofy with Alastor - she went through ALLLLLL of this effort to be like 'nooooo guys he's creole!' 'he's mixed!' 'he's biracial!' 'he's a poc, i swear!' only to have the OFFICIAL leaked audition sheets say 'Any ethnicity.' Like, that's genuinely a slap in the face, especially as a mixed person myself. (To play devil's advocate though, I know that could be a note about the actor/not specifically how his character will be written, but Viv put a lot of effort during streams and stuff into saying "oh he's like half black" specifically, so to be like 'oh yeah, any ethnicity can play him' is kinda like HUH??????) I also think it's hilarious that you can tell that the audition sheets are real bc the ABSURD amount of typos and grammatical errors have Vivienne Medrano written ALL over it... even in terms of the song credits! As someone pointed out earlier, she credited a song as being "by Hello Dolly," and I checked Velvette's sheet again and she spelled the band "Little Mix" as "Lil' Mix" which first of all, is NOT the group's name, and secondly, is fully just misunderstanding how apostrophes work... like, how is this woman a writer?! (It should be 'Li'l Mix' if you wanna spell it that way, bc the apostrophe fills in the missing letters) Like, these are PROFESSIONAL audition sheets, how did anyone let these get through???

It's no wonder when those sheets first dropped, people couldn't believe they were real. But no, Vivzie really is that unprofessional.

[sahonithereadwolf]

Sokka winning over Willie Jack in the indigenous character poll thing is just kinda got me feeling a way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely nothing issue. This really doesn’t matter. But it does have me thinking about this pattern I see a lot in pop culture where the, sometimes very racist expectations of the, often very white, dominant group and what they read as genuine and representative will often very much not align with the traits, ideas, characterization, and coding the in-group will identify with. I think a very good illustration of this is Overwatch, specifically the handling of Pharah. So, if you don’t know what happened. Parah, an Egyptian character, got skins called Thunderbird and Raindancer. (Yeah, you should already be groaning.) Not really the best. And there are plenty of articles on why they suck ass.

That was enough for a mostly white audience to start fanoning that she might be half-Indigenous. Which isn’t wrong in concept, as a biracial person I can indeed confirm that biracial people do indeed exist. But the why they were marking them was that it was meeting the concept of who and what a native is in their head. A cultural expectation of what it means to be indigenous that indigenous stories rarely get to exist outside of. (And we could turn this into a related discussion of the specter of medicine shows and the hollywood indian or the big three of shitty native reps which originated most of these expectations directly or indirectly, but that is for another time and another post.) Blizzard, being blizzard, tends to like to incorporate fanon into canon if it’s loud enough and doesn’t clash with their plans as a way of making them seem and fans feel engaged. So they made it canon because a mostly white fanbase saw a set of kinda shitty skins and said “indian”. This is despite push back kinda being pretty vocal and visible at the time. It felt hollow, disingenuous, and out of nowhere to a native audience who never read native off her and it never being meaningful before. And nothing meaningfully native was incorporated into her in the future. Nothing that a native audience would identify with or recognize could be seen in her. And it’s not like there wasn’t talk of indigenous coding in overwatch.. But Parah was never the person it was attached to. That was McCree. He has big shitty uncle energy (among other things).

But again. Because one met a mostly white fandoms expectations of native, and thus got more noise. One got the canon and the other got an ugly beach skin where they made him blonde. What we flagged as native and what white consumers flagged as native did not align.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Sokka. Sokka has a lot of features I wish more native characters got to have on tv. I know a lot of Alaskan Native folks that fuck with him. But if you tell me he’s more native than arguable the most native character to ever been on tv, from a tv show written, directed, and acted by Indigenous folk in a way tv hasn’t gotten the opportunity to be previously, I’m going to side eye you.

[getvalentined]

may i ask about the very specific vincent headcanon :D from the baby onesie post LOL

This is pretty long, so I'm gonna put it under a cut because it's all headcanon stuff so I don't wanna clutter up the dash or tags for anyone who isn't interested. I explained this in a discord server the same day as that post, so a lot of this is just copypasted from there and thus isn't written in the same tone as my usual explanations, so my apologies for that.

First, some establishing context: my Vincent's mother was named Sayoko (Sayo to her friends) and she was a Summoner out of Wutai. Her family is particularly important to the culture, to the point that they still head up the one remaining summoner temple in the world, because they're the only family that presents with what's colloquially referred to as "aeon matching." This means that sometimes when one of them is born, an aeon is born with them, connected to the summoner in question at birth. The summoner sort of serves as a living materia, and at the point of their death the juvenile aeon disconnects and joins the rest of their kind in the ether between the Lifestream and the Void.

This is referred to as a personal aeon—most summoners even in Sayo's family don't have them, but those that do are almost terrifyingly gifted, and also highly at risk of things like…brain aneurysms. They're also at risk of uncontrolled incarnate summoning, where the aeon takes control of the summoner's body and uses it without their permission, so it's super important that summoners with personal aeons be heavily trained starting quite young, usually around 5-7 years old. (This is around the age it's possible to even tell if the kid has the gift in the first place.) Personal aeons are occasionally picked up on sooner, but it's pretty rare due to the inability for small children to understand the individuality of the mind. Little kids assume everyone knows what they know until they're about 4-5, and it's within a couple years of this that summoning and/or personal aeons present.

Sayo was very rebellious and ran away from the temple when she was 17, crossed the ocean, got an education, got married, and left that whole life behind her—and she had a personal aeon, but because she was fully trained it didn't impact her life very much. It's very very rare for a summoner with a personal aeon to have children who also possess personal aeons, because while summoning is genetic, the binding of an aeon is strictly based on the flow of energy through the planet at the time. Vincent is biracial, since my Grimoire is Junonese, so Sayoko wasn't worried about him at all—the gene responsible for summoning presents equally among different ethnicities, but it's recessive, so the likelihood of it presenting in Vincent at all was slim to none.

Sayo died when Vincent was seven years old, and his personal aeon (a particularly unpleasant creature going by the name of Hellmasker) fronted for the first time when Vincent was eight.

It was just a juvenile, and Vincent was a skinny, bookish, untrained child, so it couldn't do much. But it could essentially "take the wheel" and put Vincent's personality into temporary stasis while causing all kinds of trouble because it's like an untrained and overly energetic dog that's been locked inside for its entire life. This…basically set the stage for the rest of Vincent's life in some way or another.

Vincent being a summoner from a line with the issue of incarnate summoning is where the transformations come from. He has the ability to channel an aeon through his body, and as an adult he could have done it physically rather than just via personality, but doing that is always fatal. The process of reshaping the body to house the energy of what is essentially a demigod, regardless of age, will always kill the host at the point that the demigod withdraws.

…Vincent can't die. Meaning he can just do that. And he will survive. He's untrained so he can't control it, and he doesn't actually have any clue that that's what it is, but that's why it presented that way in Hojo's experimentation.

That's why the personalities of his monsters are so different from his own, while the only other character who had anything close to this ability (Azul) was still in line with himself when transformed. One of the other characters turned into the vessel of a Weapon (Weiss) also doesn't lose himself in the process. This is because they didn't perform incarnate summoning, they utilized controlled mutation.

Hellmasker is a whole aeon to himself, and Chaos is a bigger fish even than that, but neither of them are Vincent.

The other two are. Technically. Sort of.

Galian Beast and Death Gigas are mentally mostly just Vincent with bits of his personality sliced off, because they're not actually aeons so much as…the possibility of eventual aeons? They latched onto Vincent automatically due to a combination of what he is and what was done to him, but they're concepts that were still "cooking" in the Lifestream and are thus neither complete nor unique.

Unlike Hellmasker and Chaos, Vincent's first two monsters are physically based on creatures that already exist in the world, and mentally based on Vincent's experiences under Hojo. Galian Beast is desperation to escape and a thirst for revenge, the feelings of being treated like an animal, and presents similarly to a scary creature that actually exists and Vincent had fought in the past—a behemoth. Death Gigas is pain and trauma and frustration, the feeling of being defeated and defiled, and presents similarly to a scary creature that Vincent had only ever heard stories about—a gigas, which you can find near the Northern Crater in the OG. Galian Beast is too small to be a real behemoth, because Vincent was too weak to get out; Death Gigas is all piecemeal and broken, because Vincent had been taken apart and put back together and he knew it.

Galian is Vincent if Vincent were a wild animal that was backed into a corner, and Death Gigas is Vincent if Vincent were as undead and monstrous as he thinks he is. Both were very much shaped by Hojo's treatment of Vincent in the experiments.

Like...you know how you can use human stem cells and specific stimuli on a rat to grow human ears and noses and stuff? Vincent is the rat, the proto-aeons were stem cells and Hojo provided the stimuli.

And that's what I meant when I say that Vincent looks like his father but inherited his mothers insane powers.

(This is also why Sephiroth was able to fuse with Jenova instead of being consumed by her entirely. In this regard, he takes after his sire more than any of his other parents.)

Also I feel like I gotta explain that in headcanon-land, "aeon" is a term that's rarely used outside Wutai—the common term is "eidolon," but that actually means something different! An aeon is literally anything that can be summoned from the ether (this term is not appropriate to use in describing Weapons, which have physical, tangible forms on the human plane of existence; aeons are energy capable of manifesting physically), while an eidolon is an aeon with a functional summoning materia. Odin is an eidolon, Hellmasker is not, but they're both aeons.

As a note, Fuhito technically performed incarnate summoning, but it was a unique variation because Zirconiade had a semi-functional materia—Fuhito would have died when Zirconiade withdrew regardless, but because it was a Weapon rather than an aeon, the withdrawal process would have taken significantly longer without intervention. Likewise, the materia helped to prime Fuhito to receive Zirconiade by turning it into a summoning process rather than a hosting process as seen in Vincent and Weiss. His whole situation is just a very different animal.

[vaveyard]

Hi Victoria!

Corayne and Mare are some of my absolutely favorite fantasy heroines of all time. Bit of a niche ask, but is Corayne's surname an-Amarat inspired by Arabic? Seeing possible Arab rep in the YA fantasy space is so refreshing when written well, and I was just curious if this was your intention! I remember seeing that you see Mare as biracial white and Hispanic; would you envision Corayne and/or Mare as Arab/Middle Eastern descent as well? I think their strength and resilience really stands out in these representations, and I really appreciate your portrayals (of female heroines in general, regardless of ethnicity!)

Great question!

Regarding Corayne - yes, I very much see her as having a mixed race background from her mother's side. And I was thinking about Arabic surnames when naming her (as well as other characters). Her mother, Meliz, notes that she has ancestry throughout the Long Sea (which I see as Mediterranean coded). Specifically, Meliz is of Siscarian, Tyri, and Ibalet descent (Italian, Greek, and Arabic coded respectively).

But race isn't exactly a construct in Allward as it is in our modern day world. Heritage, skin color, or ethnicity aren't tools of division or oppression, so much as simple facts. I.E. A person of color in a predominately white court might be noticed as not hailing from the same kingdom, but won't be looked down upon or othered. I see Allward as being extremely multicultural with an emphasis on travel and trade linking the kingdoms together. I really did not want to write a world where racism existed and did that to the best of my ability.

So I wouldn't identify Corayne as having anywhere near the same experience as a POC!

[thewingedwolf]

The outrage for the gender swapping by the black community is justified in my opinion. Using a monoracial darkskin black woman as the gender swapped version of a white man is downright malicious. We have been facing constant racism if we're given some role that is desired especially on netflix. And there has been an ongoing trend (a pattern mainly us black women have noticed) to use the darkskin black woman as the queer character that's also masculine (or the sassy best friend, the mammy type, oversexualised). The actress will not only be a subject to homophobes but the not so quiet racists that plague most fandoms these days. It's quite funny when a white man is seen chasing after a 'black' woman, she is a light skinned biracial (Ruby Barker in season 1 who was still subjected to racism and was given a storyline was quickly written off the show).

i mean sure and i'm not trying to be rude here but have you actually looked at who is complaining the loudest about this? it's almost exclusively white women (mostly straight at that) who are specifically really mad because "the best guy" was taken away for "diversity." i'm not discounting that the racial politics of this show are wild and god awful but

they've been like that since season one and got significantly worse with it by treating the sharmas and young danbury Like That, this casting doesn't really change that or make it more obvious, it's just more of the same weird tone deaf shit

michael doesn't do anything particularly heinous but he is a dime a dozen rogue with a heart of gold in an incredibly typical regency romance, and i understand why they've decided to change that a bit when their whole schtick is diversity and stunt casting. the complaints are all about how michael is the best and it's silly because he literally makes several comments about baby trapping francesca, he's not any better than benedict or anthony or simon (he IS better than colin and phillip tho but that's not a high bar to clear).

i don't think fandoms being racist or queerphobic is a good enough reason to never include queer black women in these stories? it's about whether the production team and the cast stick up for her as the harassment inevitably ramps up. i do understand feeling like this poor actress is being thrown to the wolves (especially because shonda doesn't have a particularly great track record with this and ruby barker has talked about how upsetting it was to do the show) but i think if the cast and production make a good faith effort to defend her and warned her to like, turn off her comments on social media, there's no reason to bend to the complaints of racists and queerphobes if you want to tell a regency romp story with a black queer main.

cannot stress enough that the bulk of the criticism is bad faith nonsense using the word "diversity" like a slur against black women and queer women because the white women that watch this show don't want to see two women kissing and That was the backlash i was talking about. i'm sure there Are people talking about the colorist and generally annoying way they like to racebend the characters, but i also feel that acting like the bulk of the criticism is good faith when it so clearly is just straight white women having a breakdown is silly.

also.....can we not use square quotes around the word black when talking about a black biracial actress, it's weird. just say black and biracial, or black and light skinned.

[limesonspecial]

When I watch non-English film & tv, there's nearly always a moment when something in the translation feels...flat. Like there's some nuanced word in the original language that is being abbreviated to the simplest, most direct equivalent. Not exactly an untranslatable word, but something with a cultural context that you just don't get in translation. The only example that's coming to me is hiraeth, which you can simplify to longing or homesickness, but only by stripping out that very specific Welsh-ness (which, as a USian, I will never fully understand, but I believe Welsh folk when they say this is so).

Anyway, when it happens, when I get that curious flatness, I always wonder what it is I'm missing. What are the implications? What would a native speaker understand here that I'm just not able to grasp, coming at it as I am from a sort of linguistic telephone? It enhances the experience for me, hammers home that there are complexities of the human condition to which I am not - and will never be - a party. A reminder that even though my country likes to think of itself as the default, it really, really isn't (nor should it be). I think those moments are neat, and I hope I never lose them.

All of which is preamble to what I actually want to comment on, which is this: Blue Eye Samurai, despite being a show written by Americans in English (and animated by a French studio, but *dismissive gesture*), gave me this feeling. Granted, Amber Noizumi is biracial, so there's a leg up there, but the care and detail work everyone in production put in is extraordinary. I'm no expert on Japanese history, language, or culture, so I can't really weigh in on how accurate it is, but what I can say is that it felt like a foreign country. Like I was learning new things, and recognizing the bits and bobs I've picked up across the years in their proper contexts.

And there's something about how the various characters use the word great that pings that little "lost in translation" alarm in my brain, even in the absence of translation. It came on slowly, though. When Ringo wants to be great, he really wants to be recognized as having value (dovetails nicely with his "See? Useful." to Mizu). When Taigen wants to be great, he wants to be so accomplished that no one cares that he was a fisherman's son and has climbed up the caste ladder to a loftier position. Both of these are easy for an American audience to grasp (we're big on individual exceptionalism over here).

By the time the characters have all rolled up in Edo, however, the meaning has shifted. When Mizu tells Akemi that Taigen isn't a good man, but he could be great...there's a hint of some other meaning. It isn't about recognition or accomplishment, but something more like virtue. And when Taigen and Akemi meet on the bridge, there's the sense that they're using two different meanings - Taigen no longer cares about being a status-rooted great (or now prioritizes it below happiness); but the greatness that Akemi wants...that's a bird of a different color. Something about how she says that one sentence brings in all the different ways people have meant "great" throughout the season, so that when she uses that same, single-syllable word that people have been applying to a variety of simple desires, it feels...flat. It makes me want to look up what she said in the original Japanese and compare it to the other instances of 'great'...except there is no "original Japanese," just some really tight English writing. Which is cool as hell.

[2dami2furious]

i start to laugh when i think about the meta textual meaning of making miguel the one who tells miles that hes not a real spidreman

if you know anything about the general reaction to miles when he debuted, youll know that alot of people hated him. Specifically, they hated the the idea of him being the successor to Peter after his death in untilamte comics. Alot of their critiuqes were understandable, Id be a bit upset if i had read a decade worth of comics just for the character that i loved and had grown atteched to was killed and replaced by a some kid.

But alot of it was racism. The said that miles was a self insert for Bendis biracial daughter or that he made him because of the Obama presidency or something. I forget because most of it boils down to Miles isn’t the real Spider-Man. He’s too much like Peter, except when he isn’t, then he’s too much not like him. Insert forced diversity rant here.

More importantly, these same fans often upheld Miguel as the better successor to Spider-Man becase he already had an established, well written comic that didn’t kill peter or ‘nerf him’ (that’s another complaint; Miles is stronger than peter and the automatically makes him a worse character) becase he’s dead. It didn’t hurt that he is Latino because it proves that they weren’t racist for hating miles, they can like A minority character, as long as they don’t happen to exist in the same space as or directly compete with the white character they love!

Having Miguel be the mouthpiece for the asinine arguments against miles as a character is such smart way of refuting it. You really get the sense of how dumb they sound blaming one character for the downfall of an entire franchise.

[atopvisenyashill]

tbh i think it would have made more sense, if they wanted to racebend without breaking/severely fucking with the backstories of the characters (and maybe even adding a new, interesting layer), they should have racebend a host of characters to be DORNISH. the show runners talk a big game about doing what got didn’t but one of got’s first Adaptation Sins was completely cutting Dorne out of the plot. Messing with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, killing Doran, cutting Arianne and Aegon, giving us some nameless distant Martell cousin as the sole Dornish voice at the end…cutting Arianne and Aegon alone completely screwed the last few seasons but you can chart the downfall of the series by how Dorne is written (we literally all remember bad pussy)! Of course, it seems like “doing what got didn’t” doesn’t include Dorne at all which is a huge indictment of how thoroughly they misunderstand the books and how haphazardly they decided to racebend.

Here are the characters it makes sense to racebend (heavy emphasis on being Dornish, obviously):

Marilda of Hull (“daughter of a shipwright” could be from anywhere) and therefore Addam and Alyn as well.

Actually gone into Criston Cole’s Dornish background and ancestry; this man is essentially fighting to preserve ANDAL law and not Dornish/Rhoynar law and he’s clearly internalized all the madonna/whore complex nonsense that the Faith has about women, he clearly feels some type of way about queer people, but there’s no discussion of how being from Dorne is so at odds with his worldview?? Racebending because the actor is a man of color is a great idea but the way they did it just completely divorces him from his Dornish background so completely he may well have been from the Free Cities instead.

Joffrey Lonmouth should be Dornish specifically as a way of forcing a conversation about Criston's worldview and how it compares to the typical Dornish worldview.

Qarl should also be a MoC, he’s low birth and from the Crownlands, it would be so easy to make his parents merchant class from Essos that married a landed knight or impoverished house (like Serenei of Lys and Sybell Spicer).

Qoren Martell was involved in the Stepstones War, it would b eso easy to include him. Viserys thought of betrothing Qoren and Rhaenyra briefly, show us that and Qoren’s reaction to the idea.

Retcon the Cargylls into being a Stony Dornish house and they (like Cole) decided they might rise to better heights in KL instead of Sunspear. they literally only show up at one (1) other point and they’re extinct in the modern day anyway so its a retcon that doesn't impact a lot of other houses but does add an interesting element to their characters.

Illegitimate Characters - Alys Rivers, Sara Snow, and Gaemon Palehair - are also absolutely perfect for racebending. Gaemon's mother, Lady Essie, could have been either mixed Dornish or Essosi/Summer Islander. Sara and Alys could be anything at all!

**technically Corlys Velaryon and his mother & grandmother, since he doesn’t have a canon mother (Dornish would be interesting considering his involvement in the Stepstones War, but also the Summer Islands are right there, there’s nothing stopping Corwyn and Daemon Velaryon from marrying some rich noble Summer Islander while seafaring), which would make Corlys biracial, and Laena & Laenor mixed race, so they could have a PoC right away in the main cast without the “we race bent all the Velaryons except not Alyssa, you know, the one that is actually related to the main Targaryen line? yeah she’s white” thing.

i mean they did racebend Mysaria so good job i guess, you got the easiest one here to do right

This way you get main characters as PoC, but it’s not this really bad, clear gimmick bc they completely ignore that Alyssa, and therefore the entire Targaryen line (except maybe Rhaenyra, Aegon, Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron) should be visibly mixed race! they get to have the cool aesthetic choices of Corlys and his kids having white hair so they could flex their new budget with a plethora of Targaryen wigs while not ignoring and fucking with their own canon. The only main house that could be wholesale racebent without screwing up the entire thing is House Strong, because they only interact with Rhaenyra (as in, we have no record of them marrying into another house like we do the Velaryons) and they're extinct in the main timeline so it doesn't matter in the long run what they look like.

BUT - you just can’t make any of the Valyrian houses (except maybe the Celtigars lmao) or Andal houses PoC without drastically changing the dynamics of Westeros as well as what the other ruling houses look like, because these people are deeply inbred even excluding Targ brother-sister fuckery. And At This Point In Time, you can’t really change any of the First Men into PoC either. So that means extinct houses (like the Cargylls) and non noble characters.

But the great thing about GRRM, ASOIAF, and this world as a whole is that George is not interested in telling a story from the perspective of “insiders” but “outsiders” - the bastards, cripples, and broken things. There are a lot of these types of characters in this story and if they had race bent them, and actually thought about the effects of that, even on a subtextual level, they might have been able to tell the rich story they wanted. Instead, they just went for what’s coolest.