#latin community representation

[shitdoodler]

Nyaaaa, Konichiwa everynyan /(・⁠∀⁠・⁠)/, watshi enjoy this so much (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠), the result is so desu kawaii ♪⁠～⁠(⁠´⁠ε⁠｀⁠ ⁠), I hope u enjoy it Nyan rawr (⁠=⁠^⁠･⁠ｪ⁠･⁠^⁠=⁠)

[booklovingturtle]

Why JRH & LMM matter so much to me...

TLDR: I'm a Hispanic-American woman raised by a Central American father who loved musicals before he could even speak English to understand them.

I love seeing other Hispanic men embracing this form of expression and engaging in the community to show that loving musicals doesn't make you "white" or "gay".

If you want a more in-depth explanation of what JRM and LMM mean to me and my family, please read below.

I'm a Hispanic-American woman who was raised in a predominantly white area. My entire life I've been made fun of by my cousins and the friends for loving musicals so much.

You see, my dad's never been a traditional machista Central American man. Back in his country, he remembers watching Grease on a friend's TV (they were too poor to own one in his house), and he loved it, despite not speaking English. He loved the music and dancing. 

Then he came to America in the 80s. Dirty Dancing and Footloose were released. By that point, he understood more English. He watched and loved both. When I was born, I grew up watching these as my dad's favorite movies. Since I was an infant, musicals have been a part of my life. My dad couldn’t afford Broadway or anything like that so he wasn't a fan of musical theater in that sense. But he was a huge fan of movie musicals so we watched pretty much all of them as kids. 

With things like Disney Channel and (later on) YouTube slime tutorials, I was exposed to more musical theater. I showed my dad so many videos about all of the shows I thought he would enjoy the most. He even took my siblings and I to Broadway multiple times now that we’re older and can afford that kind of stuff. He sat in the Circle in the Square and Walter Kerr Theatre in tears when we saw Once on This Island and Hadestown, respectively. Now he’s a fan of more traditional musicals thanks to the internet making it more accessible. Which is great! However, despite its accessibility improving…it’s still not common to see Hispanic men engaging with musicals.

Musical theater is objectively a white industry. The more I got into it, the more my friends and family would make fun of me. I never really cared or was even offended by it. I grew up hearing my cousins and uncles call my dad "gay" for liking those kinds of movies. He always went along with their jokes and never seemed bothered by it. As I got older and realized how problematic their statements were, it started to bother me more. 

Because my dad likes musicals, he has other be gay?

Because I like musicals, I have to be white?

How does that make sense? There's something wrong or othering about him because he's into musicals so he can't be a "normal" man therefore he has to be gay?????  I'm a woman so it's okay for me to like musicals but, actually...no because I'm a brown woman I can't????

Absolutely idiotic and bigoted.

Like I said, it used to never bother me because it never seemed to bother my dad. Even now, it's almost 2025 and he still says he doesn't care because he likes what he likes, no matter what people say. Which I love to hear and see. But at the same time, it bothers me greatly  that this has been a topic of discussion in my community for years.

Now it just makes me so happy to see other Hispanic men in musical theater making a space for themselves. 

It's my hope that as musical theater becomes a more diverse industry, my community will be able to unlearn the stereotypes we've absorbed and regurgitated for decades.

[transpapi10]

About The Author

Hi there, I previously made the decision to utilize my tumblr profile to record my experiences as a latinx trans man. When I first started my transition it was hard for me to find someone who had a similar lived experience as me. My goal is to be that for the next generations and even some of my peers. So let's begin with getting to know me a bit.

My name is Gabriel, I'm 29, FtM, Puerto Rican, and living in Colorado. I've been here for about a 1 1/2 years. I moved here after breaking up with my gf of 5 1/2 years. Before this I lived in Downtown Los Angeles. Moving was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.

I started my transition after I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy. I served 3 years and then succumbed to my depression. I started exploring who I was outside of the military and what I wanted to do with my future. I was 21 and newly civilian. I had so many options and am fortunate to have been afforded them.

Through research and therapy and reflection I found that I best aligned with the identity of Transgender Man (Female-to-Male).I had my first T dose in December of 2017 in Florida at the Miami VA. I was living with my gf for a little under a month at that point. Followed her to California, and we lived there until our breakup.

Through all that change and growth, I explred and tried to understand my sexuality. I went from straight to bisexual, until I finally landed on pansexual. I'll explain that in a whole separate post. For now I will say that exploring isn't a bad thing, we never stop learning about ourselves and the world around us.

I've been on hormones for almost 7 years, I've had top surgery and a hysterectomy. I am now waiting for a consult appointment to get started on my phalloplasty journey. My path for my transition is my own. Do not compare yourself to harshly against others in the community. I'm guilty of doing it and I will say that it wasn't for me. Some guys get inspiration, and I got there eventually, but at first I was extremely envious of them.

Tailor your transition to what your overall goals are. Think long and hard about what kind of future you want. Want kind of person do you want to be?

--Gabriel

Anything said on this profile is purely my own lived experiences. I do not and will not speak for the entire community or anyone else other than myself.

[honeyedfem]

Knowing a pinch of Japanese makes things so fun actually

[metamatar]

let me be clear. i have a lot of fondness for the notion of drawing solidarity between brutalized people from across the world and im not a third worldist. it is seductive. but im genuinely sick of anti imperialists from the third world being characterised as people too stupid to know there is poverty and racism in the united states.

im responding to this being linked on my dash

But being that the ghetto is placeless, like Black people, the Fourth World is the only nominal representation these societies can have; third-worldists often times hold indirect and sometimes unspoken disdain for these Fourth World societies . Having never visited, they often times believing everyone has running water, a doctor, and a home — completely ignoring the police state that arrests and murders many urban Black people who dare to find themselves past the red line and in a green, grassy neighbourhood in Riverdale, or walking through the mansion-zoos in the corners of Newburgh.

cultural hegemony means we see all your media. the imperialised always understand their masters! even our bourgeoisie want to immigrate to the first world! said ghetto music is on our speakers! they speak of ferguson in palestine!!! how much contempt do you have for us?

but the worst thing is their are brutalized populations in the third world! their is unimaginable inequality! communities are subject to pogroms and police violence even in the uniform imagined poverty of the third world. while fourth world theorists talk like this – they also erase what arundhati roy talks about when she talks about bastar and kashmir. the fourth world inside the third world. the fourth world in that sense is occupied and it is entirely forgotten by the world at large – no, what matters is urban poverty in los angeles alone.

i also dont think characterising the fourth world like below helps

Subpopulations existing in a First World country, but with the living standards of those in a third world, or developing country.

because it concedes entirely the logics of imperialism, where what matters is the acquiring the living standards, not transforming the relations of power. which makes for allies and programs you cannot trust – happy to brutalise latin america for the next new deal if it was just distributed better. there is no analysis of the productive relations or value transfer. no concern for the costs of "living standards."

[txttletale]

niceys positive anon!! i don't agree with you on everything but you are so clearly like well read and well rounded that you've helped me think through a lot of my own inconsistencies and hypocrises in my own political and social thought, even if i do have slightly different conclusions at times then u (mainly because i believe there's more of a place for idealism and 'mind politics' than u do). anyway this is a preamble to ask if you have recommended reading in the past and if not if you had any recommended reading? there's some obvious like Read Marx but beyond that im always a little lost wading through theory and given you seem well read and i always admire your takes, i wondered about your recs

it's been a while since i've done a big reading list post so--bearing in mind that my specific areas of 'expertise' (i say that in huge quotation marks obvsies i'm just a girlblogger) are imperialism and media studies, here are some books and essays/pamphlets i recommend. the bolded ones are ones that i consider foundational to my politics

BASICS OF MARXISM

friedrich engels, principles of commmunism

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific

karl marx, the german ideology

karl marx, wage labour & capital

mao zedong, on contradiction

nikolai bukharin, anarchy and scientific communism

rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?

v.i lenin, left-wing communism: an infantile disorder

v.i. lenin, the state & revolution

v.i. lenin, what is to be done?

IMPERIALISM

aijaz ahmed, iraq, afghanistan, and the imperialism of our time

albert memmi, the colonizer and the colonized

che guevara, on socialism and internationalism (ed. aijaz ahmad)

eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america

edward said, orientalism

fernando cardoso, dependency and development in latin america

frantz fanon, black skin, white masks

frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth

greg grandin, empire's workshop

kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism

michael parenti, against empire

naomi klein, the shock doctrine

ruy mauro marini, the dialectics of dependency

v.i. lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism

vijay prashad, red star over the third world

vincent bevins, the jakarta method

walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa

william blum, killing hope

zak cope, divided world divided class

zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations

MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES

antonio gramsci, the prison notebooks

ed. mick gidley, representing others: white views of indigenous peoples

ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices

gilles deleuze & felix guattari, capitalism & schizophrenia

jacques derrida, margins of philosophy

jacques derrida, speech and phenomena

michael parenti, inventing reality

michel foucault, disicipline and punish

michel foucault, the archeology of knowledge

natasha schull, addiction by design

nick snricek, platform capitalism

noam chomsky and edward herman, manufacturing consent

regis tove stella, imagining the other

richard sennett and jonathan cobb, the hidden injuries of class

safiya umoja noble, algoriths of oppression

stuart hall, cultural studies 1983: a theoretical history

theodor adorno and max horkheimer, the culture industry

walter benjamin, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

OTHER

angela davis, women, race, and class

anna louise strong, cash and violence in laos and vietnam

anna louise strong, the soviets expected it

anna louise strong, when serfs stood up in tibet

carrie hamilton, sexual revolutions in cuba

chris chitty, sexual hegemony

christian fuchs, theorizing and analysing digital labor

eds. jules joanne gleeson and elle o'rourke, transgender marxism

elaine scarry, the body in pain

jules joanne gleeson, this infamous proposal

michael parenti, blackshirts & reds

paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed

peter drucker, warped: gay normality and queer anticapitalism

rosemary hennessy, profit and pleasure

sophie lewis, abolish the family

suzy kim, everyday life in the north korean revolution

walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world

[squash1]

something i’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the way that language in the dreamer trilogy & the raven cycle is a barrier to forming connection/community.

in the raven cycle we see a distinct lack of specific terms used between ronan and kavinsky. the word “dreamer” is not even used directly — instead the two of them talk conceptually about the dreaming process, about their respective “special places” (ronan’s being cabeswater), and how the dreaming “juice” runs out (but again, the terms “ley line” or “energy” are not used). there is a clear recognition of “sameness” or shared experiences between the boys, with kavinsky specifically saying he “knows what ronan is” (tho whether he’s referring to dreaming or ronan’s sexuality is up for debate i suppose).

this is really the first time ronan is connecting with a dreamer outside of his family. and his family, of course, has their own terms and language for dreaming. there is a barrier in the discussions ronan and kavinsky are having because of a lack of shared language. so much of what they experience as dreamers is isolated in the individual, so they are forced to talk around concepts because they don’t have universal terminology to fall back on.

i’ve talked extensively about how dreaming is a representation of chronic illness in the dreamer trilogy so i won’t go too far down that rabbit hole. But. something that is talked about within the disability/chronic illness community (and beyond) is the way that individuals can struggle to connect with people that have the same condition/similar experiences as them because of a lack of shared terminology to discuss abstract or hyper-specific concepts/feelings.

we see this in the raven cycle with kavinsky and ronan, and then we start to see it even more in the dreamer trilogy as ronan continues to find belonging and community with other dreamers. ronan and hennessy’s friendship requires them to bridge the language gap. though they both live as dreamers, because of their different experiences throughout their lives, they use different terminology to make meaning of their situation.

in knowing to one another, ronan and hennessy are exposing each other to new, shareable language. ronan shares his term for “nightwash,” and hennessy shares her term for “the lace.” both of them adapt to using this new language for a shared conceptual experience and in doing so are able to connect more fully with one another. in the raven king, i believe it is quite possible that ronan and adam had encountered the lace — a dark entity that whispered their worst fears to them — but did not have the term yet to describe it. obviously, terminology does not outweigh experience, but it is an important element of forming community through shared experience.

there’s also the way that the moderators use the term “zed” instead of “dreamer” — at first it is unclear what zeds even are because as the reader we have only ever had the language provided by ronan. in this experience of coming to realize that “zeds” are equivalent to “dreamers,” we as the reader experience the same sort of dissonance that dreamers themselves experience when trying to connect with one another without universal/shared language.

for ronan specifically, in both trc and tdt, there’s always an element of translation. in the dreaming world, his dreams speak in either latin or a dream language that doesn’t exist in the waking world. in his dreams ronan understands the dream language, but outside of them he can’t. ronan working so hard to learn latin is intentional — by understanding it in and outside of his dreams, he can bridge a language gap for himself; can understand his waking world AND his dreaming world at once. he studies it like his life depends on it because. it. does. the puzzle box is also helpful to ronan because it makes something that is unreal in the waking world, real — it is confirmation of the validity of that language. whether you’re thinking of dreaming as a metaphor for chronic illness, mental illness, or some other identity, the point is about the feeling of otherness, of inability. ronan only feels strange & lost & like he doesn’t know what the hell he is outside of his dreams where no one else understands his language. where he is confronted by being unable to speak to what he lives in his head.

in conclusion:

ronan lynch i love you.

[yrsonpurpose]

just when you think you can't love tzp anymore he casually drops in poc and queer stats in interviews, says he's starting a production company to ensure more latin representation in media, talks highly about the queer community and makes cute little jokes with interviewers

[citrusbugz]

Idk how to say this without sounding weird and seeming like I'm defending whitewashing bc there's people speaking up about it in the dndads fandom again (100% a problem, their concerns are very real) but heyyy, Latino does not come with predisposed physical attributes, because it's not simply a race thing?

Like, I get it, I don't dig white ass straight hair Garcias or Swallows as much as the next guy, it's lacking and I don't think it lines up with their characters, but pleeeease don't come here and act like white latinos don't not exist or are a bad thing?? Latin America was touched by the hands of white European colonialism and settlelers all over. The white people didn't boil into thin air, their generations went to also become Latinos and got integrated in the community.

It's just... Weird. It's weird to pretend they just don't exist or are an invalid form of representation of Latinos. NOW, if we want to talk about some of the white beauty Standarts held in the Latino community, sexualixation and demonification of the poc and how some people do use escape goat of white latinos to get away with whitewashing even the culture of the characters? That's a different, nuanced conversation that's worth having.

Just, remember that "Latino" is too vague of a discriptor to assume someone's race, it just means from Latin America, which is half of the entire continent of America with a ton of countries with different backgrounds. Saying a character is Latino or Hispanic doesn't really mean shit for physical description. I'm sorry.

But, with that, it's also ammo that you have a very big range of ways a character can look and still totally be Latino since it's very broad.

Take this all as a /nm vaguely informational post. Seeing plp use the word Latino like that gives me the ick because it's really meaningless. Idk, be more indeph or speculative if anything (like, Mercedes is probably Ecuadorian considering she has family there). I'll go back to being funny and doing art now, my bad for entering this discussion.

[kookies2000]

Because I feel like it.

Yellow sky? Bare footed characters? Mostly a mess? Over exaggerating some of the Hispanic features. I saw the first episode, and it was just poorly written in general. And what mother calls their son "cochinada." Roughly translates to dirty or trash.

What's good Latino/Hispanic representation?

Colombian 🇨🇴

In the Caribbean region of Colombia, they light up candles and lanterns on December 8, before sunrise. So the candle giving them magic was a wonderful detail. Generational trauma is a thing for us Latinos, and this film handled it in a healthy and matuer manner. And I love how they didn't shy away with how Spaniards attacked and colonized latin lands.

Mexicans 🇲🇽

Yes, us Mexicans love death. 🤣 But hey, I was always taught to respect death, La Muerte, and our ancestors. So, it makes sense that many Mexican films talk about death. But I also like that Maya and the Three have Aztec, Mayan, and Incan mythology. Natives to Mexico.

Dominican Puerto Rican 🇩🇴🇵🇷

Luz mom is Dominican, and Luz dad is Puerto Rican. I appreciate a good interracial couple and a mixed child. Luz name also translates to light, and some Latinos are known for doing witch craft. Or at least knowledgeable about witches and demons, and no, we aren't evil. We just know how to handle this stuff. Plus, the owl has many meanings in Latino culture. To some, I believe the owl is a messenger of death and is telling everyone that death/danger is near.

Afro Latino. Puerto Rican 🇵🇷

I am a massive sucker for interracial couples and mixed kids because of this. I was working at a hispanic store as a cashier. This woman walks past me and starts talking to the bagger. The bagger has blond hair, blue eyes, and white skin. The bagger looks at me worried because she doesn't speak English. So brown skin, black hair, me has to tell the bagger that the lady wanted ice in Spanish. I then talked to the lady in English. Her reaction? "YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!" Same for a dark skinned man. So many people skip me and talk to him in English. He's Dominican, and he only spoke Spanish. I appreciate films that show Latinos in different skin types and features. We're not all brown. So yeah, the mass diversity in this film is just beautiful. And I love how they wrote Miles relationship with his parents. Realistic conflict and healthy communication. Not falling into toxic stereotypes.

Spainard Puss 🇪🇸 Mexican Kitty & Perrito 🇲🇽

Spaniards are considered Hispanic but not Latinos like Mexicans. And again, interracial couples for the win. And I love the realism in their romance that heals through healthy therapy. Many people see Mexicans as toxic, so having Perrito as a therapist and the one helping everyone emotionally, it's nice. Not every Mexican is toxic. And I love how you can tell their Spanish and Mexican even though their animals. Puss Spanish accent, Spanish actor, him being a ginger like some Spaniards, flamingo dancing, and gazpacho. Kitty, Mexican accent, Mexican actress, black fur/hair like most Mexicans, quinceañera, and I love how they gave her a luchador mask. Something that originates from Mexico. Also, my brother and I joke how we as Mexiacns can't swim and Kitty nearky drowns in the 1st film. 🤣 Perrito, he's a chihuahua with a Mexican actor. Enough said. I also want to say death is Brazilian because of his actor.

I don't know much about Spanish culture, but someone said the wishing star has a connection to Spanish culture. Is that true? If so, COOL! Because death is connected to Mexican culture. So, Dreamworks finding a way to combine Spanish and Mexican culture in one film is 100% magical.

There are many more, like Beverly Hills Chihuahua 🇲🇽. 🤣 That film is better than Primos. Emperor's New Groove, Peru 🇵🇪, and Rio, Brazil 🇧🇷. Not Hispanic but Latino culture. But this post is getting long. Primos! A huge step down in Latino/Hispanic representation. Especially since we have so many good films and shows that have proper representation.

[qcellbit]

meta talk. i don't quite know how to word this properly, but adding french creators to the qsmp is the riskiest thing quackity studios could've done and it doesn't surprise me that the success to which it was executed was minimal.

adding portuguese speaking creators exclusively from brazil as the first batch outside of the initial english and spanish speakers was the perfect "soft expansion" for the server when you consider the reason for the project's conception - because quackity had experienced poor treatment from white americans as a bilingual latino creator and sought to unite his two communities in an empowering way, further expanding this very noble and personal idea to encapsulate all communities and all languages spanning across the entire world. inviting more latino creators who have likely had the same experiences and would be able to appreciate what the project is trying to achieve is a no-brainer.

it's an uncomfortable thing to touch on (which is why i've never, ever, seen it spoken about on this website), but minecraft projects and communities have always had massive problems with all forms of bigotry, but especially racism. white americans and white europeans have probably not felt the euphoria of seeing their culture celebrated in mainstream global entertainment projects as they already absolutely dominate the entertainment industry on a global scale. as someone who is visibly brown and living in europe, i've always got a lot of grief from classmates and co-workers in the form of ignorant jokes and flat out exclusion - it's an unfortunate cultural norm that bleeds into streaming due to the medium's casual and open nature, unnoticed or unchallenged by white viewers who don't want to have to confront a content creator's bigotry in fears of having to stop watching them. something that cannot be ignored by the people it's actually affecting. there is a reason dsmp and hermitcraft cosplay meet ups are dominated by pale skin.

i love the qsmp because its inclusion of latin american creators and quackity's selectiveness based on personal experience have largely (and i do mean largely, not entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) eliminated that problem.

the most prominent and succinct example i can think of is the photo of quackity's bedroom that was mocked countless times by his english speaking community and his bigoted english speaking friends when he streamed on the dsmp - when that photo was brought to the qsmp, forever, a fellow latino creator, was the first person to gently offer solidarity because he had come from the same impoverished latin american background. to me, and to a lot of minorities, that is what the qsmp is about. yeah, sharing languages in a minecraft server is novel, it's a fun way for americans who did poorly in high school to get back into learning spanish, but it stands for so much more when you're a racial minority. when your pleading in the dsmp fandom was drowned out and ignored for the entire duration of its run. when you're completely unrepresented in minecraft tournaments, and when known bigots are encouraged to participate in said tournaments to boost viewership because numbers are paramount. when you are finally seeing your culture appreciated rather than mocked on streams with tens of thousands of viewers all over the world as part of a massive project with a brilliant, engaging story.

it was obviously necessary to branch out of the americas at some point with what the project is attempting to achieve, but such a task is daunting when the next group you're inviting and their community probably do not have the capacity through personal experience to appreciate what the project stands for at its core in the same way the first batches do. can non americans all relate in discussions of the internet and entertainment industry being america and by extension english speaking centric? yeah, of course. but can white europeans relate when the only representation you have in said media revolves around harmful bigoted stereotypes? can there be a quiet solidarity between a white frenchman and a brown brazilian based on experiences with government, racial profiling, and online mockery? no. and in the landscape of livestreaming stupid jokes for entertainment alongside fast paced gameplay, these nuances are probably not going to be acknowledged.

in complete contrast to the solidarity exhibited between quackity and forever when discussing their poverty growing up in latin america, i have not forgotten and never will forget aypierre excusing his constant racist jokes aimed at the brazilians on his uniquely "french dark humour" that the brazilians, hurt by his comments, could "not understand." this is not an excusable cultural difference, but a symptom of white european privilege, and total ignorance towards what the project is meant to stand for. a smooth integration of all the world's cultures necessitates white european and white american introspection in a way that i haven't seen a lot of streamers capable of. admitting fault to such a degree and the ego of a large online personality do not often mesh well.

i'm always very irritated when people (especially english speakers) complain about them not "adding the germans" sooner despite us seeing applications for german speaking admins many months ago - because it would not be a task of simply throwing out server invites to content creators and cobbling together an animation of a submarine crashing into the island. you cannot downplay the ambition of this project and the mammoth task its trying to accomplish. people take for granted and forget that this is an unprecedented melding of cultures that would never otherwise interact and clash on the rare occasions they do. the french qsmp community being small and the french creators largely being outliers when it comes to the qsmp is not something born out of malice or purposeful exclusion, but simply a symptom of an unspoken lack of solidarity and inability to meaningfully relate based on everything from wildly varying privilege to global placement.

and don't get me wrong - i'm not excusing things like the times at which events are broadcast (i literally live in europe and have to stay up until sunrise to see most events, i think the admins do have to bite the bullet and begin structuring events around a new timezone that isn't the globally inconvenient unsustainable PST), or the exclusion of clips from french content creators at the presidential dinner, but i think attributing those admin choices to the brazilian community being unfairly favoured is downplaying what the qsmp as a project means for minorities, especially when the brazilian community receive the most scorn for infamously being the first to call out bigoted behaviour from qsmp content creators. yeah, it sucks that the french haven't slotted into the qsmp as well as the brazilians and aren't anywhere as numerous, but with all these unspoken contributing factors being taken into account, i can't be surprised.

i wish quackity and his team the best in smoothly integrating more languages and cultures in this amazing project in the future, but for the love of god please understand that the implications of this project and its impact are far larger than any streamer "drama" you might've witnessed in the past. and stop underplaying what this project is trying to achieve in an online landscape saturated in bigotry.

[dionysus-complex]

you mentioned you specialize in roman violence. can you rec any good works on the subject, especially during the late antique period? how much (or little) time/writing did latin authors spend on the question of the necessity/morality/glory of violence, especially when bound up with empire and borders? did rhetoric around domestic violence evolve?

It's obviously a massive topic, so it's difficult to know where to begin! For looking at violence in Late Antiquity, I highly recommend the work of Maijastina Kahlos as a starting point - most of her scholarship deals with tensions between religious communities in the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, and I've found it extremely clear and illuminating. For Late Antique slavery, I'd look at Jennifer Trimble's work, especially "The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery" (2016, JSTOR link here). On the intersections of violence and the legal system, I'd recommend Sarah Bond's 2014 article "Altering Infamy: Status, Violence, and Civic Exclusion in Late Antiquity" (JSTOR link here) as well as Julia Hillner's 2015 book Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity. Amy Richlin is essential reading on Roman violence in general, and I'd highly highly recommend her piece "Cicero's Head" in Constructions of the Classical Body (ed. James Porter, 1999) if you have access to an academic library and can get a hold of it; it's explicitly framed as a Jewish, post-Holocaust reflection on the violence of the Roman proscriptions and civil wars and has been profoundly influential on my own thinking.

In general, Imperial-era Latin authors spend a lot of time thinking about the necessity/morality/glory of violence, to the point that I'd say violence is the key theme in Imperial Latin literature. It's often bound up with Stoic philosophy (in the 1st-2nd c. CE; Seneca's De Ira is a key text - you might take a look at sections 3.18-19 on torture under Caligula), and given the bias of our sources which skew toward the elite/senatorial-class perspective, it can be harder to track down texts that explicitly make the link between violence and Roman imperium. One famous example is the speech of Calgacus in Tacitus' Agricola 29-32 (link to a translation here), which purports to be the speech of a Celtic general in Britain rousing his troops to battle against the Romans in the 80s CE. Given that speeches in Roman historiography are generally regarded as being compositions by the historian, it's important to ask why exactly Tacitus of all people gives a prominent place to a scathing critique of Roman imperium - there are lots of ideas on this and few definitive answers, but it's a startling passage to say the least.

Imperial Latin epic poetry (e.g. Lucan's Bellum Civile; Statius' Thebaid) is well known for being graphically violent in the extreme (as in brutal torture, dismemberment, and one infamous instance of brain-eating in Thebaid 8), and there's a lot of work on how and why violence becomes highly aestheticized for Imperial Latin poets. There's also the genre of Roman declamation (difficult to explain, but essentially something like mock trial cases that were used for rhetorical education and showmanship), which frequently explores extremely violent scenarios involving torture, kin-killing, etc. Most scholars these days tend to read declamation as a space where (elite, male) Romans worked out and interrogated various cultural anxieties and taboos. Because of this, you get some of the strongest condemnations of violence found anywhere in Latin literature in the declamatory corpus, but it's difficult to extrapolate from that because again it's something like mock trial and rhetorical showmanship that does not necessarily map on to real-life Roman attitudes.

I've barely scratched the surface and there's a lot more I could say but I'll cut myself off here - I might be able to offer more specific recs if you're interested in e.g. violence as spectacle, aesthetics and artistic representations of violence, etc.

[sweetiebriar]

I really shouldn’t get involved in this debate because, first, it's utterly absurd and immature, and second, it will likely earn me a few enemies and drag me into conflicts, which I despise more than anything… Yet, I can’t stay silent. My anger is boiling over because creators and writers like myself are being bullied by so-called fans with narrow-minded perspectives, forcing us to bow down to politically correct foolishness just to be able to continue our work in peace.

¡Swearwords Alert!

What the fucking, shitty, bloody heck is wrong with these people?! This is a work of fiction—a story set in a fantasy, medieval Slavic world. The rules of the modern, real world do not apply here. Why on earth is representation being demanded in a context where it makes no sense?

¡Swearwords Alert End!

For those who’ve wisely avoided this whole debacle—and I congratulate you, keep doing so in the future if possible, let me fill you in: our dear RC team, along with the author of "The Thunderstorm Saga," Alexander D., were recently pressured (and in some cases harassed) into changing the main character sprites, which originally consisted of various elven races—forest, moon, and dark elves—into human representations (Asian, Caucasian, African, Latin, etc.).

AS: I didn’t get involved in the uproar about Volot’s skin tone in "And The Haze Will Take Us" being a player choice, because frankly, it was ridiculous for a portion of the community to react negatively, as if RC’s decision was some kind of racist move. Let me remind you, we’ve had this kind of choice before, like in "Vying For Versailles" with King Louis, and no one complained. Also, if you weren’t aware, book covers are often altered in their Russian versions. A main character who is Black or Brown in the American/European editions is frequently depicted as white in the Russian versions, except in rare cases where the character’s ethnicity is central to the story, like in "Garden of Eden" or the "Kalis". This change is due to the narrow-mindedness of the Russian community, and RC makes these changes to avoid backlash from its largest player base. Perhaps the decision to change Volot's skin was made with the Russian market in mind, and they decided to keep it consistent for all players. But frankly, I don’t care, and I don’t want to know.

Now, back to the main issue:

I’ve been a writer for most of my life, and I cannot stress this enough: a writer’s vision is theirs and theirs alone. While we might choose to revise certain aspects of our stories or find new ways to tell them, the opinions of readers and fans should never dictate those decisions. We are the creators of the content you enjoy. You read our work because you appreciate our vision. If we start crafting stories the way you want, it ceases to be our vision, and the magic is lost. Instead of venturing into the unknown, the story becomes a mundane reflection of everyday life. People read books to escape reality, not to mirror it.

Frankly, I find the elven races in this story quite representative, if you ask me—certainly more so than in LOTR (And remember the backlash about the Black dwarf queen? How ironic…).

- Forest Elves One have very fair skin, which can be linked to Caucasians. The Forest Elves Two can be more compared to Mediterranean people.

- Moon Elves One & Two, with their warm, brownish skin, can be connected to Hispanic or Latin people.

- Dark Elves, as you might expect, are associated with people of African descent, with group One being darker than group Two.

Sure, not every community is represented here—where are the Asians, the Eastern Europeans, the Arabs, Indians, and Indigenous peoples? There are more than just three skin tones, after all.

But this debate is utterly ridiculous. This is a work of fiction set in a fantasy realm. These characters are elves, not humans, and they don’t need to represent human diversity. The vast majority of players enjoyed the story as it was, and do you know why? Because they chose their main character based on who they found most appealing, not because the character resembled them. Contrary to what some believe, representation isn’t always necessary in fiction. Yes, there were fewer Black and brown-skinned characters in the past due to racism and segregation, but today, in a diverse and cosmopolitan world, young writers incorporate their modern perspectives into their work, and people generally don’t complain about representation anymore. So stop making a fuss over something that was never an issue to begin with. Let writers do their work. Criticising elves for not being "human enough" is not constructive; it’s just nonsense. And if you want to argue with me over this, don’t bother. I refuse to debate anyone over a fictional world, and especially over a game.

[transpapi10]

My Trans Guy Experience

As a trans guy coming to terms with his identity in my early 20s, I struggled to find accurate representation. I'm Puerto Rican, a millennial, a Navy Veteran, from a religious family, and raised in Florida.

Finding someone that even reflected an iota of who I am was extremely difficult. So, I went and found any info I could and took note of how or how not it applied to me.

My goal with this "blog" or "online journal" is to be the representation I wish I had. I'm not an influencer by any means. I'm just a guy who works a normal 9-5 and takes life a day at a time. And I just want to help other guys like me. I'm thinking at least one post a day. And if I have the capacity maybe more. Who knows, maybe you'll like what I have to say.

With that said, please reblog, comment, love, share, etc. I want all the feedback I can get. Let me know what questions you have or topics you wish were talked about more. Tell me your stories out loud or privately. I'm happy to help in any way I can.

--Gabriel

*Anything said on this profile is purely my own lived experiences. I do not and will not speak for the entire community or anyone else other than myself.*

[lasapoperro]

discrimination

me van a funar por esto.

(since I only know how to read English well and barely know how to write it, much of this will involve a translator)

Since ATSV came out, my fanaticism towards Miles Morales returned, which led me to read content related to this character from both universe 42 and 1610. There are many fanfics about him. But now, here is my complaint. In many of these fanfics, the writers have chosen to portray the reader as someone of African-American ethnicity, which is fine. These fanfics are still enjoyable and serve as a representation of this community. Writers have every right to choose the reader's ethnicity according to their comfort. However, lately it seems that this choice has become a requirement. It is stated that Miles looks better with someone of African-American ethnicity rather than someone of "white ass." insisting that characters of dark ethnicity can only be with people of the same ethnicity.

A common device in these fanfics is that Miles Morales from the 1610 universe cheats on the reader with Gwen Stacy. What about Margo, though? Even though she has shown chemistry with Miles, Margo is rarely (if ever, in my case) used in these stories. Isn't it strange that the African American reader always gets fooled by a white girl? This phenomenon makes me feel that we are facing discrimination. It seems like some writers believe that an African American character can only be with another African American. I remember seeing a comment from an anonymous person that said "I'm sick of seeing black people and curls", and the response was: "No, not White ass." This reaction baffled me. I want to believe that the writer responded that way because of a poorly formulated expression from the anonymous person, but the response, even with a touch of humor, reinforced the idea that writing white readers is not welcome.

I'm not sure if this has to do with cultural differences between the United States and that I am from Latin America and therefore I see these discriminatory fanfics. I also don't understand why this is more frequent in Miles Morales fanfics from universe 42 than in those from 1610. However, I want to focus on one fact: mentioning ethnicity or not does not change the essence of the story, unless it is specifically to fight racism. Reaching a point where white ethnicity is denied is discrimination pure and simple.

Since I left my complaint/opinion, I'm going to continue reading

[blindmagdalena]

Although he's not truly a Nazi the way Stormfront was, we do see many times throughout the show that Homelander is a bit of racist, especially towards Hispanics. I mean, he doesn't like it when he hears Ryan speaking Spanish, and all his interactions with Supersonic were so, uh, uncomfy, to say the least.

HOWEVER, Homelander is willing to overlook anything when he gets emotionally involved with someone. Like how he's always rambling on about supes being the superior race while at the same time lowkey worshipping Madelyn.

How do you think he will react to dating a Latina? I can see him being a major asshole at the beginning, complaining about her putting on Latin music while in the penthouse, and cooking "weird food". But slowly and almost unwillingly he gets dragged into the culture.

Like, her brothers and cousins adopt him and suddenly he's the guy who goes to parrillada every Sunday to hang out with his amigos, playing domino and watching freaking soccer. They nickname him "El Casas" and teach him how to speak Spanish but the type that's only spoken deep in the guetto and has grandmothers clutching their pearls.

He starts watching Soap Operas with his girlfriend ironically but then gets weirdly into them to the point that he's crying his eyes out every other episode. He also starts calling her mami/mamita and his mommy kink gets like ten times worse. Which is fine by her because she's been calling him papi rey (king daddy) in her mind since the moment she laid eyes on him.

Once they finally go public, Homelander is all but embraced by the Latino community and it makes his ratings go through the roof because America's Dad speaking perfect Spanish and dancing Salsa in his girlfriend's livestreams is the best representation they've ever gotten. His fanbase drastically changes ofc. Stormfront would be rolling on her grave, I just know it.

Forgive me if this is weird, I'm just a sad latina who's dying for representation in Homelander x reader stories.

GIRL YOU GOT ME INVESTED. i was pulling out the popcorn by the end of this!! tell me you’re gonna write this! it’s not weird at all, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to see yourself represented. i’ve had this conversation a couple of times, and i can guarantee you’re not alone in wanting this: there’s an audience waiting!

i always tag @irenadel in these (which I hope she isn’t tired of lol) because her fic Pygmalion is the only one that i know of so far that leans into this, so you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already. i happen to have insider info that she’s working on the next chapter 👀

really and truly though, it sounds to me like you have the makings of a killer fic lined up in your mind. you clearly have a solid understanding of Homelander’s psychology, too. i really think you could do something awesome with this! it’s important that people tell these stories, and i’m not always the right person to do that.

i would 100% read the heck out of this. 🖤