#they were like 'look we want to include diverse representation but...'

[intern-gershwin-palmer]

obsessed with the realisation that definitely genderqueer gayboy Hwei is not technically canonically queer, because he would be bad representation as a toxic little twink, which is absolutely delightful because to me that just confirms that he and Jhin are both queer and toxic, which was really never in question but still, love that for them, love those messy bitches, the bad rep we deserve

[drdemonprince]

Is there a polar opposite of transphobia?

Like I’m a newly transitioned trans man and suddenly everyone wants a piece of me. In a weird way. Like people have started asking me to join committees and talk to youth groups and shit so they have their “representation”. I’m now the token trans person. I live in a small lefty town. People either want to ask me allllll the questions or they are too scared to even talk to me in case they offend me. Suddenly everyone wants to be my friend. I feel like I’ve joined a club I did not agree to sign up to. Like is this normal? Is there a term for it? I have a lot of gay male friends who are awesome, no other trans people local. I’ve started connecting with people online.

I mean some people have been cunts for sure. But mostly it’s nauseating fawning. I know this is a stupid thing to be complaining about but I guess I’m curious.

I’m not that special, I’m actually just an angry little man.

My brother dear, what you are experiencing is a very common combination of the growing visibility & tokenization of being a newly out marginalized person, and the massive increased authority, social trust, social value that comes with being a man.

Welcome to male privilege baby, to put a spin on a far more undermining phrase that typically gets hurled at trans femmes. You will be considered a trustworthy authority on trans issues, a valuable contributor to panels and workshops, a needed (but also highly convenient to access) form of "diversity" for a workplace, a welcome attendee at all manner of events, and you'll be deferred to over women, especially trans women, for pretty much the entire rest of your life, if you continue to remain out about the trans side of things.

Guys like us are invited, centered, included, listened to, treated with respect, treated with WARMTH, viewed as intelligent, perceptive, sensitive, safe, trustworthy, reliable, and desirable to include. In the eyes of the cis public, we are a "safe" kind of trans person who does not make people uncomfortable to look at and who doesn't challenge their pre-existing understanding of gender hierarchy; when they listen to us, they get to trust in the certainty of a MAN giving them information, but they can also feel comfortable and safe around us as a kind of enlightened, sensitive nonthreatening figure.

We're men who can can explain sexism right back to women. We're trans people who went from being subjugated as women to being rewarded with privilege as dudes. In this way, trans men being positioned as an authority figure reinforces the existing gender hierarchy, which feels soothing and right to people's brains.

You will have to be conscious of this power differential for the rest of your life, around cis and trans women alike, because otherwise it plays out in a pretty traditionally sexist fashion: people (especially women) will go quiet when you start speaking, you will be given credit for ideas that were a collective effort, your emotions will be more likely to be taken seriously and seen as a sign of principle rather than weakness, and you will be regarded as special and memorable while dozens of other people and their concerns are passed over.

Another factor that is at play here is a phenomenon that is less specifically gendered, because it does happen to trans women too, and that's the phenomenon of cis groups making the newly-out trans person their token and educator, because typically it is the newly out person whom they have the most access to and power over.

The moment that a trans person transitions they immediately start getting singled out as an expert and resource on the trans experience, asked to lead workshops at their jobs and explain concepts to people and attend events and sit on panels. I think on some intuitive level cis people kinda *know* that the newly out are in a vulnerable, uncertain state and have fewer communities ties and less experience than more seasoned trans people do, and so they make the ideal "translator" of trans experiences to them as an audience.

In cis people's minds, you're not gonna push back, you're not going to complicate their narratives, you're not gonna be tired of answering offensive questions, and you will be freely available to them as a resource, because you've just come out. You'll put a friendly face on transition, one marked by newness and hope, rather than be jaded, complicated, or assertive at them. That's their expectation.

It makes no logical sense to make a newly out member of the community the arbiter of transness or the educator on the trans experience, but it DOES make sense that a powerful group would view such a disempowered and disconnected (relatively speaking) member of the trans community to be the most attractive to include.

Of course, this might not be true to who you actually are. But on a gut level, this is how the newly out trans person is typically seen: nonthreatening, moldable, convenient, so thankful to be included that they won't be angry. And you will be doubly rewarded for fulfilling that role if you are a man.

The only way to upend this narrative being forced onto you is for you to speak up, every single time you are invited to an event, and demand that just as many trans women be included in that event as trans men. Make sure to have a nice list of experienced, wise trans femme friends whom you can recommend as speakers and co-panelists in your pocket.

More often than not, you will be thanked by cis people and rewarded for having the brilliant idea of including women in a conversation about gender minority status. How the trans women in the equation get treated, well, you'll need to pay close attention to, and be ready to stand up and speak out the moment any passive aggressive exclusionary bio-essentialist fuckshit gets going. You can do it! And lots of times you ARE the person with the power to set things right. You're trans and you're being singled out, but you also are a man.

[maximumqueer]

Yamato, Transness, and "Passing"

Now that we're nearly a full arc removed from Wano and Yamato's introduction, I want to talk about the reaction that a subset of the one piece fandom had to his reveal as a trans man/transmasc person, the transphobia behind that reaction, and how the concept of passing plays into that reaction. I'm not going to be arguing that Yamato is a trans man, as I think it is very obvious that he is given how he is referred to in the canon text. This is instead going to be more of a fandom dissection of why (in my personal opinion) so many people refuse to acknowledge Yamato as a man.

When we are first introduced to Yamato, he is dressed in a way that gives him the appearance of a flat chest, and is wearing a mask to hide his face. He looks like a man in a cis-heteronormative way

When Yamato was depicted like this, he was (from what I can tell) mostly referred to with he/him pronouns by the fanbase. This is based on comments underneath his chapter debut and episode debut. There are comments under his episode debut that do use she/her pronouns and refer to him as a woman, but because these episodes have been out for a while, it would make sense that these kinds of comments would be left on his debut after his second design was revealed.

Then, when he removes his mask and outer layer of his outfit, he is depicted like this

After this reveal, more people began to refer to Yamato with she/her pronouns, and refer to him as Kaido's daughter, despite him referring to himself as Kaido's son, as well as the people around him using he/him pronouns exclusively for him. What changed? Well, Yamato went from having a design that looked traditionally masculine to having a more traditionally feminine one. As such people who associate only women with having breasts and more "feminine" features began to insist that Yamato was a tomboy, or a delusional woman, anything but accept that fact that he is a man.

There is a phenomena with trans "acceptance", where a character is accepted as trans only if they look like their gender according to the cis-heteronormative ideal, and questioned and denied if they don't. Kiku, a trans woman who "passes" as a woman did not receive nearly the same level of speculation and denial of her trans identity. (This is not to say that Kiku received no hate or transphobic comments, but that because she looks like a woman to the average cis-het viewer, she was treated as a "real" trans person, whereas Yamato was not).

Yamato has been repeatedly referred to as mentally ill for being a "non-passing" trans man. He has been called bad representation (despite large numbers trans men/transmasc people, myself included, saying that his IS good representation). People have made claims with no canon backing in an attempt to hand wave away his transness because he "looks like a woman", a popular one being that Kaido some how forced Yamato into being a man, despite his backstory telling us the exact opposite.

And the reasoning for all of this speculation is that trans people are held to such high standards in terms of appearance and presentation, even in fictional media. A trans man must have a flat chest, deep voice, facial hair etc. or he isn't actually trans. A trans woman must have breasts, a high voice, a lack of facial hair, etc. or she isn't actually trans. Non-binary people are dismissed entirely. This denies the many different and diverse ways that a person can be trans. Sure, some trans people wish to medically transition, get the "surgery" and go through life as if they were cis. But not all trans people want that. Gender is messy and complicated, its not nearly as black and white a we have been taught to believe. There are many trans people (both binary and non-binary) who will never medically transition. That does not make them less trans, it does not make them delusional. Yet because we have this black and white thinking ingrained in us from childhood, any deviation from the strict boxes of "man" and "woman" are immediately questioned, and that includes gender non-conforming people - both trans and cis.

This type of transphobia is not talked about enough, as the people doing it will so often hide behind the idea that they are protecting "real" trans people, and just want to make sure that they are respected and taken seriously. But, respect for a persons gender identity CANNOT be conditional. It does not matter if they "don't pass". It doesn't matter if they are a good person, a bad person. The second you start dictating who gets to have their gender respected is the second you stop being an ally. And that includes fictional characters like Yamato.

[gayaest]

Hey, so I mean this entirely in good faith and just want to see where you're coming from.

When you draw pictures of people (OC), why do you only list their name, age, disabilities, and race (and some other stuff sometimes)? not likes or interests or hobbies or a look into their life? Is there somewhere else for me to find out more?

Personally, I don't find those to be the most interesting things about a character or a person or an object or anything like that, and I don't typically base characters around it (not saying you do, just not sure why else they take precidence over other aspects of their character)

I love your art and hope youu have a nice day!

I’ll try to answer this in the best way possible, but my wording might be off because I am more ill than usual, so bare with me.

1. Experiences with creating Original Characters is not a monolith — what you like to do with characters may not be what another creator likes to do with them. Some people never make backstories for their characters and keep them mainly for designs. Some people like to create backstories, and both of these things can exist and are okay. What you personally find interesting isn’t the same for everyone.

Even if I do have backstories for many of my characters, not all of them are even close to finished yet or even fully fleshed out, I often start with basics and go from there. If you are interested in the backstories of my characters, I have a toyhouse in which I post them.

2. Race, Culture, Age and Disability is a huge part of a lot of people’s lives, I can attest to that for myself. A lot of what I put down as “descriptors” for my characters are for people to get the absolute “bare bones” of who this character is, kind of like a bio on social media. It may not personally interest you, but Culture is a huge aspect on how people develop and think, the way people grow up and who they are around influence their thoughts, likes, dislikes, career, life choices and more. I find that many people from different cultures are often very happy at the representation of their culture being present if done respectfully, and causes a lot of happiness to feel seen.

I have a particular interest in researching humans, cultures, disabilities and diversity. You don’t have to have those interests, the same way I don’t particularly have to have an interest in “likes vs dislikes” of a character.

It would concern me if someone doesn’t care about peoples race or ethnicity, the same way it concerns me when a white person says “well, I don’t see color”, it erases the diverse experience of being human. It erases culture, experience, struggle and more. A lot of POC, myself included, find solace in knowing someone may understand a specific experience of what it’s like growing up a certain way. That we are not alone in our struggles.

And this all relates to Disability as well. Able-bodied people are not going to understand the life of a disabled person they haven’t lived in. Growing up disabled, becoming disabled later in life, in general /being/ disabled is a different way of life than the average person. We have struggles and experiences not everyone can relate to — which means by sharing this in a description of a character — it can actually tell a lot about what they’ve been through and understand.

Other disabled people may not understand what life is like for another disabled person — I have had numerous asks and messages by other disabled people and able-bodied people alike telling me they are happy to see representation of a specific disability, or that they discovered a disability through my artwork and they were able to research it or even apply it to their medical training. This is a huge reason for why I do what I do.

I’m glad this is a question in good faith — Thank you for liking my art, and i hope you have a good day as well.

If you have anymore questions, I have an FAQ:

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! Ok so at one point I remember when answering an ask you said that when making animal based characters to just stay away from making any rat ones because of negative connotations (which I totally get)

So my question is would it be ok to have a whole humanoid race that is mildly based on mice? They look like humans but their ears vaguely look mouse-ish, they have tails, and their feet are sort of like paws. I am considering two different options with the tails in case I should stay away from the mouse thing, one looks like a mouse tail (kind of the main thing making them mice themed) and the other is a similar shape but fluffy especially at the end (A little like some versions of unicorn tails I've seen)

I would like to include disabled characters so if the mouse thing still isn't recommended I'll redesign them

Hello!

Most of the time when we advise that people avoid a certain trope/concept, it isn't a complete ban on it. It's generally more of a "be careful with how you approach this" type thing.

For example, we often advise against making a disabled character that's a villain because of their disability. If your only disabled character is a villain with chronic pain that kills people because their disability stops them from their dream job, that's not great. BUT if you have this same character and you also have a wheelchair user who runs the tech stuff for the hero side (Oracle-style, for my DC folks) and a Deafblind hero who leads the charge against the villains and an autistic sidekick and an amputee henchman for the villain and several able bodied villains and so on, then its less of a problem. It might not be gold medal representation but because you're no longer equating disability with tradegy and hatred and instead showing that villain as part of a cast with diverse stories and, more importantly, as a person with their own unique experiences, it's much better.

This is all a very long way of saying that most tropes that are generally best avoided can still be okay in some contexts.

In this case, having this whole species is completely fine and it's great that you want to include disabled characters! I see nothing wrong with this.

If you had a world where the characters were all anthropomorphic animals and the only rat character was also your own disabled character, that'd be a bit of a problem because it's singling out your disabled character -- presumably to poke at their disability.

In the concept you've presented, though, being part of this species is a trait all (Or most) of your characters share. Which is fine!

As a few final notes of caution:

If you're worried about certain unintended connotations or messaging coming across, it's generally best to spread your cast out as much as possible. By this, I mean that if you have other species in this world, don't have all your disabled characters be part of this one species. Likewise, don't have every member of this species be disabled. Instead, consider having your disabled characters be from different species. For example, have an amputee character be from this species but have a blind character be from another species.

Certain specific disabilities do have individual associations to watch out for. Be careful making associations between a character with a cleft lip and hares/rabbits (Because of the derogatory term "harelip" that has been used). Likewise but to a lesser extent, be careful with associations of blind people and moles, mice, and bats. This is because of the naked mole rat, the Three Blind Mice, and "blind as a bat" respectively. There are a few of these out there.

This is less of a warning and more just something to consider but keep in mind how their animal traits can be impacted by their disability. Would a character that's paralyzed have use of their tail? Would a blind character trip over their tail or would their same "sense of self" extend to the tail like it would an arm or leg? How would a character in a wheelchair adapt their chair to their tail? Etc.

Hopefully some of this is helpful!

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

[puc-puggy]

Hello! I saw your responses on a thread about sex ed and anatomy resources and they were super helpful. I wanted to ask though, do you know of any similar resources for intersex people? Like non-sexualized images (photos/illustrations) of a variety of people/bodies with different intersex conditions? Asking as someone who is intersex and has never seen a body like mine.

sorry this took me so long!

here's a free training by Our Bodies, Ourselves that goes over intersex genital variation and includes a training on drawing diverse genitals, though i do not believe that it has any uncensored photos.

here's a selection of illustrated genitalia by Intersex Roadshow, which also does not have uncensored photos.

now for the sad bit that requires paragraphs of disclaimers. as I'm sure you know, intersex people suffer from an incredible medical stigma, and while there are available images of intersex genitalia, the vast majority of collections are using the images to explain how to assign a binary sex in spite of obvious visual mixed sex characteristics or how to surgically alter them, typically without informed consent provided to the patient. as a result, a good chunk of the imagery available exists in spaces or alongside explanations that are actively hostile to the way that intersex individuals understand and discuss themselves and state as an expectation that ambiguous genitalia must be altered and binarized.

There is nothing wrong with your body. I really prefer to send people to body positive spaces because we deserve to learn about our bodies with joy and curiosity, not to be taught to look at ourselves with shame or judgment. If while viewing these slides, you find yourself feeling negatively about your body, take a break and return to reading or spaces respectful of intersex people. i'll leave some below the cut

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Here's links to two sets of medical school slides. Approach to DSD (Ambiguous genitalia) and Intersex Presentation. to find more images, use specific diagnoses as key terms and search for "case study," "[diagnosis] clinical approach," "[diagnosis] ambiguous genitalia" or similar language.

InterAct's Intersex FAQ

InterAct's collection of informative brochures & guides

Intersex Human Rights Australia: Celebrating Intersex Firsts on TV

JSTOR: Intersex Narratives: Shifts in the Representation of Intersex Lives in North American Literature and Popular Culture, by Viola Amato

Human Rights Campaign: Understanding the Intersex Community

GLAAD Media Reference Guide: Intersex People

[separatist-apologist]

I think the Mor being gay was handled so fucking disrespectfully it would have been better had she just not made her gay at all at this point. Just introduce new characters instead. Azmor was cute to me and I would have liked at least one of the main ships to be similarly aged but even if that never happened why would Mor ever need to hide it from the night court? Her friends and family of centuries!

All my thoughts are under the cut because I think some of this could be perceived as anti IC (ITS NOT) or anti Azriel (not on purpose)

I get kind of frustrated with the Mor reveal because that came wildly out of left field to me. ACOMAF is so clearly setting up some kind of love triangle between Mor/Cassian/Azriel and I think that continues to linger even in ACOWAR/SF with how Cassian is around Mor. SJM can say all she wants that its just brother/sister love but some of Mor/Cassian's behavior is very romance coded in an undeniable way (and an annoying way for Nesta imo).

I have been told that people were pressuring SJM to be more diverse which is always so weird to me because why would you look to SJM for representation? Her niche is aggressive heterosexuality, it's clearly where she's comfortable and the little representation we've ever gotten has not been handled well. I think she just doesn't know how to do it, there's no shame in that. We should be uplifting and supporting diverse authors telling authentic stories, you know?

Regardless, back to Mor- I do wonder if SJM ever considered the implications of that reveal. It makes sense that Mor wouldn't want her father to know, but Rhys? Cassian? Azriel? Her found family for 500 years, who uplifted her and protected her, often at their own expense? She doesn't feel safe telling them? Again, SJM is a teller, not a shower but sometimes she accidentally shows us the wrong thing when she's telling us something, and what I think she inadvertently showed us was that the IC is not as close as they first appear.

Which COULD be such an interesting story IF she was interested in exploring it at all. But she told us they're an unshakable family, and so they are, regardless of the subtext that suggest there are DEEP foundational cracks there. Like Mor is SCARED of Azriel, we don't want to delve into that? Or Mor is Rhys' second in command, but he actively makes a deal with Eris, who she is genuinely afraid of, and tells her to suck it up? Is that role ceremonial then? What sort of family/friendship is this?

And finally- I have always kind of assumed Mor is bisexual given she has relationships with men. There is something deeply uncomfortable and almost coercive about the thought of sleeping with other men to get Azriel to leave her alone. Like if what SJM is telling us is true and she doesn't enjoy these intimate moments with Helion, for example, and is only doing it because Azriel can't take a hint, thats....right? Like, I'm not the only person who just decides not to think about it too closely because the implications are terrifying and gross?

Cassian and Rhys KNOW (that shes not into Azriel, not that she's sleeping with Helion even though it repulses her, to get Azriel to leave her alone) this, and they choose to look the other way- how much do they even love her? It's giving "oh, he'd never hurt her" but then they all know she has no interest in him and rather than taking Azriel aside and being like, "my man its time to move on" they all just do nothing because its none of their business. I have siblings, and once when a man wouldn't take the hint with my sister, he took it up with me in the hallway at high school when I shoved him into a locker and started yelling at him.

Again, I think this kind of comes down to SJMs tendency to lean toward telling us everything, including how we should feel, but not showing us stuff. So she can say until she's blue in the face that the IC is an unshakable friendship group with a love that moves mountains but then the reality is that one of them has been tormenting the other for CENTURIES, refusing to take what I consider a very obvious no as an answer- to the point she feels like she has to perform heterosexuality so he'll back off- and no one does anything about it.

And I think thats rough.

[saveahorserideaneddie]

I mean this as civilly as possible—why does it matter if people ship or speculate about jeddie? Nobody knows what direction the show is going to go, fandom is all about fun. I’m a multishipper at heart so maybe I just don’t get it but liking one potential pairing doesn’t automatically mean you’re jumping ship for a different one?

im sorry but in a show like this where the writers have proven to be fickle when it comes to their own storylines and refusing to follow through because they get scared at the last second, it bothers me that people who claim to ship buddie- a pairing that has years of actual canonical buildup and real intentional development written into it- will just randomly start begging for the show to include shit like “jeddie”- a pairing of two characters who have not interacted onscreen since season 7 and even then it wasn’t more than just being in the same room- is annoying considering how long we have been waiting for buddie.

there are certain ships where multishipping doesn’t bother me (because a lot of pairings where multishipping is possible don’t have the same level of complexity and intention that buddie do), but buddie is one of those ships where literally nothing else makes sense for their characters but each other

and yall are out here actively pushing for two characters to kiss just because they both happen to be queer (yes- ik eddie is not canonically queer yet but for sake of argument) with nothing else to back it up? their dynamic of not getting along is not some “enemies to lovers” thing, and has never been set up nor intended to be that

in my experience in this fandom, “multishipping” has just been a thin veil over someone who will interact/post buddie content when it looks good for them/to get clout, but the moment someone else enters the equation, it’s as if buddie never existed for them and they go hardcore for that pairing until they eventually don’t work out and then suddenly it’s back to buddie. it’s the hoards of bt stans who were posting anti-buddie content and then when it became clear that their racist isn’t sticking around, they suddenly decided to go “oh well i was always a buddie shipper! im just a multishipper!!!”

like ive said in my posts- if you want jeddie content, then go read/write fanfic but stop posting shit begging the writers to go there because there is absolutely nothing- and i mean nothing about that ship in canon that would be narratively satisfying in any way for people who actually care about eddie as a character.

like i’ve said before, buddie has seven. years. of CONFIRMED intentional buildup in the writing, and to throw what would be groundbreaking queer rep out of the window just because “oh we threw these two gay characters who have no actual romantic chemistry or any kind of plot buildup together just for diversity points rather than actually following through on something we’ve intentionally been writing for years that would not only boost our numbers but would be something that has never been done on a show like this before”

i have made it clear multiple times why ships like this are lukewarm excuses for “representation” and why they come off as fetishizing queer characters rather than actually coming from a thoughtful and respectful place. throwing two gay characters together just for the sake of it is not the paragon of queer representation that somehow a lot of people think it is.

i also hate it because josh deserves better? he deserves his own thought out and intentional romantic partner without just being watered down to being another buddie roadblock that would only end in people starting hate him because the writers decided to ruin his character. i’ve said this multiple times as well, but we literally saw what happened the last time the writers tried to use a jealousy plot device to set up buddie- “multishippers” like you who claimed “oh its just a stepping stone” all jumped ship the next episode and started a massive fandom campaign to keep a racist around, and we got stuck with him for an entire season. the same thing would happen with josh in the context of potentially being a “stepping stone” (which to me insinuating that queer people need a “practice” relationship before their endgame is fucking disgusting) where people, like you, who claim the whole “oh fandom is fun just multiship” would drop buddie the moment two men kiss on screen because that’s all you care about.

you don’t actually care about the deeply rooted story that we know has been intentionally written by tim for years, just to be sidelined everytime “multishippers” decide to go crazy over a plot device and tim decides to derail the entire story and it ends up a hot fucking mess.

that’s why i hate jeddie and this whole campaign to include it in the show. i’ll say it again: it’s fine if you wanna read/write fic about it, but stop asking for it in canon.

i- as well as a lot of other people- have waited seven years for buddie and i don’t want to miss out on it just because some “multishipper” decided they wanted some watered down “lets throw the two gay dudes at each other” ship over something with actual development.

[reel-fear]

Bendy And The Power Of Representation

So those graphic novel pages huh? Seems I posted my cover post at just the right time because literally minutes after I was informed the preview pages came out and uh. This is Buddy and Norman!

Oh dear... I'll put the full graphic novel pages down below but I have so much to say on how awful this is it'll need several posts. However, right now I want to mostly talk about representation and briefly touch on why it's so damn important + inform others about the current shit Mike and Meatly are saying about the books n such.

Now note: All the things I'm saying below are based on my personal experience, maybe some people don't care about seeing the representation of their identities in the media they consume. Maybe some will think I'm merely being dramatic and I might be but I'm not lying when I say I personally believe being represented and seen in the media you consume can be one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.

Look I'm not here to argue with people who think that Norman in particular was never meant to be a person of color, I would argue he is very coded but the points I'm making here are not about how Norman particularly had to be black. The point I want to make is the lack of diversity in our cast in general and how Norman's design has heavily dwindled it considering most people [including myself] rightfully assumed he was at least one of three black characters in our cast. Not according to this though and looking at the the rest of the pages our chances of seeing any kind of decent diverse character designs dwindle more.

So firstly... Buddy a character who has been said to experience discrimination for being Jewish, lacks any kind of ethnic features at all. That's... Cool but yeah I think this shows a rather grim future for the character designs as a whole.

Also, Norman... As I mentioned he was largely assumed to be black due to his southern dialect, his voice, and other factors. But nope, he's a generic white guy. With... Gross looking hair tbh...

Sadly this is not the first time the topic of poor representation has come up concerning Bendy either.

[note how he disregarded the other mentioned minorities and specifically cites LGBTQ+ characters]

This sucks as a response but sadly considering Mike's recent behavior it seems to fall in line with the Bendy team's general lack of care towards representing anyone who isn't straight and white.

So how did Mike respond to all of this? Well...

TDLR - "Who cares if the Graphic Novel we're selling to our fans for full price sucks, we now no longer consider the books canon."

This is horrible, I know Mike and Meatly are only really in this for the money, the fact BATIM is in the state that it is proved that, but they really couldn't have been less obvious about it?

So basically when it benefited them, AKA when it meant people would have to buy the books to understand important lore like Boris' identity... [the character you spend all of chapter 4 trying to rescue] They were considered canon... At least the author sure thought so.

Hell even in the tweet Meatly made here he doesn't say the books aren't canon, he just says they're not needed to understand Bendy's world. Now Mike is using that as a shield instead of doing the right thing and saying "You're right, the poc in our fanbase deserve better we'll have it fixed right away!" Like most reasonable people would considering how his studio has literally been accused of bigotry, poor rep, and general lack of diversity before. Why risk making more people avoid this franchise?

Also just... Imagine how insulting it would be to be an author who helps flesh out so much of this world and gives its characters depth like NONE of the games have managed to do, filling in plot holes, creating a timeline for events, etc... Then because they couldn't bother to change the graphic novel for ur story to be better they instead throw out all ur writing and declare it non-canon.

If I were her to put it bluntly I'd feel insulted and horrible. Why make her do all the work of making sure her works align with the timeline and game's canon if they're not part of it?

I can't speak for her obviously but Meatly and Mike know of her account, so speaking out against this could very much risk her being fired or at least not allowed to work on Bendy anymore... So I would take all her tweets on this situation with a grain of salt. She very much is not in a position where she could be honest if she was against this.

So with all that history now, the question I'm sure many are wondering is... Why does this even matter? Who cares how diverse the characters are when it doesn't affect the story?

Well for one thing, if you think like that consider having more empathy for your fellow human beings but also it does affect the story. One of DCTL's themes is about the bigotry of the period it is set in.

Now the Bendy team has managed to make the discussion of this book centering around their bigotry which is ironic in a way I almost find funny... Though this entire thing is just a bit too hurtful and upsetting to find any humor in, at least for me...

But another thing is representation can bring people such joy when it's done with care. It really shouldn't be understated how far it can go to make people feel more comfortable in their own sense of self to have a franchise choose to represent them and their experiences. I know this from personal experience.

Now if you've been following me for a while, you know I'm a big fan of Transformers. I no longer engage with it much due to baggage from the fandom's awful treatment of me, but before I left I remember being able to witness the release of Transformers: Earthspark first few episodes.

These introduced the Maltos the family who meets the Transformers and serve as our protagonists and guess what?

It's a family of Filipinos!

Now look I'm not Filipino, but I am half Mexican and I have a lot of love for that part of me. So seeing the representation of any Spanish culture in this franchise I loved made me so happy! I remember just watching the first episode I was happily telling my partner how fun it was to see people like me and my family in a world I love!!

But it didn't end with the Maltos in fact... There was another character who spoke to me, their name was Nightshade. Their pronouns are They/Them and they spoke about it on the show! Not just mentioning it and moving on but actually sitting down to speak about their experiences...

This clip in particular really turned them into an absolute favorite among fans and well... I'll let you see it for yourself.

This scene... Fills me with a joy I cannot describe. It is the creators of a franchise I love telling me they see people like me and find the stories of people like me important enough to include in this series. There really is nothing like being able to say there are Non-Binary characters in a franchise I have so much love for. I was far from the only one too.

This is amazing, this is wonderful, this clip and character were moving to so so many people and...

This is a joy the Bendy creators have no interest in giving their audience. They don't care how you feel as a queer and/or black person, which... Hurts...

I... Discovered I was trans while in the Bendy community... It was where I learned the word Non-Binary and started using it for myself. To me Bendy will always have that connection... But the devs themselves seem to hate the idea of being forced to actually represent that in their games... And I still haven't really gotten over that pain or betrayal if I'm being honest.

So...

With Norman now being portrayed as white here, we are down to two black characters. Thomas [who Meatly has claimed is white in the past] based on a vague conversation with Sammy in DCTL they could easily ignore... And Jacob.... A book exclusive character which according to Mike means he is non-canon.

If we don't count Thomas' vague talk with Sammy about disrespect as confirmation he's black [which the devs don't seem to think so] then we have one black character in all of Bendy... And he recently got retconned into non-existence. Great.

Look... The Bendy fanbase has always been full of wonderfully diverse designs for the staff and even more diverse people creating them. Bendy's fandom was built with the work of queer people from all kinds of places.

If the Bendy team continues to show how little they care for anyone who isn't straight or white... I wonder who they are counting on to buy this book or in general financially support their franchise?

I know right now, I am furious, I am hurt and I most certainly don't feel like buying a book that's currently just a massive fuck you to the fans and I hope I've expressed why I feel this way in an easy-to-understand way here...

Either way, I will not be forgetting this anytime soon and I hope the fanbase does the same. Maybe just maybe, if there's enough backlash to this series of horrible decisions they'll learn better.

Right now, it's kinda of our only hope for a better future, and if you know any poc who are into Bendy right now... Maybe consider making sure they're feeling okay.

I know from experience how much this sort of thing hurts, to have the creators of a world you love straight up tell you they don't intend to fix the fact no one in their stories represents your identity or life...

What I'm trying to say is...

This is a really low point for Bendy and its fans... Even more for the poc who have to witness such ignorant and careless attitudes from Mike and Meatly towards their feelings.

Please don't forget them when you discuss these tweets or this situation. That's exactly what Mike and Meatly want right now.

For them to be unrepresented and therefore... Unheard.

[duckprintspress]

An Interview with Tris Lawrence

Meet Tris Lawrence! Tris has been with Duck Prints Press since our very first anthology, Add Magic to Taste, and is the author of multiple novels, including seven books of the Welcome to Pine Hills University series. We’re currently crowdfunding the second book of that series, Missed Fortunes, so what better time is there to get to know this awesome author?

About Tris Lawrence

Tris Lawrence has been writing since she was a child, filling notebooks with the worlds, dreams, and voices from inside her head. She declared in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer, promptly started drafting her first novel in seventh grade, and never looked back.

Tris has always been fascinated by the way people work: how their relationships fit together, how they interact socially, how they learn and discover. She has read avidly her entire life, devouring mysteries, romances, science fiction, and fantasy novels, and as an adult still loves all of these genres. Her favorite stories center on people who are learning or discovering new things, and coming-of-age stories top that list, which is how Pine Hills University came to be. She wants to share stories of people who are learning how to relate to each other, how to adult, how to college, and how to just be. She hopes to share stories about diverse characters with representation of everything she wishes she could have read growing up, and she hopes that these stories will touch the lives and hearts of those who read them.

When not writing, Tris is a wife, a mother (to two children, two cats, and a dog), a knitter, a system administrator, a black belt in taekwondo, an avid reader, and a music aficionado. Sleep, she claims, is optional.

Links: Bluesky | Dreamwidth | Facebook | Mastodon | Patreon | Pillowfort | Tumblr

An Interview with Tris

How did you pick the name you create under?

I’ve written in the past under multiple variations on my meatspace prior-to-marriage name, but that was always separate from my fandom identity. When I started the Welcome to PHU series, I made a conscious decision that I wanted to lean-into my fandom self. I’ve been tryslora online for over thirty years, and many of my friends called me Trys. The names are pronounced with a short I, so the shift from Trys to Tris was easy for me, and the surname Lawrence is another callback to the other half of my fandom name. The fact that my surname is also the (full given) name of the very favorite character of the first short story I ever had published is just a happy bonus.

When and why did you begin creating?

Oh. Goodness. Apparently my first short story was written in the first grade. I was in the resource room–taken out of my class for enrichment time so I didn’t get Bored since I was the only one in the class who could already read. They gave me a picture, and I wrote a story about a sad little boy whose parents were getting a divorce. The school called my parents, very concerned. Spoiler alert: my parents were NOT getting a divorce.

I started writing in earnest in seventh grade. I was already a voracious reader, and it seemed like the next step to start creating the kinds of stories I wanted to read. Sweet wistful romances. Stories where I could be the hero. As an only child, I’d been making up stories in my head all my life; putting them down on paper and sharing them was fun. And I quickly realized that writing was like breathing. I couldn’t stop. I filled notebooks. I started submitting short stories to markets (and being rejected) when I was fifteen. I wrote a serialized novel my senior year of high school and sold it in thirty issues to other kids in my high school. To be fair, I got the idea from a friend who started his serial the year earlier, and I wasn’t the only one. We were a whole little crew of writers in high school, and we beta read and encouraged each other.

Why I wrote changed over the years. At first, I just wanted to tell stories. The kinds of stories I had going in my head to entertain me when I was bored/alone/whatever. Then I started to need to write to tell stories that worked out problems in my head. Then I started creating the kinds of stories I really needed to read when I was a kid/teen/young adult. Which is what I’m still doing. In a way, everything I write is to tell younger-me that the future is different. Better. More expansive and diverse and accepting. That the world has words for things, and we are working toward change.

Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?

I am a plantser. I used to be a straight-up pantser, but when I started writing serialized novel-length works (first for fic, then original), I found that I needed some kind of structure to help keep me on schedule. My process involves a lot of random talking to myself on paper to spew ideas, then trying to form the ideas into a loose timeline of major events. Sometimes those events are tropes (like: “the only one bed moment should come relatively early”) or they could be something more plot-related. Once that’s done, I figure out how many chapters I want and put blank docs for those in my Scrivener file. Then I index card the first few, but which I mean make a 1-3 paragraph set of blathering to myself notes about high points that need to occur in the chapter. I can’t call it an outline. It’s not really specific. Sometimes it’s a quote I want to include and a note about who is interacting and why.

I can’t overtell the story when I’m planning or I won’t want to write it. Or I WILL write it, right then, instead of planning. So. Yeah. Plantsing is the way to go. And every time I approach the end of the chapters I’ve done index cards for, I do the next few. Somewhere in the last third, I find myself needing to do it for the rest, at which point I can roll on through and finish the story.

Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?

Um. My true and absolute favorites are horror pieces for an old fandom that has a lot of conflict around it now, so I hesitate to point to those. They make me want to write modern horror, though. I miss horror. In current writing, I’d have to say “Delta” from He Bears the Cape of Stars. It’s hard to say why other than that Ellis is a character of my heart, and I was so so thrilled to be able to write a story that had a positive outcome for him. “Worldplay” in the anthology Game On! from Zombies Need Brains is a close second. I went into it with a goal it having a particular taste and feel to the words, and I achieved that. I also went into it with the goal of the main character never being gendered, and am really happy with how it reads. The fact that it is only 4,000 words long and everything fits so neatly within that amount of words gives me incredible joy. In terms of craft, I am intensely proud of this piece.

Do you like having background noise when you create? What do you listen to? Does it vary depending on the project, and if so, how?

I need music going, but it has to either be music I know and can ignore, or sometimes classical. And it does vary with the project, but I don’t make playlists specific to the book. I did listen to a LOT of pop punk while writing Rory’s book (Marked #2: Not Your Love Song) in the PHU ‘verse, because that fit with his band’s theme. What I can’t do is use headphones – if the music is right in my ears, it’s interruptive. I need it to be low and truly in the background, so it doesn’t draw my attention. Once upon a time I could write while watching TV (and I wrote a lot of early fic that way- t hat would be where a Deadliest Catch inspired fic came from!) but not any longer. It’s too distracting.

When you look at your “career” as a creator, what achievement would you most like to reach – what, if it happened or has already happened, would/did make you go “now – now I’m a success!”?

When I graduated high school, as part of our writeup under our picture, they asked for our life goal. Mine was “2 go 2 SF cons 4 free” because at that time, being invited to be the guest of honor at a convention was the best goal I could see. I’d still love for that to happen. But really, more than that, I just hope to hear someday that something I wrote meant something to a reader. That the book impacted them in a positive way. That would be a success.

If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?

All words are awesome words. There will be days where you hate everything you write, and that’s okay. Put them on paper anyway. Burn them later if you want, or edit them, or tuck them in a drawer to look at in a year. But write them. Give yourself that chance to grow. Remember that everyone starts at the beginning – no one is a pro from moment one. Keep at it, and those words will change as you learn. But never forget: every word you put on paper is incredible, because you did it. You wrote. Keep writing.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

You have to write your million words of shit. Which in my mind, I have turned it around to “All words are awesome words” whether you make one or a thousand, whether you keep them or cut them. The gist is: in order to improve, you have to write. You have to get it down on paper, and yeah, it may not work and it may get tossed in a drawer (or lost in a virtual file folder named “omgDoNotLook-this-is-awful.docx”), but the writing is how we learn.

Additionally, ALL words count. Original fiction. Fan fiction. Non-fiction. Blog posts. Carefully worded emails. Everything that makes you slow down and consider your word choice and seek a direction and find flow. It’s all important, and it’s all part of the learning process. Which is the flipside of writing that first million words of shit. Much like gaining a black belt in a martial art – achieving that goal isn’t the end of the journey, it’s the start. Keep going. Keep making words. Every single one is important, and we always have more to learn.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?

That you are only a writer if you write every day, and that to be successful, it should be at the same time, in the same place. I get that it works for some people. In fact, it’s great advice for a lot of people! But for me, I internalized that as “if I miss a day, I’m a failure” or “if I can’t get into my home office, I’m a failure” and that meant I stopped writing.

I had to learn that zero days are okay. It’s how much you work, not necessarily having a strict schedule, and learning to roll with the changes in schedule is important, too. I started tracking my word count in a spreadsheet so I could see those ups and downs, and visualize my averages, even when half the days out of the year I wasn’t writing at all. In 2023 I started tracking time, as well, because I’ve been spending more and more time on authorial tasks that aren’t just the creation of new words – editing, social media, publication prep, buying supplies (business cards, etc.), conventions. Being able to see that I am still spending a lot of time on this career, even if I’m not making words, has helped me come to terms with times when I’m not writing.

What book or media franchise or other creator’s work do you always come back to? How many times have you rewatched/reread/reviewed it?

Roger Zelazny’s Amber series, and I honestly do not know how many times I’ve read it. My view of it has changed over the years, certainly. It still impacts me a lot when I think about it; there are so many spaces and so many ways to take inspiration from it. It was a perfect story for a lonely teen who wanted a way to believe in a life beyond where I was. I read it many times between the ’90s and ’00s because I got involved in playing an RPG based in the universe – diceless roleplaying with a heavy emphasis on character and story. It was perfect for me, and was something that kept me writing (for my characters) during the times when my children were young. The last time I read it was in 2017 so I could write a postscript canon-based story for a Yuletide prompt. That’s another one I’m very proud of from a craft perspective, because I feel like I did a good job of mimicking Zelazny’s style (but more modern).

Thank you for sharing, Tris!

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, why not check out our current crowdfunding campaign for Tris’s book Missed Fortunes?

[literaticat]

Are you seeing publishers cave to the new policy changes set by our new fascist government? The book I’m about to query has queer representation, including a transgender character. It’s important to me that my book’s world feels inclusive to all, especially those who are feeling targeted by our own government. I’m now concerned though that MG books with diversity are going to go straight to the ‘banned books’ pile upon publication. How is the publishing industry being affected by these changes?

The editors I know still very much want to publish/support inclusive work and understand it is important, etc. At least, that's what I'm seeing.

Will your diverse book go straight to the banned book pile? Maybe! Since the most benign, least "controversial" books you can possibly imagine are getting banned (FRECKLEFACE STRAWBERRY????) I wouldn't be surprised by anything.

Like let me put it this way: It's pointless for publishers to worry about what the fascists want/don't want -- because at the end of the day, the fascists don't want anyone to read anything. They don't even want kids to be ABLE to read, hello, dismantling education!

The fascists would like to shut publishers down altogether, because publishing's whole THING is "freedom of speech/freedom of expression/freedom to read" -- so I'd say most of publishing is on the Good Guys side here. That's why they are doing things like this lawsuit. Or this one. PRH has a whole page on their website about banned books (as do many of the others, that's just the first one I googled!)

Are publishers perfect? No, of course not. But IMO they are not ILL-INTENTIONED or trying to silence people or actively promoting ANTI-DEI stuff or anything like that. Well. I mean - - any more than USUAL, that is. Because the entire conversation around "we need diverse books" etc started happening because publishing was so frickkin WHITE/STRAIGHT and the majority of books published were white/straight narratives -- and while it's definitely gotten better, it's still like... pretty frickkin white/straight! But I think that's more to do with the general culture of white supremacy that infests all systems in this country rather than specific bad behaviour/on-purpose-maliciousness on the part of publishers themselves.

Anyway, I do truly believe that publishers want to publish all kinds of books for all kinds of readers -- and even the most craven and profit-driven monster of a publisher is NOT going to stop publishing inclusive books as long as people are BUYING them. (HEY PROGRESSIVES? PLEASE KEEP SUPPORTING PROGRESSIVE BOOKS!)

Anyway, this isn't something you need to worry about: You are only querying agents at this point, your book is highly unlikely to both get an agent AND sell ultra-fast. Realistically, even if you got an agent and signed relatively quickly, let's say by summer -- you go on submission and sell the book by Fall -- the book won't come out until 2027. And that's the FAST version. If any of those steps take a "normal" amount of time, you are looking at a 2028 book.

Who knows WHAT the world will look like by then. I'm betting a lot will change. Hey, maybe there won't be any more banned books after Madame la Guillotine does her job. :-)

[vintagetvstars]

Nichelle Nichols Vs. Yvonne Craig

Propaganda

Nichelle Nichols - (Star Trek) - She speaks for herself. Legendary, iconic, at the forefront of feminism and civil rights in the 60s, she is a triple threat who did so much more. She volunteered from 1977 to promote recruitment diversity within NASA, including some of the first female and ethnic minority astronauts. Martin Luther King Jr. compared her work on Star Trek as a 'vital role model' to the civil rights marches. She refused to be dismissed, fought for visibility and shone whilst doing so. As a woman in stem, and simply a woman she means the world and stars above to me.

Yvonne Craig - (Batman, Star Trek) - 7 year old me didn't know she was a lesbian but she sure knew she liked batgirl

Master Poll List of the Hot Vintage TV Ladies Bracket

Additional propaganda below the cut

Nichelle Nichols:

She is the original badass babe. She was a black woman in a leading role on TV in the 60s, a trailblazer for black actresses for years to come. She is so beautiful and so awesome.

she's fantastic. have you seen her? paved the way for black actresses on TV even while her lines and scenes were being cut and improvised the most iconic uhura line in the series. (sulu: "I'll save you, fair maiden!" uhura, pushing him away: "sorry, neither!") she's incredibly talented and it's a crime the show didn't give her more screen time (or make her sing more often because she also has a beautiful voice!)

“Sorry, neither” in response to “fair maiden” was ad libbed by her. There’s a lot more I could say but what else do you need??

A sci-fi icon!

She was such a trailblazer, and Uhura was such an important character for so many people to be able to see on TV. Apparently Mae Jemison (the first African American woman to go into space) cited her as a reason she wanted to become an astronaut. She was just an absolute legend!

The story of Martin Luther King telling her not to quit Star Trek gives me chills. Representation matters. “Thank you so much, Dr. King. I’m really going to miss my co-stars.” Dr. King's smile, Nichols recalled, vanished from his face. "He said, 'What are you talking about?'" the actress explained. "I told him. He said, 'You cannot,' and so help me, this man practically repeated verbatim what Gene said. He said, 'Don’t you see what this man is doing, who has written this? This is the future. He has established us as we should be seen. 300 years from now, we are here. We are marching. And this is the first step. When we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud.' He goes on and I’m looking at him and my knees are buckling. I said, 'I…, I…' And he said, 'You turn on your television and the news comes on and you see us marching and peaceful, you see the peaceful civil disobedience, and you see the dogs and see the fire hoses, and we all know they cannot destroy us because we are there in the 23rd Century.'"

She shared the first interracial kiss on Star Trek, helped propel real life African American women into space-related careers, and looks divine in a mini skirt.

HOW DID UHURA WALK BACKWARDS SO FAR??? WOW!

[tojisteddy]

Hi, hello :'^

This is probably going to be unstructured and messy, I'm sorry..

I do not often (if ever) comment on subjects like this because, well. I don't know, it's not my experience, and I think everyone has the right to make their art as they wish. Thus, my opinions are more for myself than the authors I interact with.. like, it's not anyone's problem if i don't like something.

But this time, I can't help but want to speak about those comments you got from an anon that was upset about the descriptions in you ×reader fics.

I do find that works with the tag "× reader" are more enjoyable when here's no decsription of the body for me. I love it.

But also that's a symptom of necessity for diversity.. yeah, we know writers on tumblr do their best to be inclusive, and they do a good job. Genuinely, it's better than in bookstores and that's saying a lot. But it's insane to think that it's sustainable overall because there's so much more content with a certain set of characteristics.

So, i like my fics without description more. BUT! Fics should be literally written however the writer wants. Because that's the point.

And in the "×reader" scenarios even more. It's a self insert and sometimes we as an audience have to realize that, even with authors trying to be as inclusive as they can, sometimes limitations exist just because we have only one body and experience on it, and it's very particular and specific. That will obviously affect how we describe scenarios and experiences in those scenarios because we can't know every single detail about another person's experience completely accurately. It's simply impossible. And that's fine.

For the matter, we all know that even if Tumblr is much more divers in terms of representation (especially if we get to the tags we want because that's literally how the feed works), it's still an app where there will be a dominance of white skinned, skinny, soft spoken, long haired, CIS women. Because society is still at that point, unfortunately. But we're changing that slowly and making good progress.

Having said that, this isn't something that happens only in the US or in Europe. Even coming from other countries and other ethnic groups, more often than not, there's an obsession with writing characters that way, not because it's "the norm" (wich it somehow is??) But because we haven't learned that diversity means showing black or brown skin, acne scars, fat bodies, and non-CIS genders in our art without making it specific and without making it a big deal. (Even if it is! It's liberating for authors and readers and should be fucking celebrated but anyways)

Your descriptions are inclusive not only for the bodily descriptions but for the psicology you narrate. And that's so marvelous.

The first time I read your fics and got to the "black curly hair" part, I didn't immediately asume it was something other than my own hair, for the first time in a very long time! because the writing was making me feel included in the experience you were describing.

Girl I ate your fics up even more because I knew I wouldn't feel disconnected from that description even if it's not completely accurate it was less opposite to how I look.

And as I said, I'm not a poc myself, I'm not even a CIS woman, but that's not stopping me from loving your writing and finding your ×reader fics to resonate with my experience.

Any-freaking-way. I love your writing, and you have both the right and authority to write descriptions or not. In the end, this is only appreciation for your writing and absolutely wrinkly brain. Mwa<3

“But because we haven't learned that diversity means showing black or brown skin, acne scars, fat bodies, and non-CIS genders in our art without making it specific and without making it a big deal.”

This, this and this!!! Inclusivity means incorporating our differences!!! Letting the reader be different. I’m so happy you enjoy the things I write!!! You’re a fucking babe!🫂💓💓💓 you’re amazing!!

[passionategamerotica]

First off I’m a white guy but I’ve seen some discussion recently around 40K’s non-white coded factions and had some thoughts about particularly some of 40K’s old world building lore tropes and how that has influenced where we are today.

Warhammer’s planet of hats trope has lead to some really interesting cultures of planets in the Imperium in the lore. Planet of hats is essentially, how you can make lots of visually distinct cultures of worlds in a lore’s canon, making one like ancient Rome (Ultramar), one like ancient Greece (Olympia), making one like space Egypt (Prospero) or making one space scandanavia (Fenris). It’s easiest to understand it primarily as a way of differentiating the biggest money making faction in the game, Space Marines and their various chapters and legions. However, I think we also need an honest conversation about how the planet of hats trope has led to some takes on race that can be reductive and generalised on particular cultures.

For instance the Salamanders, are coded and i think intentionally to be black. You often hear fans say they’re not black in our modern understanding of race, mainly cause their skin colour is meant to be a sci-fi ultra dark because of intense radiation on their homeworld. However their geneseed (things that share particular genetic traits in Space Marine creation) also gives them red eyes which are described by some in lore as demonic looking. And the Salamanders stories often focus on this disconnect from their chapter culture, humanitarianism (by 40K standards), nobility, heroism and humility and their physical appearance which some find frightening. I think this is coded discussion of how black people face discrimination because of their appearance in many places across the world, especially when we understand that colorism and dark skinned people across all cultures often face marginalisation. This is though a really heavy handed way to discuss race I personally find it a bit on the nose.

When we look at the White Scars, who are explicitly coded as east-asian particularly Mongolian but with elements of Chinese culture thrown in, we can see that planet of hats can lead to some stereotypes and generalisations about communities being ingrained. Especially when you consider most lore authors working on Warhammer are white men.

Another example I feel is the Tau, who were created at a time when Games Workshop wanted to expand into the Japanese market, using mechs very inspired by Japanese anime and sci-fi, and as such a lot of the faction is coded with Japanese cultural and racial markers. Including the voice acting in video games, which I often find is similar to the voice acting of Samurai in movies.

I think people of colour in the Warhammer 40K community have found representation and enjoyment from these examples, but that besides, I think it highlights the cause we should broader representation on the writing and modelling in the hobby, to make a richer and more interesting world. I’ve always loved the space that Warhammer gives you to create new things in their world, seeing really incredible head-canon and fanfic for more diverse and interesting representations of characters and worlds in Warhammer. But that isn’t people’s introduction to the hobby, the Warhammer official canon and lore is. Planet of hats has lead I think to less interesting factions, by not creating and exploring more nuanced world building, which I totally concede some writers do undertake but I wouldn’t say is a general trend.

I don’t know it this is really a criticism more just a sense that Warhammer is growing as hobby, it’s bigger than it has ever been in my time playing it and this is an opportunity, to bring more people into the fandom and make our hobby inclusive.

[liquid-bonhomme]

It's so embarassing watching lily be so wrong about her own country's politics. I am admittedly ignorant about Canadian politics, as I am terminally american (je suis desolé). But like, girl, you live there? Are you not embarrassed to get such basic information wrong?

It's frustrating how not super uncommon it is that Canadians like . . . Forget what fucking country they're living in? The constant bombardment of American politics does very much seem to get people . . . Confused. To put it generously.

Being totally honest, I've accidentally called the The House of Commons the "House of Representatives" myself a few times. Especially when I was younger, I had a lot of cynicism with politics and with our system I realized now was more founded in well-poisoning runoff from the states. Even other political commentators I'd consider very politically literate in Canadian politics have opinions very clearly flavored by, up until recently obviously, America being presumed this big brother state that will inform our politics as much, if not more than their own.

When the Cons were leading, functionally off of just importing Trump's popularism here, and then seemingly overnight the polls flipped-- all of us, including myself, seemed to remember all at once how not American we actually are. The sheer aggressive exposure to American culture drowns that out sometimes.

But Lily is above and beyond the typical brainlet Canadian ignorance, I'd say. With that said though, I don't think last night's screed was really motivated by ignorance. Feel free to challenge me on this, I guess, I am thoroughly of the impression now Lily does not actually LIKE democracy. I don't think the reasons are particularly deep. I think Lily is selfish and stupid. I think she likes to be in control, has taken on the Liberal Party as a proxy (because she's not actually fucking paying attention to what they're doing) and she wants her "team" to win and everyone to do what she wants.

Lily wants democracy for Lily, and no one else. And she's just not smart enough to recognize why that's not going to work out for her.

Ironically enough, despite constantly making it clear otherwise, this is something I get accused of a lot. As a socialist and a supporter of the NDP. Mostly by people who DO actively want to undermine the democratic process and are projecting.

While I scrutineered the vote at my assigned polling station for my riding, I argued to protect the votes of both the conservative and the liberal incumbent. There were no potential spoiled ballots for the NDP incumbent. If the intent of the voter was clear and obvious, I advocated for them regardless of who it was for. There was even a missing vote I advocated for us to find. It was for the conservative incumbent. I did not compromise any of my fellows right to a political voice.

The conservative scrutineer was treating me with suspicion. He likely accurately identified that I was EXACTLY the kind of person the conservative incumbent was trying to quietly take away the rights of. That Pierre Poilievre was OPENLY wanting to take away the rights of. I am kind of a . . . Distinct looking individual. He may have recognized me as the person who had a minor verbal confrontation with the conservative incumbent at their debate.

But I am of the opinion that the democratic process in Canada isn't compromised enough to undermine the political rights of my fellows-- even when they are, knowingly or not (likely not) voting in a way that puts my person at potential risk.

And maybe the Conservatives shouldn't be playing stupid games with people's civil liberties if they're this paranoid they're going to give someone like me incentive to screw with their votes-- you shiteating fucks.

I believe in representational democracy. I believe in FIGHTING for representational democracy. I think diverse parliaments with a healthy amount of seats to multiple parties. Infact, I think Parliament should be expanded to include seats FIRST NATIONS ELDERS chosen by their communities in their own way aswell.

I believe the Conservatives are a categorically negative force in Canadian government, economically and socially, and that the Liberals are drifting in that same direction, but that undermining the democratic process to take that power away from them is a last resort.

And one that comes with serious consequences.

That's a bell you can't unring. So it's gotta be worth it.

But as I've argued over and over again, Lily is not a leftist. She is middlingly center-right, advocating only for the middlingly center-left, drifting right Liberal Party to the capacity she believes they serve her. And is too stupid to realize they kinda don't. Not wholly.

[beneathashadytree]

i sorry for saying this but i have to be honest, i dont understand why the LnDs MC having a gender is a problem, i mean, i understand you making a gn OC for some kind of support or representation but not why the MC, who already have a female body (and with that i mean biologically, the old fashion way everyone would visualise in their minds at first when they hear "female body", after all even if we young ones think this patter is wrong it still a pattern old ppl and from different cultures, and almost everyone understand and learned at first at a very young age) and if im not wrong also refered as "she" im the game, cant be described with anything that isnt gender neutral, i also have no idea why someone would be offended or feel not included reading about a MC with a gender, we all are different and is impossible to include everyone, ppl can feel not included for things you cant even imagine would be a problem, and not being able to see yourself on a story once isnt a big problem, you can ignore or jump to the next one, or just see the character like a character or another person that isnt youself.

I hope you dont get mad at this (and was able to understand my point, i usually have problems communicating with others and since english isnt my native language it gets worst), its that i just dont see the point in all this, i understand having a preference or incentivating one but not feeling somenthing bad and being against the other...

I understand what you’re trying to say, nonnie, but I have to point out a few things first. First off, I shouldn’t have to explain my own boundaries because at the end of the day, they are boundaries and should not be discussed. When something makes me uncomfortable, I shouldn’t be negotiating why people should respect that and stick to it without questioning my motives.

However, I understand you have no ill intentions, so I will be answering you—not because I’m obligated to, but because I want to point out where your line of thinking comes to harm marginalized communities.

The very simple answer is this: Because I’m a fanfic writer.

I’m not creating the MC in a game where she physically has a body and an appearance. Otome games were initially made as fantasies for their players to picture themselves in romantic situations. But since most Otome games have female MCs with very stereotypical appearances, most people who do NOT look like that end up having to imagine an OC/someone else in their place. It’s a shitty feeling; to feel left out because game producers can’t be assed to create more diverse options.

Second of all, the “old fashioned way” was already fucked up from the start, because even female bodied people are much less likely to look like Otome game MCs—who are almost dauntingly pretty, have virtually no physical blemishes, have straight hair, big eyes, and are incredibly thin. Now think of all the people who do NOT fit that physical description and are almost always excluded. When I visualize a female body like you say, I don’t instantly picture a perfect-looking skinny fair-skinned girl who looks not a day past 18. Because female bodies aren’t just one thing or the other. It’s a beautiful spectrum.

Third of all, leaving “old fashioned thinking” as it is is already a harmful concept. Should we ignore white people’s racism because it’s how they were brought up in the old-fashioned way? Should we allow sexism & misogyny in our communities because it’s how they were brought up back in the day? Should we encourage fatphobia by not silencing people because being thin and encouraging EDs was acceptable? Should we let homophobic hate crimes keep occurring because that’s what used to happen?

The number one goal of our new generations should be to reconstruct society and dismantle all the harmful practices that were done by our predecessors. Ending the cycle is our responsibility and no one else’s, and to do that, we have to take active measures to undo what they’ve done and erase what is “the norm.” Just thinking it’s wrong isn’t enough; we must take action to cut that shit out.

And because these were the “old-fashioned ways” it’s still the default for almost every writer to create for a female audience. Imagine a fandom has 200 writers. 190 would write for female MCs, and only 10 writers would write for more diverse MCs. Should everyone else that is not female (and, by the way, gender-queer people represent a massive percentage of fandoms online, and males do exist within our fandom spaces) just keep living their lives having to picture other people instead of themselves, because not enough people care enough to include them in their writing?

Here’s a realistic representation of what you’re saying: let’s say there are 2 million LNDS players around the world. 1 million are female. 1 million are not. The second 1 million will never get to see themselves as the MC. Now they can’t even picture themselves in fiction? Should the second 1 million be forced to feel left out in their own fandom space?

The same also happens with race representation in fandoms. Less than 50% of the world population is white. Yet we don’t see except very few people in fandoms writing for Black people, Latinos, Arabs, South-Asians, South-East Asians, Inuits, Native Americans, etc. Why is that? It’s because fandoms are catered towards white people. So should we just let the entire half of the globe never feel included in the art/writing fandom creators make? Do they not deserve representation and comfort too?

So when I write, I write for everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. Because I think everyone deserves to see themselves loved and cared for by their favorite characters. Because everyone needs that sort of comfort. Because I myself have spent my entire life looking for that comfort in fandom spaces and never finding it. Even if the game doesn’t allow them to do that, I’m giving everyone a chance to enjoy the game through their own eyes, without having to be a stereotypical skinny girl with sleek straight hair and a dainty face. Because we want representation, and if the canon content can’t give us that (even though they claim it’s supposed to be “us”), then at the very least our fandom spaces should provide this. I hope you understand why my rules are there now. They’re a protection for both myself and everyone else in this fandom.

Fanfiction was created by the people, for the people—not just for a certain demographic that fits beauty standards and “old fashioned thinking”—and it should always be for ALL the people.

Being as inclusive as is humanly possible is never a bad thing. Refusing to see why consistently excluding others is wrong IS a bad thing, though.