#East Asian stereotypes

[peonycats]

What are your favourite kinds of Japan content? Or alternatively, what are your least favourites?

I'm a huge aph Japan fan, and I'm always curious abt this stuff.

Hmmm, well honestly I could talk all day about this topic LMAO but for your sake and mine I'll keep it brief and focus mostly on two especially grating depictions i dislike. I have some posts queued up down the line for how i tend to see japan so feel free to ask me about that when i get around to posting it ehehe

"Polite, cute, shy, quiet" japan depictions reallllly don't work for me. Like it's one thing to say that Japan is a reserved guy who puts value in having good manners and doesn't want to come across as rude, but it's another to turn him into a wilting flower who's easily dominated by louder personalities and turns into a side character. Besides it falling into ur typical trope of the "diminutive east asian who needs to be taught by their loud non easian (usually white) partner how to stand up for themself and live life a little," I think it's just patently false, both canonically and historically lmao. Like hima has called Japan a stubborn old man before, and history will tell you that Japan is nothing if not resourceful and very very proud, lol. He may bite his tongue, but I imagine that hes not someone who easily gives up or submits or at least without a fight 😂

Germany-Italy-Japan trio, or "Axis" trio, depictions never go over well for me, lol. I'm of the mindset that you can't really divorce them from their history in WW2, especially if you're going to call them the Axis, like lol the least you could do is call them something new. Furthermore, Geritapan depictions in my opinion are terrible with tokenizing japan as the sole character of color/east asian in the group, but the Worst Geritapan Depictions as of late are shipping gerita with japan off in the cuck chair?? I'm not saying we need to give Japan bitches (because lord knows he doesn't deserve any) but wow, congrats, you made your only East Asian man an emasculated yellow guy who just pines and copes over a white love interest who dgaf about him <3 a win for diversity!!!

anyways, if you're going to ship gerita but treat japan like this, i would rather you ship germany and italy together like a normal person and leave japan out of it 🙏

[xhanisai]

every time i (a mixed race girl) come across a post that’s basically saying that Marinette, a mixed race girl, isn’t Chinese enough, my urge to set hellfire on this world increases by 100000000%.

[starcrossstudios]

read an article about hoyoverse's discriminatory character designs and inaccurate portrayal of cultures outside of europe and east asia and have not been able to stop thinking about how this is a trend not only with hyv and china across ALL of east asia

[saturngalore]

the animal face challenge bringing out the causal racism in simmers 😭😭😭😭

[zephyrfuse]

I don't usually look at plaza posts. I get to Ruler and stop playing. I knew there were the stans and simps, but I didn't know just HOW bad the fetishization was for Shiver. When I first saw Deep Cut, my feeling were meh for them. But the instant hate for Frye made me so sad. It was the same for Pearl. I just feel like Splatoon is kinda being ruined for so many people because of things like this. Which is sad, this series used to be fun. Now it feels so hostile.

to be fair i think it was a storm bound to happen, in a world and a company learning how to be more diverse with its cast, we are Going to uncover the biases that exist. Even if it feels like a big L, this was going to happen one way or another!! Sure the reality may suck, but its gonna have to be faced head on for any progress. This being up front and center is a result of progress, because there's no hiding anymore what's going on. I hope splatoon continues to make risks that are more risky than this. I hope fryes become the normal, and people will learn to love them. I hope the people who like to see this change can celebrate seeing people like her everywhere.

and if nintendo doesn't do it then i know we will!!!

[mysteriousbeetle]

The thing about people with Asian Tim headcanons that bothers me is that its usually that they headcanon him as East Asian specifically with the associated stereotypes. I've never seen any one headcanon him as South Asian or South East Asian or Central Asian or anything else.

[trans-leek-cookie]

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

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

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

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

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

[yardsards]

part of me: yeah i mean it's mayyybe for the better that amity didn't get a hooked nose *in canon*, considering that feature is stereotypically associated with jewish people, and amity was initially introduced as an antagonist with a wealthy and powerful family, and that fact could have played into some bad stereotypes before her and her family got more fleshed out

also me: but also i am ethnically jewish and have a prominent nose and i just really wish there were more female major characters w features like that who aren't treated as ugly by the narrative and i like her i think it would be neat if she had a hooked nose like her dad

[whaleofatjme1920]

Sometimes I get a burning desire to make content for relatively niche readers bc I never see it anywhere else.

[majorbaby]

now you know i love trucoop but the overwhelming, raw sexuality of josie and harry's scenes???? that is a rare example of a toxic and doomed romantic relationship between a man and a woman that doesnt make me wanna cringe every 5 seconds.... They Sold It

[skadren]

hi! as you are a nonbinary chinese american writer, can i ask you your thoughts on writing nonbinary chinese and chinese american characters? a few chinese ppl have said its offensive but nonbinary chinese / chniese american ppl exist irl so it makes sense to represent them... how would you do it + tips?

hi anon! this is a complicated topic and i’m really only one random person on the internet, so i think it's important to ask yourself: do you trust the people who are saying this is offensive? are they raising points you think make sense? are they nonbinary themselves or just white knighting? and so on

since i primarily write and read fanfic, i've really only felt particularly offended by the portrayal of chinese characters before in that context. i'm sure the world of Real Publishing(tm) has its own mess but idk any specifics about that so i'll be just giving my thoughts on what i've seen in fandom + some tips under the cut

from what i've noticed in fandom, nonbinary (and transmasc and intersex, but i digress) usually ends up being shorthand in fandom for making a canonically male character "boy lite" (canonically female characters are a bit of a scarce supply already, much less nonbinary headcanons for them). this is already really uncomfortable on its own, and there are far better posts out there that talk about soft uwu androgynous nonbinary stereotypes and why those are harmful

this compounds quite unfortunately with the fact that english-speaking fandom already has a habit of feminizing and infantilizing characters in east asian media with majority-male casts like kpop and cdramas while ignoring the existence of actual queer asian people. the kpop industry has embraced this habit of fandom and is actively leaning into it because it sells; china has tried to crack down on this by limiting media that portrays men as too effeminate for their standards.

so yeah actually i can see why people are saying nonbinary chinese characters would be offensive, because they assume it would just be more of the same, and i do think we should be questioning why fandom tends to treat east asian men as inherently less masculine. but the problem isn't that representation in and of itself is inherently offensive but that what we have is all the same, sanitized and packaged and exported to a global audience in a way that is actually quite degrading and is never even actually real representation. hypercapitalism, hooray

anyways. some tips:

being nonbinary covers so much more than just being boy lite(tm)

BEING NONBINARY COVERS MORE THAN JUST BEING BOY LITE

your character is a character first before their group identity. one informs the other but there are plenty of things that exist outside of gender or ethnicity. generally, approaching character writing primarily from the angle of "i want to represent x group" doesn't turn out too well bc it starts to feel like tokenism

on the other hand, if you could strip the character of said group identity and change them to being white and cishet and their character would work exactly the same, that's also a sign that something is wrong

different cultures construct gender differently. my gender is informed by american norms and queer history so it isn’t going to representative of someone who grew up on the mainland; on the other hand, it will never match the mainstream white american nonbinary experience, either. take the time to understand how a specific society might construct categorical gender and its norms before asking how your character would navigate it

china is a huge country. the usa is a huge country. there are also plenty of chinese people who live outside of these countries. generation and/or time period has a huge impact as well. speak to some other nonbinary chinese people! find out what they have to say about their experience

good luck with your writing!

[yokoyas]

they should give me a free boba every day haven’t i suffered enough

[rynkyus]

the idea that ppl outside of a specific culture cant point out mistreatment and appropriation of that culture is so silly. so because i’m asian i can’t say it’s weird as fuck for white ppl to drool over polynesian men just existing?? bc i’m filipino i can’t say white koreabos moving to korea to teach english and find romantic/sexual partners is weird?

and its weirder bc the criticism either comes from the white ppl doing those shits OR from (in these examples) polynesian or korean ppl who enable fetishization of their people.

also, i feel like it’s natural for me as a filipino to find parallels in how “foreigners” are treated as exotic and subsequently sexualized and made targets of sex tourism.

[summerhighlandfalls]

Illustration of an internet phenomenon I really hate, where a white artist learns how to draw exactly one type of person of color and then gives up:

[larebiscornue]

Right now I struggle to draw old people, I gotta improve it, but still attempted to give a go to a human Kerubim cause he's the best grandpa-dad

(more info in my tags if you wanna learn more?)

[jacquesthepigeon]

Sabine and Emilie are the moms most done dirty in the show (not that there are many given attention to begin with)

It took four seasons for Sabine to get her own episode, finally portraying her as anything other than a decoration attached to Tom’s but it was all to turn her into a stereotypical exotic kung fu master straight out of a bad 80’s martial arts movie. She’s repeatedly removed from the narrative regarding her own upbringing, family, and relationship to her culture. Not gonna veer off into how Marinette was so severely whitewashed that Sabine may as well have been a stranger to her with the lack of influence she seemingly had in her upbringing but holy crap. But seriously, the moment they finally decided to give her some attention (the white relatives are obviously more important and take priority 🤪), they passed on the chance to make an actual character and resorted to every wild misconception someone who’s never meaningfully interacted with east asian people or their individual cultures might have.

And then we have Emilie who we have nothing of value to go off of. She is the ultimate manpain fodder fridged wife. We see her almost exclusively through the highly romanticized lens of her grieving loved ones, who through the repeated inconsistencies and retcons, could be interpreted as unreliable in their interpretations of events, and never as herself. There’s a brief generic video she left on her deathbed but quite frankly it doesn’t add anything to her character, if you can even call her that. She is the main motivator of everything that happens during the first five seasons but she is never her own person. Her personality, motivations, ambitions, etc. are all up for debate.

Compare that to how their spouses are treated by the narrative… gross