#also queer rep. so much queer and disabled and characters of colour rep

[thethiefandtheairbender]

once again i am asking everyone who was disappointed with natla and wants more good original animated storytelling to watch The Dragon Prince on netflix, particularly if you want complex, flawed, and fleshed out female characters and worldbuilding! Also for consistent motifs/symbols, foreshadowing, and a truly stunning amount of lore.

Unreliable narrators! Tragic siblings! Characters who are allowed to be hypocritical and sympathetic! Neutral and malevolent magic systems! Exploring not only how to break cycles of harm, abuse, and violence, but also why they're perpetuated! Dragons with personalities! Varied queer (lesbian, gay, transgender) and disabled rep (deaf, blind, amputees)! Majority of cast and key players are also all characters of colour, particularly in s4 onwards

It's been 5 out of 7 seasons and we're still unravelling things from the first 4 episodes alone, never mind the foreshadowing.

Tropes:

If you didn't want to be assimilated into my found family, you should've killed me when you had the chance

Someone who believes they are hard to love and someone who loves them like it's breathing

The needs of the many (interrogated) x Deal with the devil

Just... constant recontextualization, god bless

Child kings and queens

A metaphorically cannibalistic magic system that might not be so metaphorical after all

and so much more! I think about "You let him live, but you killed us all" every damn day, and that's just from ep1. Some of the ATLA voice actors (Sokka and Koh the Face Stealer) feature here as well as some of the creative team (most notably Aaron Ehasz, ATLA's head writer)

[televised-uhhh-nerdistry]

Cartoon rec of the week:

Craig of the Creek

I haven't seen enough people talking about the show, so I'm mentioning it here. Absolute 10/10 cartoon. Just three kids, running 'round, making friends, running their own semi-sustainable community in the forest (there are some concerns about how much trash they leave there but ultimately they're better than most adults). Literally such a dream. they encourage each other to be emotionally healthy and they protect each other from "danger". Like they'll help each other achieve their dreams as they come (and new dreams show up pretty often because they're young kids).

And they're so funny! Like genuinely these kids are so earnest and intelligent and incredibly humorous and full of heart! They have full lives and they live them to the fullest out in nature after school, on the weekends, and in the summer. It's one of the best representations of found family I have ever seen in a cartoon, and I absolutely love it.

Also several of the writers behind the show are POC and queer (I think the head writers are all Black but I could be wrong), so you know that it was written well and the representation is awesome like I know that it should absolutely go without saying, but representation is much more than just showing BIPOC people on screen, and in terms of cartoons I haven't seen that many shows understanding that fact except maybe the Proud Family, Fat Albert, and a few others whose names will return to me once I've taken my ADHD meds. But the point is that Craig of the Creek gets it right. Most of the characters throughout the show (from what I've seen) are BIPOC, and you can tell that there are caring nods to BIPOC communities (primarily Black American communities), and more than that, that the writers know what they're talking about and are deeply familiar with and are a part of those communities. Craig, the titular character, is a young Black boy, and his family are middle class and ultimately very successful Black people. Kelsey (one of the main characters) is Jewish and Polish, and written with more complexity than having a one and done Hanukah celebration. The Creek's main business, a trading post, is run by Kit, a young Black girl with a love for economy and business. And many other characters are racial or ethnic minorities as well, and it warms my heart to see these characters done justice time and time again.

There's great subtle queer rep too, and you can tell it wasn't written just for the sake of representation, like it was thought out and intentional, and it worked beautifully. There are queer witches, and there are no labels applied to them, they're just allowed to exist with no explanations, happily in love with one another. There's a non-binary character later in the series (I'm only like 10 episodes in so I haven't met them yet but I've read amazing things about them). Kelsey also apparently identifies as a lesbian later in the series (I say "apparently" because I haven't done much reading so as to avoid spoilers, not because I am discounting her identity). On top of that, JP (one of the main characters) has a sister who is dating another girl.

There's also a significant amount of body positivity in the show, at least far than I've seen elsewhere. Not only do they openly say "all bodies are beautiful" and follow up on that by defending one another, there's also very little need to defend one another, because there's a very unspoken and deep respect in the Creek for things like body type, skin colour, disabilities, and so on. The kids of the creek, and their grown ups, are all different body types, and given their penchant for community and uplifting one another, it's no wonder they all seem confident in their bodies.

Not to mention the disability representation. There is a character later on in the series who is Black and deaf, and he not only speaks in Sign Language, but in Black American Sign Language. In addition, though unconfirmed, many of the kids in the creek embody aspects of various neurotypes. For example, the three main characters, Craig, Kelsey, and JP all come across as neurodivergent, with special interests, neurodivergent ways of thinking, and so on. Some have speculated that JP has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a disability often comorbid with ADHD. Not to mention that all the kids in the creek embody different special interests, most of which would be considered weird or frowned upon in everyday society, but that are given the opportunity to shine and flourish in the Creek's accepting culture.

Take the Horse Girls for example, a small clique of girls who roleplay as horses in a pasture near the Creek, and of course many of their behaviours are played as jokes, but ultimately they are accepted and involved in many adventures because of their unique interests and abilities which are ultimately how they aid the rest of the Creek. Every kid is a useful and accepted part of the Creek, with the exception of the ranger scout kids, who are essentially the same as cops, who are often exploitative, rude, and disruptive to the community as a whole.

Ultimately, the show is one of love, friendship, community, and acknowledging differences as a natural and helpful part of life. On top of that, it's not copaganda! What more could you want?

[johannestevans]

OKAY SO. i'm building this new website.

i'm having a tag system to hopefully make it searchable by some of the vectors by which you can search ao3 - rating, so you can search all for Explicit, character tags, theme and kink tags

i am CONSIDERING putting in a "representation" category but idk

so it would be like. Representation: Trans Male Character or similar

which i feel fine about doing for trans chars or even like, jewish chars, but like. Representation: Disabled Character is shit bc i write a lot of different disabilities. i could maybe have like. autism. uses mobility aids. etc

i do write mostly white european characters more than i do any others just bc i'm a white european and i don't tend to bring up my works to describe the racial identities of non-white characters unless i'm particularly warning for racism, bc i don't really want to be like

"ooh look at my story and how racially diverse it is" as a selling point when at the end of the day i am a white guy and it's not own voices - it's the difference between genuine representation and depiction

with that said, i think it will feel shitty to have rep tags for queerness etc but not race

i also think it would be nasty as hell to be like. Representation: Asexual Character, Representation: Trans Male Character, Representation: Use of Mobility Aids, Representation: POC

but how specific should my tags get? i mostly write white brit&irish etc chars, and then Black british, british asians

bc the thing is like. i am gonna have theme tags like Theme: Transmasculinity, but that's specifically a work that's about transmasc gender feelings, not just having a transmasc character in it, and most of my works with characters of colour aren't about racism or race as a theme

esp bc like. when it comes to my representation of like. jews and catholics and anglicans, grand; i have a few muslim and sikh chars but the majority of these don't have enough focus on them in their stories to have a tag

but religion is decently easy to categorise, whereas race is so broad

i'm not worried about like. ~offending~ people, more that like… as much as possible as someone who doesn't experience racism, i want ppl who do experience different forms of racial or ethnic marginalisation to be pleasantly surprised by my work at MOST, and at least just be able to relax with it

so many works contain random nasty surprises in terms of lacking depth of say, Black characters or Desi chars, or when it comes to religion or ethnicity, or where it just feels like the author doesn't give a shit in a way that can feel dismissive, and i basically just want to offer. more

if you're someone who reads my work and you come from a marginalised ethnicity or are someone who's not white european, and specifically like, if you're someone who particularly looks for chars of certain races or backgrounds when i write them, what would feel most useful and valuable to you?

[seasononesam]

I don’t think Dean would complain about “woke bullshit” and here is my reasoning. Sit down welcome to my TEDx talk. I’m mostly talking about s1-6 bc that’s what I know best sorry. Maybe in season 7 he gets brain worms but I don’t know her.

Anyway:

1. I find complaining about Woke a very petty and annoying thing. Dean is a different brand of annoying. And also he’s a character I like so I said so.

2. Much of Dean’s machismo is an act. He performs that intense kind of rugged masculinity well but it is generally a performance borne out of insecurity. At his core Dean is a character that is compassionate nurturing and caring. Complaining about The Woke comes from many places but part of it is a lack of interest, desire, or inability to empathise with people different than oneself. This is incompatible with Dean at his core.

3. Dean is a dramatic motherfucker who loves soap operas. I think that the opportunity for drama that ‘woke bullshit’ (queer rep/people of colour/whatever) introduces would be appealing to him. There’s only so many times love triangles can formulate before you need to mix it up by making one of them gay or trans or disabled. This also makes him somewhat resistant to the stilted writing style that can sometimes accompany Woke Bullshit (overly correct labels, for instance).

4. Dean has bigger problems than The Woke. Eg: the devil, the apocalypse, his Dad, etc.

5. Part of the anxiety that people have when faced with The Woke is the idea that the world is changing from what they knew when they were young. Language, characters, what kinds of things are seen as appealing - part of it is certainly bigotry (and I don’t think Dean is a bigot) but part of it is the fear of losing touch with a world one used to be familiar with and having to learn new rules to navigate social and cultural scripts. The world has never been familiar to Dean due to the fact his dad killed monsters and he had to raise himself and Sam.

6. If he ever did complain about The Woke it would just be to get a rise out of Sam because that’s funny.

To conclude I don’t think he’d complain about woke bullshit except to make Sam mad. The end thanks for listening

me agreeing with all this and thinking this is a nuanced and well thought out take vs the side of me that also thinks his reaction to the female ghostbusters movie would be this

[softness-and-shattering]

Okay its taken me a day to realise.

The movie has way more PoC characters (characters of colour?) than the original movie. In fact I think of named characters, only Cady, Regina, Mrs Norberry, Regina's mom and Cady's mother are white. And Aaron Samuels. I dont know about Shane Omen because he has all of four seconds on screen.

Its also a much more queer movie, with Janis allowed to expressly be a lesbian and have a girlfriend, Damian has a crush, and there are background queer couples.

As I noted in my review above, no disabled rep and only one fat person. And. Gretchen is no longer Jewish. Her one line about getting white-gold hoops for Hanukkah that Regina disapproved is has been swapped for a music box from her abuelita. (Is that the same as abeula?).

And that just pisses me off. She was already very sub-par as Jewish representation, I dont know if one Hannukah mention is better or worse than one line about not celebrating Xmas or being a bad Jew for eating bacon, as this kind of one-line rep goes. But at least it was there, and then its been erased.

(The musical has a weird line in her introduction about, iirc, being seated at Reginas right hand "like a Jewish princess Jesus", whatever that means. Pretty bullshit but still something.)

And yknow what, she could be ?hispanic and also Jewish, thats even rarer as representation goes.

And it just brings to mind the MCU not only wiping Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch's Jewish and Roma identities, but putting Witch in a cross necklace.

And it reminds me of A League Of Their Own which despite other really excellent rep, and despite having Jews working on it at multiple levels, has a sole Jewish character who is not only stereotypically neurotic and annoying, but is also homophobic and a minor antagonist.

Its like we've gotten so used to being self-deprecating to seek acceptance that we've forgotten that we deserve more than that? And not to victim blame because others are absolutely making these decisions.

Whiteness and Judaism is a complex discussion, but like, ok write stories about and cast Jews of colour. It would be very US-binary thinking about race and ethnicity, and Id still be annoyed about that, but it would be a massive step up from where we are now. Hello can we get decent Jewish representation in mainstream movies?? And at least not lose what little rep currently exists?

About the Mean Girls musical movie

I know Ive had conversations before about the cultural context stuff, that it seems like the message was not as effective as the first movie when the stuff its talking about, how girls are wrong whatever they do and everything is up for criticism and filming, and you have to pretend to be sweet and kind fairy princesses instead of being allowed to be human. And Id have to go back and find those posts to see what I do and dont agree with now. Because I just saw the movie. And honestly, I liked it. A lot of the visuals were really fun and interesting, which I think is impressive in a movie that mostly takes place inside of a high school. Regina more than once looks like she's in a music video, and that works because shes so hyped, its like she lives in a reality where not only do people break into song, but she's always in a music video. She really sells the character, self-assured and in charge and perfectly manipulative, and even when she's being vulnerable you're like, but is this another deception? She's more villainous in this version, and by the end maybe more human as well. (also the costuming is phenomenal, that Halloween angel dress?? The entire Halloween Someone Get Hurts sequence might be my favourite. )

Also Renee Rapp, who plays Regina, is just incredibly hot. She also played Regina on Broadway so it makes sense she has the character down. Thats not film critique thats my personal admiration. Its almost a little silly with the "oh no Regina is gaining weight she cant fit her clothes" because she looks amazing. [Edit: She's also obviously - I was gonna say she seems older than the other "teens" but actually she's 24, so Im having a moment of feeling old. And she's actually the same age as Auli'i Cravalho who is a lot younger in my mind because holy shit Moana came out EIGHT years ago?? Angourie Rice/Cady is 23, Jaquel Spivy/Damian is 26, Avantika/Karen is 19, thats more the age I thought they were but not the cast seems to be mostly 23-26. Its so weird when times moves the same for people while your image of them in your head stays the same. So Rapp isn't older she's just a bit bigger (neutral/positive). And she's been playing the role for a long time. And Im allowed to find her hot because she's a goddamn adult and so am I. This paragraph is not critique it is me blogging on my blog. Now Im annoyed at myself for Caveats of Fear but Im gonna stop dwelling on that now.]

On that note, though I originally liked the musical quite a lot, the significant fatphobia in it soured it for me. And Im happy to say in the musical movie, they changed or omitted those lines. I was waiting to cringe and they just sang something else. So that was great. I think the only fat character was Damian (why does that suddenly look like a vampire name?) - Jaquel Spivy - and he seemed comfy and cool, no self deprecating fat jokes or anything. Generally the lines/jokes that were uncomfortable or a bit bigoted have been changed. Though there isnt any disability rep, and theres a random character the burn book claims puts alcohol in her inhaler, like a 3 second joke.

And the big thing is that a lot of the meanness is shown in montages of vertical video and comments - no-brand tiktok obviously - and I think thats pretty realistic, and also in the original theme of not being mean to peoples faces but talking all kinds of shit behind their backs. And I think the montage format is effective in mimicking that endless scroll eyes glazing over stuck in the doom scroll/stuck in the spectacle. The music was good. I really liked how they overlaid the Spring Fling/thematic music with the math competition. If anything, Cady is not as good of a character, her Plastic switch is basically overnight, the scene with Aaron at the party is still kinda of awkward, she doesnt get as much room to breathe, while almost everyone else comes off really well. Heck even the candy cane/glen coco guy did well, I was actually suprised at how differently and yet excellently the actors acted their lines, compared both to the previous movie and the musical. Auli'i is fantastic, scary Janis is *scary*. And I simultaneously want to be her best friend. (It certainly helps that her art is augmented with embroidery and she's carrying embroidery hoops in multiple scenes. Fiber arts my loves.)

When I first saw a trailer my thoughts were "ugh we dont need another movie of this," but I think Ive changed my mind. Its similar enough and different enough that for me its a good adaptation. Also - I almost forgot to say - Janis gets a girlfriend for Spring Fling. Its not a plot point, we're just montaging getting ready and Janis goes to pick her up (in the lavender suit), and Damian is taking photos with two other sapphic couples. And he gets a crush/admirer who again, is just there to be there and doesnt interfere with the main story. I might change my mind again once its had time to settle in my thoughts, but initial impression is that its a fun movie I would watch again. Maybe we want the social commentary to be more incisive than it is, and in the end it is entertainment that needs to not be too boring to hold peoples shortening attention spans. (also neutral). Maybe thats wishing for it to be a movie that its not trying to be, and thats always a recipe for disappointment and also not great or fair analysis. What a fantastic line to end on*.

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

do you think there is any significance that alex's colour scheme is green and pink? or do you think rr went "u know what this character needs? to look like a watermelon"

((Prefacing this by saying that I'm giving RR way too much credit here, but you shouldn't take anything an author does for granted— even a serial author who often makes blunders and mistakes.))

A while ago I saw a (pretty unfair) assumption that RR made it green and pink because blue and pink would be too obvious, but that his intention was obviously to reinforce the gender binary by using two distinctly gendered colors for a character with two distinct genders. Of course, they did not phrase it so delicately. No offense to whoever made that post, but I disagree.

Although that may have had to do with it, there's other things to consider. One of them is color symbolism. And oh. OH. I ADORE symbolism— especially flower/plant symbolism (Language of the Flowers and all that jazz), seasonal symbolism (there's a reason that evermore is my second favorite Taylor Swift album), and color symbolism.

GREEN

Let's talk about green first. Green can symbolize a lot of different things, and there are a few that can be applied to Alex's character. The most obvious thing that green often represents is jealousy— hence the expression "green with envy." But envy is not really one of Alex's character traits. Feel free to argue with me if you think that Alex is significantly envious. Just because I couldn't think of substantial textual evidence for it does not mean that there isn't any.

One of the traits that Alex does have is wealth. Green is the color of American currency, and since both RR and Alex are American, it's safe to take an American lens while looking at this color. Alex's socioeconomic background effects her in a big way. I mentioned in a previous post that I think that Alex's fatal flaw is her sense of entitlement. That kind of entitlement is a quality not exclusive to but common among the upper class. However, her distance from her wealthy background enhances the sense of irony in the story, which is a VERY big thing that we NEVER talk about within the fandom.

This is kind of a little thing, but it's worth noting that when it comes to Valhalla and everything, Alex is "green"— as in new and inexperienced.

The color green also emphasizes Alex's connection with nature. This is one of the parts of Alex's character that the fandom consistently underplays, which is an absolute shame. I don't think I have to explain why the color green is associated with all things natural. Alex's association with nature provides a few key things to her character:

It makes her a more well-rounded character. Another criticism of Alex I believe is totally unfounded is that "being genderfluid is her only personality trait because it influences her philosophy on pottery, which is her only hobby." I'm probably going to make another post in, like, a few minutes about why I find that argument a little silly, but the primary problem is that pottery is not Alex's only hobby. She also loves camping, hiking, and ice wall climbing (I bet y'all forgot about that last one!)

It gives her a connection with Magnus. I mentioned in a previous post that Magnus and Alex are foils, but I neglected to bring up why that also makes for very good chemistry between them. Of course, yes, they have different goals and philosophy, which is what makes them foils in the first place. But foil relationships function best when the characters also share some traits. As it turns out, Alex and Magnus share several hobbies, and one of them is a mutual love for nature. This is a very unexplored thing in fics. Start doing it more plz.

Finally, and this one's kind of minor, but the Alex's green gives her a connection to Natalie. I know, whenever Alex and Natalie are compared, either in canon or in fandom, everybody kind goes "eww. Oedipus complex." Which is very fair and true. But they really do have a lot of similarites. The green of Alex's hair and clothes connects her to the green of Natalie's eyes. It's worth saying, too, that Alex has one amber eye— and amber is pretty close to dirty blonde, like Natalie's hair.

If I had more faith in RR, I might bring up the concept of intextuality and how Alex wearing green is an allusion to The Great Gatsby and how Alex is elusive to Magnus, just like Daisy is to Gatsby. But I don't.

PINK

To give credit to the person who wrote the post I mentioned at the beginning of this spiel, I do believe that part of the reason pink was used was to support femininity. Please keep in mind that Alex dresses in an androgynous way— not that there is an actually "gendered" way to dress, since gender as we perceive it is mostly made up. But Alex's existence as a transfemme person (which I will maintain until my dying day) means that pink has a certain significance to her. A lot of AMAB people embrace traditionally feminine things because if they don't, they will not be accepted as genuine women or genuine nonbinary folks, since masculine dress is unisex and kind of the default. So Alex wearing pink probably had something to do with her gender, yes. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's certainly not an unrealistic thing.

Speaking of Alex's gender in relation to the color pink, let's talk about pink's use as a queer rights symbol. Alex was RR's first character to be introduced as a queer character from the start. This was not an insignificant thing, especially in the year of our Lord 2016 (which, despite popular belief, seriously had an entirely different landscape of queer rep. Though it's commonplace now to include genderqueer characters, it was exceptional at the time— especially by such an accomplished and mainstream children's author.).

Let's go back in time to Nazi Germany. Some of you might know this, but for those of you don't this transition must seem jarring. I swear there's a point. In addition to Jews, Romani individuals, people with disabilities, and Poles (among others), gay men were victimized by the Nazis. If you're wondering why lesbians weren't persecuted, it's because the Nazis didn't see them as a serious political threat, or as a threat to the perpetuation of the Aryan race since they assumed gay women could be forcefully impregnated if need be. Yeah, ew. Anyway, much like the Star of David being used to mark Jewish people, gay men were forced into concentration camps and forced to wear a pink triangle. Years later, after the gay population somewhat recovered, the pink triangle was reclaimed and used as a symbol for gay men. Some people who were not gay men used it, too, but that's somewhat controversial since it wasn't their symbol to reclaim. When the first pride flag was created, it had a pink stripe at the top to signify sex (this was later dropped so flags could be more easily produced). The pink triangle (inverted) was used during the AIDs epidemic with the caption "Silence=Death."

My point is that this is a very important color to queer folks. Having one of the first genderfluid characters in kid's lit wear pink...... I mean, it makes sense.

The last and final thing that pink represents, in this context and in general, is innocence. Granted, this kind of connects to feminitity since women (especially white women) are often infantalized and seen as innocent— which is another issue. In any case, the use of pink to represent innocence in Alex's dress is ironic. Alex has been robbed of her childhood innocence, first by her abusive parents, then by her life on the streets, and then by her eventual death at age sixteen. But then she actually regains her innocence. At the beginning of the—

Hold on. I just had a revelation. I'll make a post about it soon.

At the beginning of SotD, Alex is acting a little childish. The most obvious example is him jumping on Randolph's bed to "make noise." Alex's life is stable and relatively healthy for the first time in the years, and she experiences something that a lot of queer folks experience: a re-emergence of childhood at a late stage.

I imagine you didn't expect a post this long. I either make essay responses to asks or I add on one sentence and post it. Oops. Anyway, I believe the mcga fandom can be more creative than calling Alex a watermelon. Here are some other (kinda romantic) pink-and-green alternatives:

Roses

Dragonfruit

Grapefruit

Cherry blossom trees

[lonelier-version-of-you]

I... I don’t even know what to say. Once again, Paula’s storyline has left me speechless. I’m in awe. Another incredible episode in a truly incredible storyline.

I’m trying to come up with more words, but I just... I’m just blown away. I know I said it earlier, but I’ll say it again: there is no denying that the Paula storyline is not only the strongest story on Casualty right now, but the strongest story between Casualty and Holby combined.

I just. Where do I even start? The BAFTA-worthy acting from Rosie Jones and William Beck? The consistently brilliant writing? The importance of covering a topic like this? The horrifically realistic depictions of ableism? It’s just incredible all around. Best storyline in years.

The friendship between Dylan and Paula is beautifully yet heartbreakingly written. Two disabled people, both with a history of mental illness, both survivors of abuse. Both having their own traumatic histories with how awful the system is, both well aware of the bias against them. The fact that Dylan’s sticking with Paula because he genuinely cares about her and is loyal to her... but also because he knows there’s no one else to help her fight in her corner. The way it’s just the two of them up against the world.

It’s incredibly complex writing, and so realistic, and shows yet again why I say Casualty is one of the best shows on television for disability representation. Can you imagine Holby ever having done a storyline like this? I know I can’t. (Say what you want about Holby, praise it for whatever else you want, but you really can’t deny that Casualty is the better show at disability representation. Casualty has, or has had respectively, main characters like Dylan and Jade, recurring characters like Paula, guest characters like Jules tonight. Holby has... Jason. The difference is shocking.)

I might post later about the actual specific scenes between Dylan and Paula, but I don’t think I have the words to analyse them tonight. All I can say is they were fantastic. Again, Will and Rosie were incredible. And I loved the range of emotions the writing evoked - there were moments of joy and lightheartedness, yet still so much sadness and melancholy. It was fantastic.

The guest storyline with Jules and Sian was very good. It was a wonderful decision, I think, to have a happy storyline with a disabled character at the forefront in the same episode as Paula’s tragedy - a way to address systematic bias while still showing that that bias doesn’t make it hopeless and there are disabled people who live happy lives, too. Paula had to contend with having her own child taken away from her, for the second time. Jules, meanwhile, only had to come to terms with retiring her guide dog... and joyfully made an agreement to have said dog as the ringbearer at her wedding with her girlfriend.

Speaking of which, it was just wonderful to see a lesbian disabled character! Queer disabled people don’t get much representation, so I’ll always appreciate any such rep.

And for anyone wondering, yes, the actress who played Jules (Georgie Morrell) is blind in real life. :) Another point towards Casualty for representation! (Although I still think they need to get a bit more diverse with their disabled characters - it feels like the ones we see are almost always white, so seeing some disabled characters of colour, whether in main, recurring, or guest roles, every once in a while would be good. Other than that, the disability rep on this show is fab. And that one criticism isn’t even an issue with the portrayals we are getting, just with the ones that we aren’t.)

Also, Robyn’s pregnant. That’s a thing. I’m not really invested in Robyn, she’s just kind of bland, so I don’t really care about the outcome of this.

However, even that story I thought was used to very good effect tonight. The fact that Robyn has a choice in whether she wants to bring up another kid... but Paula didn’t. :(

Marty, get as far away from Adi as possible. I was willing to give Adi the benefit of the doubt after his first appearance and then the Christmas episodes, because he seemed like maybe he was just a cog in a bad system, a part of the problem but not a problem himself exactly, but after this and the episode a couple of weeks ago... yeah, I’ve changed my mind. He’s been too awful to Paula. Marty deserves a better man for a boyfriend.

All in all, tonight was fantastic, I definitely cried, I really wanted to write a longer post analysing the Paula storyline and the characters involved in detail but I’m too lost for words over how good the storyline is. My one issue is that I wish Jade were here to be involved in it, given her mother was made to give her up because she was Deaf. But even then, that’s not the show’s fault, Gabriella Leon chose to leave, it’s just all been a case of bad timing.

[raayllum]

I think the reason TDP is left out of queer rep discussions is because it's not as known as other shows with LGBTQ+ representation, which mainly advertize themselves as that while TDP tends to lean more towards adventure, comedy and drama. It could also be because, from my fandom deep dives, some call Duren's queens' death "bury your gays" trope or think the creators simply wanted to make a "woke" show. But these are just my quesses about the matter.

This might be a very cynical slant to take but: I actually think a lot of it has to do with race. Now, queer rep in live action vs animation is very different. M/M ships / pairings still dominate the live action landscape in terms of rep and in terms of fandom. Western animation is one of the only places - as far as I know of - where femslash is actually more represented. And I'm not going to get into why, because it's long and complex and I don't have all the answers there, but we're gonna put a pin in that point because it's relevant for later.

The fact of the matter is that, in spite of cartoon tumblr's insistences that they care about Intersectionality, they don't actually care about disabled or racial representation. And I know this, largely because of how the VLD and SPOP fandoms treat their disabled and darker skinned characters of colour. I was in the VLD fandom for 2.5 years as a Shiro (disabled, chronically & mentally ill queer man of colour) and Allura (Black woman) fan. For SPOP I dabbled in the fandom alone, but my favourites were always Bow, Scorpia, and Adora.

While I have mixed feelings regarding Sh*ra and adore TOH as a very fun and cute show, there are commonalities between them. Just a quick disclaimer: I don't like Catra/Adora (also never shipped Adora/Glimmer) and I think Luz/Amity is adorable. I am acknowledging my shipping preferences, but they actually have very little to do with the sort of analysis I'm doing here, which is on a structural narrative level. But just to get it out of the way, they're there.

Now, the most popular queer ships of the past 5 years have been Keith/Lance, Sokka/Zuko, Catra/Adora, and Luz/Amity. All four are (technically, in CA's case) interracial, with strong corresponding elements between each m/m and f/f pair.

Keith/Lance and Sokka/Zuko both feature a paler angstier boy who's a bit of a loner paired with a more flirtatiously written (whether that's canon for Sokka is debatable) darker skinned boy. CA and Lumity both feature a character who's mean or cruel at first due to their home life, but is eventually reformed. All four ships are rivals or enemies to lovers.

There's a few key differences between CA, Lumity, and Janaya. The first two both feature at least one protagonist (Catra would likely fall under deuteragonist, Amity is a main side character, same as Janai and Amaya; for the record Keith and Lance would have fallen under this as well). Another main difference is that Janai/Amaya is the only one where the rivalry / enemy status is truly reciprocal and completely impersonal. But I think the biggest differences, honestly, between why CA and Lumity are so much more popular than JA?

It's because CA and Luz/Amity offer more projection fodder for things that young teens in particular are going through in regards to Amity and Catra's characters being very easy to project onto, and that both ships hardcore protect White Femininity somewhat at the expense of their darker skinned ladies of colour.

For example: Amity and Adora are both the more feminine ladies in appearance and disposition in some ways, i.e. being in dresses whereas their ship half is in something more masculine leaning (or in Luz's case, a true mix). Again, put a pin this, cause we'll be back to it in a second.

As for projection, Catra and Amity both struggle with having very controlling mothers. They have hard outer shells as a coping mechanism, with the protagonist being someone who opens and softens them up. As such, the shipping content itself tends to hinge on how Catra and Amity feel, over how Luz and Adora feel. Canon reflects this; Amity blushing episodes before Luz does, catching feelings when they're only really just starting to be friends. We're supposed to believe that Catra has "always loved" Adora - in her own words - even though she brainwashed her in season two (which is what Horde Prime, endgame big bad, did to Catra in season five - and we got to see trauma there addressed, but what Catra did to Adora is never brought up ever again), and accepting their happily ever after means accepting that truth.

TOH does a better job at showing why Luz is interested in Amity, first as a friend and then as a love interest. Catra and Adora's relationship is more sloppily handled.

However, one key thing is still there: in season five, the show presents Catra as Adora's saviour: "It doesn't always have to be you! [...] What do you want, Adora?" Likewise, much of Luz and Amity's relationship hinges on Luz, by proxy, transforming Amity's life and helping to free her from her family. In spite of the way Catra is brutal to Adora in the past, her side of the relationship arc in the show with the final season in mind is ultimately about saving the more feminine, white woman she's fallen in love with. (This is also Netossa's entire character arc, btw; we never see her white wife have to fight for her, either.) Amity has very few arcs that aren't related to Luz / her gayness - whereas as Luz has plenty outside of it, which makes it so much better - but relationship wise, Amity hasn't wrought the big transformative changes out of Luz in the same capacity that Luz has created for Amity.

Now reading Catra as brown is complicated for a few different reasons (she's often specifically seen as Latina, and Catra is by far the most sexualized character in the show as well as being the angriest / more aggressive / literally animalistic), but that doesn’t mean it’s a disingenuous reading. Noelle Stevenson themselves has supported it, in fairly typical “I didn’t think through all the implications” fashion SP*P is riddled with.

Now, how does this relate to Janaya? Well for one, Amaya is significantly more masculine presenting in comparison to Janai. Neither deal with parental issues that can be projected onto; Khessa disapproves, but she arguably brings Janai and Amaya together instead, and Janai has her own authority as a political figure. Janaya has a very reciprocal relationship, both taking steps towards the other. The relationship doesn't hinge on one having strong feelings far sooner than the other to justify their redemption arc or their cruelty towards the other. Neither of them are mean, although if one is characterized as more angry or stand offish in a fic, it is often Janai, who is a darker skinned Black woman, because... fandom falls back on stereotypes, I suppose? But related to the projection, is that because Janai and Amaya have a lot of character background that isn't related to each other, they're more complex characters to write. Catra basically doesn't have a motivation outside of Adora and neither does Amity; they kinda exist, within text, to be love interests, even if their characters also have more than that going on personally.

But Janai does not Exist, narratively, just to be Amaya's love interest. Most of her motivations exist outside of Amaya (i.e. Amaya is an obstacle to protecting her people, whereas Catra fights Adora to spite Adora) and Amaya never overtakes them (which can't be said for Amity or Catra; although they're setting aside negative motivations like shame or expectations, those motivations aren't replaced by anything other than their love interests). She has her own interiority, and that makes her less appealing.

Janai and Amaya are going to change each other's lives, yes, but in smaller ways outside of changing things between elves and humans. The fics I've seen that try to give that "Janai doesn't have much of a life outside of Amaya" read (ie. that Janai didn't have many friends growing up) is baffling for a few reasons. The first is that, unlike Rayla or Ezran in canon, there's nothing in canon to support it, and it's a lazier less interesting route for a grown woman who would have camaraderie with her troops (and her two canonical siblings) if nothing else.

There's a lot of interesting think pieces on what gets popular for m/f ships and why that you can read here, but one of those overlaps is the emphasis on dynastic power and - usually the male - 'liberating' the female character from a life she's trapped in. Again: sound familiar at all? And again, is also extremely common for enemies/rivals to lovers ships.

Which is to say: TDP's ship that would've fit the format would've been Rayla/Claudia. Not only are they both white, which definitely helps shipping popularity, but Rayla is the more masculine leaning between the two, and Claudia can't be evil, because she's a quirky feminine white girl! She just needs someone to save her from her father - or, in one oneshot I stumbled upon, a very aggressive Corvus who's attacking Rayla, because making out a Black man as aggressive and violent when he's not that in canon whatsoever so your white lesbians can get together is Progressive, right? Who cares if Rayla is someone she dehumanizes in canon? They can be a power couple together.

But TDP canon didn't give a single damn thing to Rayla/Claudia, and so the ship died out.

Janaya has the dynastic power, but it is privileged to a Black woman, and so is her emotional arc. Amaya will be her queen, not the other way around. Nor are they liberating each other from anything. They are two people who already have most of their shit figured out, figuring out the rest together. It is refreshingly mature, and honestly common with a lot of TDP’s couples, even Rayllum (who has the reciprocal transformative side of things done perfectly). 

So I guess the TLDR version is;

A combination of age demographic of tumblr's animation community; the tropes that Janaya don't fall into that leads to less interrelated projection; and race.

Because let's be honest, a lot of queer rep in fandom is predicated entirely on shipping, which is why bi characters in m/f relationships or interracial representation is given a backseat to Gold Star Gays.

The second thing is that TDP has a Lot going on besides shipping. Any of the main five are pretty equally popular among general fans, everyone gets multiple arcs a season. There's intensive worldbuilding, lore, and history. There's a lot of over arcing plot and platonic foundations / relationships are prioritized (i.e. friends, siblings, etc).

TOH tries to balance between a school show (both familiar) and has actual worldbuilding here and there, which I'm very grateful for. Sh*ra does worldbuilding whenever it feels like it, which is very rare, and dismantles it's emphasis on friendship by having almost literally everyone get into romantic relationships within the last two episodes. The main draws of each of the shows are shipping; TOH privileges Amity's relationship with Luz in terms of emphasized screentime over Gus and Willow, which is strange because Luz never had Friends before, and because it's only started to feel recently (i.e. s2) like she and Amity have a strong friendship outside of crush feelings. Which yeah, as an aro-spec person, is Important to me to get Invested, lmao. Shera has completely stagnant characters, sometimes for entire 6-13 episode long seasons, and the war only matters when the show wants it to, resulting in multiple, very odd and jarring tonal shifts. Both shows struggle with highlighting their men of colour and giving them individual arcs, although again, TOH does significantly better.

But fandom - especially young, queer fandom - doesn't know how to exist in fandom without shipping, and without an extreme emphasis on same sex presenting couples, and are unlearning a lot of their own western imposed whiteness and... Yeah. (That's not to say I'm not unlearning my own, but I'm probably further along than a 16 year old, and I Know I was further along at 16 than a lot of teens on twitter these days, unfortunately.)

TDP just says, "Here are our characters and the world they inhabit, and you just get to observe them." It's complete and utter normalization, for any of the intersections of representation involved. TDP makes their representation Clear and Obvious without making it Important, as an interview, marketing, or in story factor. These characters just get to Be. They get to live and die and love like anyone else. There's no attention drawn to it in the first place, it just is.

But you know, as frustrating as it can be sometimes that TDP doesn't get the credit it deserves, as it is undeniably the show that has made me and a lot of other people along different intersections than me feel the Most Seen, I'd take just getting to Be - even if it's just in a fictional universe for now - over Distinction, any day.

[concerningwolves]

I finished The Irregulars earlier this week and i was going to do a scattered, flippant bullet point “review” as i often do, but after stewing in my feelings about it for a few days i want to talk about this properly, actually.

Something I absolutely adored was the way people’s powers manifested / the way their monstrosity was directly connected to the monstrous things that had happened to them. The concept is that a rip has opened in the universe, which allows something to extend its power into our world. This power grants people supernatural abilities when they seek help by praying/asking spirit boards for guidance/seances etc. The in-world explanation for this is that the rip takes the darkest parts of people and brings those parts to the fore, thus making them do monstrous things. 

(I did feel like the show sometimes contradicted itself, one minute saying that when someone is made into a monster by the cruelty of the world they ought to be met with compassion, the next minute killing off these sympathetic monsters or subjecting them to cruel fates. The fact that Arthur Hilton, a man whose grief and trauma over the deaths of his wife and child drove him to abduct babies, was locked up in Bedlam in a windowless cell left a nasty taste in my mouth. I understand that they needed to have him there for Narrative Purposes, but after using the episode’s climax moment to reveal that this man is suffering – basically to tell us that he isn’t a monster, but someone who needs help – it felt very cheap to use him as a pawn for the plot instead of further exploring that sentiment.)

I’m a HUGE fan of the way the powers reflected the wielder, i.e., Clara (Ep. 4) was sexually abused and given syphilis, which took away her ability to have children. We learn as the episode unfolds that she’s obsessed with the idea of a family because she never had one of her own, and makes little taxidermy family scenes with dead animals. The syphilis made her hate herself and her own skin, so the rip granted her the ability to literally steal people’s faces and become them – an ability she then used to kill the men who abused her with the final goal of assuming the last man’s identity because he had a family. It was a really haunting exploration of monstrosity / what makes us monsters, and it made me go a bit feral with appreciation.

But when the credits of the last episode rolled, I just felt... dissatisfied. I was bitter at how although the casting was supposedly colour-blind, the main villain was a black man and the one “sympathetic monster” who gets killed off (Jean Gates / the Tooth Fairy) was a black woman, both with very dark skin. John Watson, meanwhile, is portrayed by a lighter-skinned POC and although he’s written as cruel, aggressive and threatening, he’s given the chance for a redemption while the Linen Man and Jean Gates get killed off. I’m not entirely comfortable talking about this aspect because i’m white and still very much learning about racist and colourist tropes, but I just kept thinking about the colourism and implicit bias in Bridgerton, and couldn’t help but feel that The Irregulars had fallen into the same or a similar trap? (If anyone has any more thoughts on this I’m happy to listen!)

I didn’t like the fact that the writers decided to acknowledge the homoerotic subtext in ACD’s Holmes canon by making John Watson manipulative and controlling, then justifying that as an act of his (unrequited) love for Sherlock. Like, it wouldn’t be so bad if there were other examples of queer love in the series (save for the one f/f couple at a fancy rich party), but when your only explicitly mlm named character is miserable, alone and pining for an oblivious/uninterested love interest – a love interest who is killed off, may I add – it’s Not Fun. Queer rep doesn’t have to be good and pure or whatever (NBC’s Hannibal, anyone?), but sure would be nice to have some positive representation first! It also seemed to me that John’s redemption was directly tied to him giving up his love for Sherlock, which I was in two minds about. On the one hand, it could be seen as him realising his love had become something deeply toxic and so he had to let Sherlock go (and that really excites me! Complex and angsty relationships are most delicious), but on the other hand it got very close to a Bury Your Gays moment so my feelings the entire time were just :/

Lastly I was super excited about Leopold because disabled character! But it seemed as if his disability just got put to one side unless it was relevant to character arcs and/or plot moments. His leg is absolutely fucked up from the first episode, but he abandons his cane? I did really appreciate the whole “you’re not broken” angle they took, though. I think it was a genuinely good-faith representation, it just didn’t quite hit the mark (which is how I felt about a lot of things in the show tbh, so... :shrugs:) 

To conclude this wall of text: monsters and the takes on monsters were very tasty, and the supernatural elements and worldbuilding filled me with glee; other bits like representation and narrative choices were dissatisfying. i am now tired and out of spoons, will probably come back and clarify this tomorrow.

[to-read-or-not-to-read3088]

70+ disabled, neurodiverse and chronically ill authors COLLAB

This post is in collaboration with several other bloggers whose links are included here:

Artie Carden

Anniek

Hi! It’s been a while since I posted anything, but this post has been a month in the making. I have twenty books by twenty authors for my part in this collaboration, and you can check out the other parts of the collab with the links at the top of the post.

I haven’t read some of these books but almost all of them are on my to be read pile, and I did extensive research to make sure I got this right, but please let me know if there are any mistakes or if anything needs to be corrected.

1. Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

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Meet Cute Diary follows Noah Ramirez who thinks he’s an expert on romance. He must be for his blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem. All the stories are fake. What started off as the fantasies of a trans boy who was afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe. Noah’s world unravels when a troll exposes the blog as fiction, and the only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. That’s when Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place. Drew is willing to fake date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realises that dating in real life isn’t the same as finding love on the page.

The author, Emery Lee, is a kid lit author, artist and YouTuber hailing from a mixed racial background. After graduating with a degree in creative writing, e’s gone on to author novels, short stories and webcomics. When away from reading and writing, you’ll likely find em engaged in art or snuggling with cute dogs.

Emery Lee is nonbinary, and uses e/em pronouns, and e’s debut book, Meet Cute Diary, features a side character who is also nonbinary (and asexual!). Emery is also neurodivergent, and frequently speaks about what its like being a writer with adhd on twitter.

Meet Cute Diary is a book I only discovered last month, when it was published, but I’m excited to read it. It has representation of all kinds, and I love any book that has even a little mention of an asexual character because its so rare to see.

2. Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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At Niveus Private Academy money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because an anonymous texter calling themselves Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light. Devon, a talented musician, buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Chiamaka, head girl, isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they’re planning much more than a high school game.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, is the author of the instant New York Times and IndieBound bestseller, Ace of Spades, billed as ‘Get out meets Gossip Girl’. Entertainment Weekly has called it “this summer’s hottest YA debut”. She was born and raised in Croydon, South London, and Faridah moved to the Scottish Highlands for her undergraduate degree where she completed a BA in English Literature. She has established and runs and mentorship scheme for unagented writers of colour, helping them on their journey to get published. Faridah has also written for NME, The Bookseller, Readers Digest and gal-dem.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s book is one that I pre-ordered months in advance, after discovering that I actually really liked this sub-genre of YA, and although I still haven’t read it yet (sorry!), I’m still super excited to dive into it. From what I hear, it has some gay rep, which we all know by now is something I seek out in my books.

3. Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal

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Priya has worked hard to pursue her pre med dreams at Stanford, but a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease during her sophomore year sends her straight back to her loving but overbearing family in New Jersey and leaves her wondering if she’ll ever be able to return to the way things were. Thankfully she has her online pen pal, Brigid, and the rest of the members of “oof ouch my bones,” a virtual support group that meets on Discord to crack jokes and vent about their own chronic illnesses. When Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya does something very out of character; she steals the family car and drives to Pennsylvania to check on Brigid. Priya isn’t sure what to expect, but it isn’t the creature that’s shut in the basement. With Brigid nowhere in sight, Priya begins to puzzle together an impossible but obvious truth: the creature might be werewolf – and the werewolf might be Brigid. As Brigid’s unique condition worsens, their friendship will be deepened and challenged in unexpected ways, forcing them to reckon with their own ideas of what it means to be normal.

Kristen O’Neal is a freelance writer who’s written for sites like Buzzfeed Reader, Christianity Today, Birth.Movies.Death, LitHub and Electric Literature. She writes about faith, culture, and unexplained phenomena. Her debut novel, Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is based on her own experiences with being chronically ill. Kristen has two autoimmune disorders and “a number of other problems and issues” with her body. According to her website, she is doing much better than she used to, but still has flares somewhat regularly.

I cannot describe the feeling of seeing a published book with the best group chat name I have ever seen. Oof ouch my bones is absolutely something that I would be part of if it really existed, because its just such a mood, and funny at the same time. I pre ordered this book too, but like all the others, I still haven’t gotten around to reading it. I’m super excited about it though and cannot recommend it enough.

4. Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

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Will Tavares is the dream summer fling – he’s fun, affectionate, kind – but just when Ollie thinks he’s found his Happily Ever After, summer vacation ends, and Will stops texting Ollie back. Now Ollie is one prince short of his fairy tale ending, and to complicate the fairy tale further, a family emergency sees Ollie uprooted and enrolled at a new school across the country. Which he minds a little less when he realises it’s the same school Will goes to…except Ollie finds out that the sweet, comfortably queer guy he knew from summer isn’t the same one attending Collinswood High. This Will is a class clown, closeted – and to be honest, a jerk. Ollie has no intention of pining after a guy who clearly isn’t ready for a relationship, especially since this new, bro-y jock version of Will seems to go from hot to cold every other week. But then Will starts “coincidentally” popping up in every area of Ollie’s life, from music class to the lunch table, and Ollie finds his resolve weakening. The last time he gave Will his heart, Will handed it back to him trampled and battered. Ollie would have to be an idiot to trust him with it again. Right? Right.

Sophie Gonzales was born and raised in Whyalla, South Australia, where the Outback Meets the Sea. She now lives in Melbourne, where there’s no outback in sight. Sophie’s been writing since the age of five, when her mother decided to help her type out one of the stories she had come up with in the bathtub. They ran into artistic differences when five-year-old Sophie insisted that everybody die in the end, while her mother wanted the characters to simply go out for a milkshake. Since then, Sophie has been completing her novels without a transcript. Sophie Gonzales tweets about her experiences with ADHD on her twitter.

Only mostly devasted is one of the few books on this list that I’ve read. I read the whole thing in one sitting because I just couldn’t put it down, which is weird because I normally don’t read contemporary at all. I have recommended this book to literally everyone I know, and even bought my best friend a copy to convince her to read it.

5. The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd Jones

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Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family, and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meagre existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead. The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good? Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.

Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. After graduating from Western Oregon University with an English degree, she enrolled in the publishing program at Rosemont College just outside of Philadelphia. She currently resides in Northern California.

Another book on my to be read pile that I’m super excited to read, but still haven’t gotten around to. This one features disability rep, but because I haven’t read it, I don’t know much more, sorry guys.

6. Mooncakes by Susanne Walker and Wendy Xu

📷Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers' bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town. One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home. Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

Suzanne Walker is a Chicago-based writer and editor. She is co-creator of the Hugo-nominated graphic novel Mooncakes (2019, Lion Forge/Oni Press). Her short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld and Uncanny Magazine, and she has published nonfiction articles with Uncanny Magazine, StarTrek.com, Women Write About Comics, and the anthology Barriers and Belonging: Personal Narratives of Disability. She has spoken at numerous conventions on a variety of topics ranging from disability representation in sci-fi/fantasy to comics collaboration.

Wendy Xu is a Brooklyn-based illustrator and comics artist. She is co-creator of and currently draws the webcomic Mooncakes. Her work has been featured on Tor.com, as part of the Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion exhibit permanently housed at the Chinese Historical Society of America, and in Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. She occasionally teaches at the Asian American Writers Workshop and currently works as an assistant editor curating young adult and children’s books.

Suzanne Walker suffers from hearing loss, something that she wrote into her graphic novel, Mooncakes, making Nova hard of hearing. I read this in a few years ago as an advance reader copy for Netgalley and it was honestly one of the best graphic novels I have ever read. The main characters are Chinese American, queer AND magic, which is an amazing combination of representation.

7. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone… A convict with a thirst for revenge A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager A runaway with a privileged past A spy known as the Wraith A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy novels and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, The Language of Thorns, and King of Scars—with more to come. Her short stories can be found in multiple anthologies, including the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy. Her other works include Wonder Woman: Warbringer and Ninth House (Goodreads Choice Winner for Best Fantasy 2019) which is being developed for television by Amazon Studios.

Leigh grew up in Southern California and graduated from Yale University. These days she lives and writes in Los Angeles.

In the acknowledgements section of Six of Crows, Bardugo reveals she suffers from osteonecrosis and sometimes needs to use a cane; this was a source of inspiration for one of the story's six protagonists, master thief and gang boss Kaz Brekker, who uses a cane.

I read Six of Crows a few years ago and I really loved it. I’m not going to pretend I managed to finish the whole Grishaverse series, because I haven’t even gotten close yet, but it really showed Kaz’s struggles with his disability, and his mental health. This is part of a duology, and the duology is part of a large series of books with another duology and trilogy, but Six of Crows can be read without reading the others.

8. Hyperbole and A Half by Allie Brosh

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This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So, I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Allie is an American blogger, writer and comic artist best known for her blog in the form of a webcomic Hyperbole and a Half. Brosh started Hyperbole in 2009 and told stories from her life in a mix of text and intentionally crude illustrations. She has published two books telling stories in the same style, both of which have been New York Times bestsellers. Brosh lives with severe depression and ADHD, and her comics on depression have won praise from fans and mental health professionals.

Another book on my tbr that I just haven’t gotten around to but really want to.

9. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

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What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just must find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions...

Patrick Ness, an award-winning novelist, has written for England’s Radio 4 and Sunday Telegraph and is a literary critic for The Guardian. He has written many books, including the Chaos Walking Trilogy, The Crash of Hennington, Topics About Which I Know Nothing, and A Monster Calls. He has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Born in Virginia, he currently lives in London.

Patrick Ness has written about OCD and anxiety in at least two of his books, inspired by his own experiences with the two disorders and how it affects him (The Rest of Us Just Live Here & Release)

10. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.

Seanan lives in an idiosyncratically designed labyrinth in the Pacific Northwest, which she shares with her cats, Alice and Thomas, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She has strongly held and oft-expressed beliefs about the origins of the Black Death, the X-Men, and the need for chainsaws in daily life.

Years of writing blurbs for convention program books have fixed Seanan in the habit of writing all her bios in the third person, to sound marginally less dorky. Stress is on the "marginally." It probably doesn't help that she has so many hobbies.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.

Seanan McGuire has an invisible disability due to herniated disks in her spine. She is slowly coming to terms with this, and talks about it occasionally on her twitter, and about the struggles she faces.

I loved this book, and so did my best friend. We both read it in one sitting and talked nonstop about it afterwards. Although short, its filled with amazing characters, plot, and representation (asexual character!!)

11. Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honour they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead 📷of paper, she's made of fire. In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it's Lei they're after -- the girl with the golden eyes whose rumoured beauty has piqued the king's interest. Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king's consort. There, she does the unthinkable -- she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world's entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.

Natasha Ngan is a writer and yoga teacher. She grew up between Malaysia, where the Chinese side of her family is from, and the UK. This multicultural upbringing continues to influence her writing, and she is passionate about bringing diverse stories to teens. Ngan studied Geography at the University of Cambridge before working as a social media consultant and fashion blogger. She lives in France with her partner, where they recently moved from Paris to be closer to the sea. Her novel Girls of Paper and Fire was a New York Times bestseller. Natasha has a heart condition, and talks about her struggles with her health, and gives updates on her health and her books on twitter.

I’ve heard a lot about this book, but for trigger warning reasons it sadly isn’t on my to be read list. Everything I’ve heard about it says its an amazing book though, and the cover is beautiful.

12. Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

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Three friends, two love stories, one convention: this fun, feminist love letter to geek culture is all about fandom, friendship, and finding the courage to be yourself. Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought. Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favourite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Jen Wilde is the YA author of QUEENS OF GEEK, THE BRIGHTSIDERS and GOING OFF SCRIPT. She writes unapologetically queer stories about geeks, rockstars, and fangirls who smash the patriarchy in their own unique ways. Her books have been praised in Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Vulture and Bustle. Originally from Australia, Jen now lives in NYC where she spends her time writing, drinking too much coffee and binging reality TV.

Researching for this collab was the first time this book popped up on my radar as something I might be interested in reading. Jen Wilde, the author, is herself autistic and suffers from anxiety, which gives the narrative “authenticity that is lacking in similar books” according to socialjusticebooks.org.

13. The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

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Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So, she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. There’s only one problem: Molly’s co-worker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Becky Albertalli is the author of the acclaimed novels Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (film: Love, Simon), The Upside of Unrequited, and Leah on the Offbeat. She is also the co-author of What If It's Us with Adam Silvera. A former clinical psychologist who specialized in working with children and teens, Becky lives with her family in Atlanta.

Becky Albertalli has generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and has spoken about it in several interviews, which you can find online. She has also written several characters in her books who also suffer with anxiety. Her first book, Simon vs the Homosapien’s Agenda (or Love, Simon), is the only book of hers that I have read so far, and I loved it. It was the first contemporary book that I read and actually enjoyed.

14. Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth

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Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra’s current gift gives her pain and power—something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother’s hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows. Akos is the son of a farmer and an oracle from the frozen nation-planet of Thuvhe. Protected by his unusual currentgift, Akos is generous in spirit, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get his brother out alive—no matter what the cost. Then Akos is thrust into Cyra's world, and the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. Will they help each other to survive, or will they destroy one another?

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection), the Carve the Mark duology (Carve the Mark, the Fates Divide), The End and Other Beginnings collection of short fiction, and many short stories and essays. Her first book for adult audiences, Chosen Ones, is out now. She lives in Chicago.

Veronica Roth suffers from anxiety, like a lot of the authors on this list, and talks about it in interviews. A quote from one: "I've had an anxiety disorder my whole life, so I've been to therapy on and off throughout, before books and after books. I went back and tried to talk through some of the things I was feeling and experiencing, and it was helpful."

I’ve never read any of her books, not even the hugely famous Divergent trilogy, though they’ve been on my radar for years. I’d love to get into her books at some point, but it might take me a few years.

15. How to be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe

📷An urgent, funny, shocking, and impassioned memoir by the winner of the Spectrum Art Prize 2018, How To Be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe presents the rarely shown point of view of someone living with autism. Poe’s voice is confident, moving and often funny, as they reveal to us a very personal account of autism, mental illness, gender and sexual identity. As we follow Charlotte’s journey through school and college, we become as awestruck by their extraordinary passion for life as by the enormous privations that they must undergo to live it. From food and fandom to body modification and comic conventions, Charlotte’s experiences through the torments of schooldays and young adulthood leave us with a riot of conflicting emotions: horror, empathy, despair, laugh-out-loud amusement and, most of all, respect. For Charlotte, autism is a fundamental aspect of their identity and art. They address the reader in a voice that is direct, sharply clever and ironic. They witness their own behaviour with a wry humour as they sympathise with those who care for them, yet all the while challenging the neurotypical narratives of autism as something to be ‘fixed’. This is an exuberant, inspiring, life-changing insight into autism from a viewpoint almost entirely missing from public discussion. ‘I wanted to show the side of autism that you don’t find in books and on Facebook. My story is about survival, fear and, finally, hope. There will be parts that make you want to cover your eyes, but I beg you to read on, because if I can change just one person’s perceptions, if I can help one person with autism feel like they’re less alone, then this will all be worth it.’ Charlotte Amelia Poe is a self-taught artist and writer living in Lowestoft, Suffolk. They also work with video and won the inaugural Spectrum Art Prize with the film they submitted, 'How to Be Autistic’. Myriad published Charlotte's memoir, How to Be Autistic, in September 2019.

Another book I didn’t know about until researching for this post, but I really want to read it because I haven’t read many books about autism, and practically none of them were actually written by someone who actually is autistic. Charlotte uses they/them pronouns.

16. Ask me about my Uterus by Abby Norman

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For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issues In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and grey hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a pre-existing condition.

Abby Norman’s debut book, ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain, was published by Bold Type Books (Hachette Book Group) in 2018, with advance praise from Gillian Anderson, Lindsey Fitzharris, Jenny Lawson, and Padma Lakshmi.

The book was praised by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, Book Riot, Toronto Star, ELLE, Health Magazine, Undark Magazine, BUST Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Ms. Magazine, BBC Radio 5, and other international media outlets.

​In 2019, the paperback edition was published in the U.S. and the Korean translation in Seoul (Momento Publishing/Duran Kim Agency).

​Her work has been featured in Harper’s, Medium, The Independent, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and elsewhere. Interviews and profiles have been seen and heard, including NPR/WNYC, BBC, Anchor.fm, The New York Times, Playboy, Forbes, Glamour, Women’s Health, and Bitch Magazine.

Abby Norman suffers from endometriosis, which was a large part of why she wrote her book, and why she advocates so hard for fellow patients at conferences such as Stanford University’s Stanford Medicine X and the Endometriosis Foundation of America’s medical conference and Patient Day. She is

Abby has served on technical expert panels including the National Partnership for Women and Families’ CORE Network (Yale University), the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid, The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), and Health Affairs.

​In 2019, Abby contributed to a paper addressing research gaps and unmet needs in endometriosis published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

This book is definitely one I will be adding to my to be read list, as someone who (unfortunately) also has a uterus, it is important to be informed. And Abby sounds like such a badass who wrote a whole book about her chronic illness to help others with the same condition.

17. Stim: Autistic Anthology by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

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Around one in one hundred people in the UK are autistic, yet there remains a fundamental misunderstanding of what autism is. It is rare that autistic people get to share their own experiences, show how creative and talented and passionate they are, how different they are from media stereotypes. This insightful and eye-opening collection of essays, fiction and visual art showcases the immense talents of some of the UK's most exciting writers and artists - who just happen to be on the spectrum. Here they reclaim the power to speak for themselves and redefine what it means to be autistic. Stim invites the reader into the lives, experiences, minds of the eighteen contributors, and asks them to recognise the hurdles of being autistic in a non-autistic world and to uncover the empathy and understanding necessary to continue to champion brilliant yet unheard voices.

Lizzie (Hux) Huxley-Jones is an autistic author and editor based in London. They are the editor of Stim, an anthology of autistic authors and artists, which was published by Unbound in April 2020 to coincide with World Autism Awareness Week. They are also the author of the children’s biography Sir David Attenborough: A Life Story. They can be found editing at independent micropublisher 3 of Cups Press, and they also advise writers as a freelance sensitivity reader and consultant. In their past career lives, they have been a research diver, a children’s bookseller and digital communications specialist.

I wasn’t even aware that there was an anthology out there by an autistic author, about autism, but now that I do I need to read it.

18. Chimera by Jaecyn Bonê

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Creatures unlike you've imagined before! Welcome to a world where myths and legends collide to create a new breed of monster. Savage and soulful, these monstrosities combine to form the mighty Chimera. In this anthology, talented writers weave 10 tales of fantastical beasts. Featuring stories by: Matt Bliss Jaecyn Boné Alexis L. Carroll Chris Durston Dewi Hargreaves Stephen Howard Samuel Logan Vincent Metzo Braden Rohl Michelle Tang

Jaecyn is a queer, non-binary, disabled Asian-American writer and digital artist fascinated by faeries.

Most of their writing involves wlw romance and faery-inspired creatures. Their first novel, Farzana's Spite is a 10-year-old work in progress and the first novel in The Faerth series. Other works include The Killing Song (novel) and Colour Unknown (short), both of which are also part of the Faerth universe.

Jaecyn's art can be described as a neorealistic pop art style with cel shading. They began their digital art journey with a 5-year-old refurbished iPad using their finger as a stylus and immediately fell in love. They do digital download commissions as well as sell prints of their artwork.

Jaecyn is the Co-Editor in Chief of the Limeoncello Magazine, an online Own Voices literary magazine which debuted its first issue on March 21st, 2021.

When not writing, drawing, or chasing after their two children, they can be found either gardening or practicing their ukulele.

None of Jaecyn Boné’s books are published yet as they are still in the stage of querying, but they contributed to the above anthology, along with nine other authors. I had no idea that this anthology existed, and now I’ll be closely following this author to see when their books get published!

19. Forest of Souls by Lori M Lee

Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing, but she’s intent on becoming something. After years of training to become the queen’s next royal spy, her plans are derailed when shamans attack 📷and kill her best friend Saengo. And then Sirscha, somehow, restores Saengo to life. Unveiled as the first soul guide in living memory, Sirscha is summoned to the domain of the Spider King. For centuries, he has used his influence over the Dead Wood—an ancient forest possessed by souls—to enforce peace between the kingdoms. Now, with the trees growing wild and untamed, only a soul guide can restrain them. As war looms, Sirscha must master her newly awakened abilities before the trees shatter the brittle peace, or worse, claim Saengo, the friend she would die for.

Lori M. Lee is the author of speculative novels and short stories. Her books include PAHUA AND THE SOUL STEALER (Disney/Rick Riordan Presents), FOREST OF SOULS and the sequel BROKEN WEB (Page Street), and more. She’s also a contributor to the anthologies A THOUSAND BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS and COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES. She considers herself a unicorn fan, enjoys marathoning TV shows, and loves to write about magic, manipulation, and family.

Lori struggles with anxiety, and the common symptoms like fatigue but she doesn’t let this stop her writing amazing books. I read Forest of Souls earlier this year, and it was seriously one of the best books I’ve ever read. I loved the magic, the characters, the world building. Everything about it, including the plot twist ending that had me losing my mind at 2am, was just so unlike anything I had read in any other fantasy before.

20. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A Brown

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For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts Malik’s younger sister, Nadia, as payment into the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition. When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?

Roseanne “Rosie” A. Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana and immigrated to the wild jungles of central Maryland as a child. Writing was her first love, and she knew from a young age that she wanted to use the power of writing—creative and otherwise—to connect the different cultures she called home. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s in Journalism and was also a teaching assistant for the school’s Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her journalistic work has been featured by Voice of America among other outlets.

On the publishing side of things, she has worked as an editorial intern at Entangled Publishing. Rosie was a 2017 Pitch Wars mentee and 2018 Pitch Wars mentor. Rosie currently lives outside Washington D.C., where in her free time she can usually be found wandering the woods, making memes, or thinking about Star Wars.

Roseanne is another author that struggles with anxiety and wrote one of her two main characters with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), despite it being a fantasy. I don’t even think I can name a fantasy that had a character with anxiety represented so well. This was a book I read around the same time as Forest of Souls, and I loved it. The cover was beautiful, the characters were brilliant, and I just loved the world building, the magic, and the plot. It was just different to the usual fantasy books I read, and I enjoyed the variation so much I’ve had the sequel pre ordered almost a year in advance.

So, this was my 20 books by 20 chronically ill, disabled or neurodiverse authors list. Blurbs and synopsis were compiled between Goodreads and author websites, and bios were found either on Goodreads, author websites or on amazon author pages. All the information about their chronic illnesses, disabilities or neurodivergence was found online, where they had either explicitly said it or written about it, but if I have something wrong, please let me know so I can fix it!

If you have any other suggestions or know any other books and authors that should be on this list, please let me know and I’ll do my best to add it to the list as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading 😊

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

What is your opinion on YA as a genre? do you like it, are there critiques of it, any notable exceptions, etc. (Also I hope uni's going well!)

thank you ^.^ uni’s going pretty well lol 

I love YA, I really do. it’s where I rekindled my love of reading and discovered my passion for reading, writing and celebrating diverse stories. it’s why I started this blog and where I made so many wonderful friends. but the older I get and the more YA I read, the more I’m seeing the gaps in the genre and the one that’s really been bugging me lately is how little disability rep there is out there

if you want books about LGBT+ peeps or people of colour, there are recs lists everywhere that are a mile long. they’re #OwnVoices* and they’re intersectional and there are fandoms around them. and there are heaps and heaps of books about mental illness. but it is still so difficult to find YA featuring accurate representations of physical disability. 

and half the time when there is a book about physical disability, it’s ableist as all sweet hell which is just so exhausting to come up against time and again. especially when the disabled community says “hey, this book is ableist” and we get ignored. if a book’s racist or homophobic, it becomes hated and called out and cancelled but that just doesn’t happen with ableism and it hurts. 

that’s why I tried to boost the YA anthology Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens so much when it came out last year. it was a wonderful, diverse collection of #OwnVoices stories that made me feel so known and seen even though there wasn’t a character with my disability. I just loved being reminded that there are other people out there like me, y’know? and it was the first time I read a book where there were queer people like me. trying to find disability rep is hard enough, add into that any sort of intersectionality and it’s almost impossible. but that anthology was amazing and everyone needs to read it.

there are other huge gaps too, though. when was the last time a YA novel featuring First Nations people (from the US, Canada, Australia, anywhere) was popular? where are the Pacific Islander characters? where are the intersex and genderfluid characters actually written by intersex and genderfluid authors? 

so, yeah, I do love YA. but I wish I got to see myself reflected in it more often. and I wish that the search for diversity would keep pushing the limit to include as many people as possible. everyone deserves to feel represented, and represented accurately, and I feel like the quest to reach that goal has stalled

* Did you know? the #OwnVoices hashtag was started by a disabled person - Corinne Duyvis, a YA author from the Netherlands who writes science fiction. so it’s pretty messed up that disability gets left out so much when we coined such an important term in the diversity discussion

[theinkstainsblog]

I see it this way. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Lolita to name a few are harmful and problematic but for years and years the school system requires these books to be read by 14-15 y/os. Also, a lot of classics we're forced to read are pretty racist. I didn't know if at 14/15 if I had a choice to skip them, but I felt like I had no choice. Now schools try to ban books like The Hunger Games, The Scarlett Letter, even Harry Potter. (1/5)

But now we have something called “Banned Books Week” where libraries and schools put them on a shelf for us to read b/c it promotes analytical thinking and the government shouldn’t be allowed to censor books. Not to mention, if I read a problematic book in a college level English class, the only way to prove my point is by reading the source material. A college professor would laugh me out of university if I wrote my paper like this: “Lolita is problematic because my friend said so.” (2/5)

I’m aware that there are some people who read these books b/c they get the giggles from doing whatever they please, but I honestly think it’s important for discourse for people to read those books if the content isn’t triggering to them specifically. For instance, with Carve the Mark I have read multiple reviews by POC on blogs and Booktube who did not see the racism AT all (the chronic pain issue is another story). I’m a POC so I decided to listen to other POC. If I had just listened to (3/5)

two non-POC say, “It’s racist! Don’t read it!” I’d never know how those two opinions might have been skewed a little. The natural course of action would be to seek out the source itself and read the book or listen to more than two opinions. As it stands, the CTM doesn’t interest me at all so I haven’t read it, but I based my opinion on people who DID read it anyway and were people like me. I personally can’t listen to a handful of people claim something until I have the source or context. (4/5)

I wouldn’t read a problematic book just to be funny and try to offend people, but because I can’t know what I’m talking about unless I have more information. If I went to college and my professor asked me to write a paper on CTM and my paper said, “Based on my sources from Goodreads, this book is problematic, here’s *their* opinion, not mine” the professor would fail me. Anyway, that’s just my thoughts. I get where you’re coming from but I just wanted to offer another explanation. (5/5)

6. Sorry, last thing!! Obviously, if a book is blatantly homophobic especially if written by someone who is NOT queer and the LGBT+ community says so, I personally would NOT read that book. If it relates to race, as I’m a POC I just feel obligated to seek out more information b/c many non-POC have claimed racism when, I, as a POC did not see any (or vice versa). It depends case-by-case for me. I know this was long…

Hiya! No worries about it being long, I’m really interested by this sort of thing so I’m happy to discuss it. I do understand what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree that it’s good to try and get all of the information so that you can form your own opinions however I do want to raise a few points. 

You said that when it comes to books critiqued for racism you might read them anyway as a person of colour, but not if it was a book critiqued for homophobia. I think that’s a super important distinction to make there - because that’s you wanting to find out for yourself something that impacts your own lived experience. I don’t see that as harmful in any way, it’s you that’s being affected by it so you have a right to do whatever you want regarding that. It’s great that you listen to the LGBT+ community as well though, that’s what I’d love to see more of - white people listening to people of colour on issues impacting them, cis het allo people listening to LGBT+ people on issues impacting us, able-bodied people listening to disabled people and so on. 

The issue with buying them just to find out for yourself what’s going on is that the publishers don’t know or care why you bought it. All they care is that they got your money. And if they get enough money then they’ll publish more books like that which is really the opposite of what we want. People can write whatever they like of course, I can’t stop them but I hope the aim for most of us is to get better and better representation.  So it’s best not to buy these books if you can and prevent that from happening - but especially if you’re not the person impacted by them as I said. That’s why I personally feel it’s best to avoid the most harmful books as much as possible.

On your point about books like Lolita and To Kill A Mockingbird being potentially problematic, I don’t disagree with you however I think we have to take older books a little differently to books being written now. Attitudes at the time were different and - while that doesn’t make them right or okay in ANY way - we have progressed since then. Classes should discuss problematic elements and dissect them absolutely. But someone who writes something problematic now is a far far different problem than older books with outdated views.

Of course, all books (and films and shows and people) are problematic to some degree. It’s impossible not to be. When I say I found a book problematic I genuinely mean that the premise is narrative is so inherently flawed or harmful that it’s just not redeemable. As opposed to a book that only has one or two problematic lines in it in which case I would draw attention to those lines to warn people who may be hurt by it, but I would not discourage people from reading it.

Also, I do think it’s important to consider that even within a community or marginalised group, we all have different experiences and while we personally might find something okay, that doesn’t mean it’s not still harmful. Personally, I have read Carve The Mark because unfortunately I had ordered it before I heard about the issues and I made an effort before reading to read as many reviews as I could find (positive and negative) by people of colour. What I found was that while some weren’t offended or hurt by the issues, the issues being talked about definitely were there. Just different people take offence to different things. And I think that’s the case for a lot of problematic books - the issue is there, it just might not affect everyone. 

Similarly, this is why I don’t like own voices books being critiqued as problematic - for example, I’ve seen reviews of a book by a bisexual author being called problematic because the bi main character is promiscious. Because everyone even in a community is so different we also have different ideas of what good rep looks like. And while being promiscious is a bi stereotype I’d like straight people to stay the heck away from, bi promiscious people do exist and them writing their own stories shouldn’t be critiqed for that. 

At the end of the day, these are just my views and I’m not gonna jump on you if you disagree or if you read a book that I found to be harmful. I just want people to be aware and critical of these issues. Sometimes problematic fiction can cause real life harm or at least mirror it - black people being portrayed as violent savages in Carve The Mark does nothing to help black people being perceived as violent thugs in real life for example. If people choose to read it anyway then I can’t stop them, but ideally, I’d at least like them to be aware of those issues so they can discuss it and minimise the harm caused.

And that is why I never shut up about representation.  

[clueingforbeggs]

And not to double-reblog my own post but @ridingthestruggle-bus, I didn't see your reply before now, and you're right that they seem to favour killing characters of colour over white characters when they do this. Not only with Hugh and Grey, but also when it comes to Tarka and Oros, Oros, played by Osric Chau, is the one who is missing, presumed dead.

Osric Chau's mother is Malaysian and his father is from Hong Kong.

On a similar note, two of the Black characters are heavily traumatised. Michael lost her parents, and now Book has lost his entire planet and species.

So that's two, for lack of a better term, types of marginalisation that Disco is supposed to be having great representation for which just falls straight into 'let's use harmful tropes and give all these characters trauma'. And its not as if disabled characters fair much better.

I understand that there were reasons outside the show's universe for Airiam leaving the show (kind of??? Her actor was allergic to the latex used in Airiam's costume, but they still chose to have Sara Mitich over a disabled character in a walking talking life support machine. Why not just keep the second Airiam and introduce Nilsson as another character), and most of the rest of the representation is just background characters (this is also where you find queer couples where nobody's dead, and likely non traumatised characters of colour)

Then you've got Detmer, who looks like she's got some sort of brain implant as well as the eye thing, who was used to represent the trauma of skipping forward 900 odd years (she is the only one who has a reaction like the one she has, though others have less... Violent reactions?), and Spock whose L'Tak Terai seemed to only exist when it was plot-relevant (taking SNW into account for this), and Pike, who I think people have gone into enough.

And this isn't even where the discussion ends. @ussrootcanal brought up about Patel and Landry in STO's Discovery arc. Again, a queer character of colour dies (two? Given Landry's fate?). But if you look at modern Trek, definitely modern live action Trek as a whole...

There are issues in Discovery, Picard and Strange New Worlds, with how they treat queer characters. How they treat characters of colour. How they treat disabled characters. And if a character fits multiple of those categories...

Well, I'm pretty sure religion doesn't contribute to how likely a Trek main character is to get traumatised or killed or otherwise badly treated, only because all the human main characters, with one exception, are like 'Oh I'm an atheist brought up by atheists'. And then you've got Christopher 'My father was religious but don't worry, I'm not' Pike. The only representation, that I can think of, of minority religions in modern Star Trek, are a couple of background characters with hijabs and turbans in Lower Decks.

I dunno, maybe series 3 of Lower Decks will finally have a background character with a kippah or tichel... Or, y'know, finally represent religious people? It's 2022 I'm fed up with minorities in modern Star Trek getting either no rep or bad rep.

I honestly probably wouldn’t have any problems at all with Hugh Culber dying and coming back if the same story (kinda) wasn’t repeated with Grey. I know they probably didn’t mean it this way, but having the two most prominent queer relationships be ‘Oh, and this one dies/is dead’ does kinda seem a bit bury-your-gays-y, even if the plot for both storylines ends(?) with unburying the gays.

On its own, I think it’d come across better. Tragedy is a thing and can be handled well, and not every instance of a queer character dying is bury your gays) and as I said, they get unburied. But both of them seems like a pattern, or the beginnings of one, anyway.

And, if anything, it's made worse by how the same sort of thing, minus the unburying, happened off-screen with the Unnamed Wife of Jet Reno. Part of me is waiting for Series 5's Brand New Queer Character With A Dead Partner.

[bellabooks]

“The L Word” is possibly coming back! Now what?

If you thought Twitter went bananas when The L Word reunion was announced, you should have seen it when The L Word sequel was teased yesterday. Ask any lesbian, bi, or queer person and they will all have feeeeeeelings about The L Word. Some love it more than life. Some loathe it. Whatever camp you are in, you can’t deny that The L Word broke some serious ground and it’s poised to do so again. Deadline broke the news that Showtime is developing a sequel to The L Word, with original stars, Jennifer Beals, Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey are on board, and would also be executive producers. It sounds like the trio would be reprising their roles but that the sequel would also bring on a whole new set of characters. This would give the series a chance to embrace and focus on the changes and evolution the LGBTQ community has experienced in the last decade. Remember, DOMA was still in effect and same-sex marriage was not yet the law of the land (among many other changes), when The L Word took its final bow. Imagine, if under the right writers and showrunners, how much ground The L Word sequel could cover. The fact that Beals, a great LGBTQ ally, and Hailey and Moennig, both queer women, would have some say also bodes well. I could name about thirty queer, non-binary and trans writers right now who would slay that writers’ room. The original L Word utilized many lesbian, bi and queer writers and directors, and I am crossing my fingers that they do the same thing this time around. Gentle readers, now’s your time to make your voices heard. Tell Showtime what your hope to see. The sort of access we have to creators now was not available when the original series was around. If it was, maybe we’d still have Dana Fairbanks. MAYBE! As I always do when something big in Lesbianland happens, I turned to Twitter to get your thoughts. I asked what you want to see this time around with The L Word. As usual, you are wise, funny and thoughtful.   More diversity in all aspects! Bring in some unknown people. Make this feel like its not just a reboot. @teganandsara do the intro music. — Burrito Bandit (@BurritoBandit_) July 12, 2017 queer women behind the camera, writing, directing, and fingers crossed the showrunner they’re still shopping around for is queer — Katie Minard (@KatieMinard) July 12, 2017 QPOC. Better trans and bisexual representation in the show. QPOC. Carmen de la Pica Morales. Oh & more Queer People of Colour. — Katy (@katyknowskungfu) July 12, 2017 Less biphobia. — meg (@pegasus_writer) July 12, 2017 Based on the 1st one, no acknowledgement of that shit show of a finale. Personally, I really dig a funny butch. I’d like to see that a tad. — Kate Terry (@reckingfolkie) July 12, 2017 I know I’m curious to see if they even touch the can of worms regarding who killed Jenny. Also, I would love it if Tasha was back. — AnthroChick (@KissMe_Hardy) July 12, 2017 How about if they have a discussion about the bury your gays trope, they talk #wynonnaearp & they all go to @ClexaCon? — Phoebe Moncrief (@PhoebeFeed) July 12, 2017 Not gonna lie, my first thought was just.. HELENA PEABODY! pic.twitter.com/mEoH2mCKG4 — ㅤ (@rowankelly_) July 12, 2017 Better rep of bi & trans women. More QPOC. Range of gender expressions, socioeconomic classes, forms of families, incl. poly. — Emma Scully (@xceteras) July 12, 2017 Also, I would love to see more butch and sporty dykes…and @SaraRamirez …just sayin — wen schultz (@Wenschz1) July 12, 2017 A transman who’s not a caricature, more ethnicities, varying classes of people & more involvement from the community as a whole. — Oliver (@IvyDreams) July 12, 2017 More LGBT with disabilities. Jodi was an awesome start, but having a central character with a disability would be awesome. https://t.co/ACPZ4YzDrw — Ant (@CLAntarctica) July 12, 2017 The stories need to be better. We’ve had good queer tv and some dreadful, but I think the writing needs to be good. Also more POC. — Garcia Gordon (@ggordon88) July 12, 2017 Queer women writing, directing, and acting; Ilene being hands off on plot; more of the core gang (Tina, Helena, Kit); engaging new additions — Eunice Braga (@ebbandflow312) July 12, 2017 http://dlvr.it/PV34qG