#for like diverse books

[dragonsbluee]

I have a request for batfam/Jason Todd fanfic writers:

I love the "Jason Todd is a bookworm/theatre nerd" fics as much as the next person, don't get me wrong, but can we please diversify his interests?

90% of the time when I open a fic with that tag, we see Jason reading Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice or quoting Shakespeare. And not to say that there's anything wrong with any of those being his favourite but even if he loves to read "classical" books, come on!

You're telling me Jason raised-in-crime-alley-spent-his-formative-years-between-an-eccentric-billionaire-and-an-assassin-cult Todd only reads books by dead white people?!

I refuse! Give me a man who takes to books more than ever after his return to Gotham. Jason, who reads books like I am Woman, A Really Good Brown Girl and White Tears/Brown Scars, then recommends them to the working girls as he establishes his territory. Who reads in multiple languages, and who loves Arabic poetry.

Give me a little "Robin is Magic!" Jason scouring Bruce's library and picking up a copy of The Mahabharata after he's done The Iliad, and spends weeks obsessed with Journey to the West.

Give me a Jason who's read Things Fall Apart, and One Hundred Years of Solitude! The number of quotes and references he could pull that would further support his dramatic tendencies? It would make him so happy!

[mariatesstruther]

okay but sarah celebrating tommy every year for mother’s day

[triangular-static]

congrats to bill cipher on managing to be both sides of the "it's me boy i'm the ps5" meme

[valtsv]

sorry if you’ve read this before and i just haven’t seen you post about it, but the book “hell followed with us” by andrew joseph white seems right up your alley

i need some kind of faq with a section where i explain that i consider andrew joseph white to be a poor writer except when it comes to describing excesses of body horror and gore because people keep suggesting hell followed with us to me and i'm sorry but his books are not good. aside from the vivid descriptions mentioned above they're incredibly devoid of compelling narratives, fleshed out characters or immersive worldbuilding. the guy can come up with some amazing concepts for a story, but his ability to execute them is consistently disappointing. i'm glad he's making money and having fun pursuing his creative passions but his stuff just does not appeal to me at all and frankly makes a hater out of me.

[genderkoolaid]

Just wanted to let y kno that people are accusing you of being a zionist and all that? Idk if its true but im assuming it isnt

I support Palestinian liberation, think the government of Israel is absolutely committing a genocide (& is awful in many other ways), and that Western nations are invested in Israel to help further their own imperial goals in West Asia. However I also think this situation is not 1:1 comparable with Western colonial states like America & I'm concerned with how many people (largely white, large Western people) have taken an extremely black and white view of this issue where "says nuance is important" is synonymous with "denies Palestinian oppression." There is a real and bipartisan antisemitism issue here & a lot of people are not taking seriously enough how antisemitism & the legacy of Jewish oppression shapes this issue in ways which make it fundamentally different to talking about White Christian colonization of America.

I am an anarchist & have no attachment to any state's existence. My only hope is that the war ends & a way is found to have everyone in that region (including Palestinians who have been forced from their home and current Israeli citizens) living safe, fulfilling lives in a community which is free from the control of imperialism and other forms of injustice.

[seaglassdinosaur]

I know we collectively agree that Hiccup isn’t romantically inclined, and his getting married and having kids didn’t make sense in the epilogue, but consider: Hiccup getting married for political reasons.

It’s a marriage of alliance, which is recognized both by him and his partner, and they enter it without expectations of romantic involvement. Since they’re now married, they live in the same castle, spend time together, and Hiccup finds he really likes his spouse. They’re funny, get along with his friends, and has the same interests and values. They both probably speak multiple languages. She understands why Hiccup is so dedicated to making the Wilderwest better, and holds similar views. She’s a good politician (her job after all, was to be an ambassador). Hiccup likes spending time with them, and the feeling is mutual. They’re not in love, they have their own lives, but they’re dedicated to each other and eventually decide to raise children. They teach their kids how to train hawks and hunt with dragons, riding, history, the Languages, and all the necessary skills of their world. They’re not in love and they’re happy together.

[stackofstories]

as a kid i don’t think i really understood the gravity of PJO being about kids. stripping down all the supernatural stuff, it’s so easy to see that the kids are surviving and responding to their environment. As an adult, I think about Ares’s kids being so angry and bloodthirsty and so mean and you can blame domineering rage filled Dad for that one. I think about Athena’s kids where nothing is ever good enough for their perfectionist mother so of course they overcompensate, they are a know it alls, they can’t tolerate failure, how rigid and fixed they are in perspective. I think about Hephaestus’s kids and good they are with their hands, how witty and defensive they are, how shy they are with compliments, how they let their work speak for them because everyone calls their father ugly, a mistake, a laughingstock. I think about Aphrodite’s kids and their feigned incompetence when it comes to battles and logic, how they choose partners based on adoration, how they trade secrets on looking the best, how they struggle to say no because Mom says love is enough and you’ll only matter if everyone thinks you’re pretty. I could go on… idk, I just think all these kids deserve a break because they’re doing their best and moving forward in the world the best way they know how.

[jesncin]

In a recent post, you talk about how certain media will have QPOC characters that "feel white." Are you willing to explain more on how that happens? I'm a QPOC person that writes a decent amount of QPOC characters, and it's always interesting seeing other people's takes on how to handle that in stories.

Sure! Most of the time when I say a QPOC character "feels white" is that it lacks intersectionality. Intersectionality is about acknowledging how different marginalized identities manifest in a person, creating a unique experience. Most writers assume QPOC are just "white queer person with a palette change" instead of "we go through similar things but in an entirely different way".

A good example is Heartstopper (A show I like btw!! I can only speak for the tv show and season 1!). It's often incorrectly dismissed as fluff/escapism when it's actually a show that talks directly about marginalization (transphobia, homophobia, etc.) specific to Britain, and some really dark topics come up sometimes. But I was surprised at how little (if not at all?) racism was brought up as something QPOC struggle with. The plot with Tara (a Black girl) and Darcy (a white girl) coming out as a lesbian couple but Tara ended up struggling with the backlash was the perfect opportunity to talk about how she deals with compounded racism, sexism, and homophobia (perhaps even from her own community). But it wasn't brought up at all in that season. I'm sure this gets expanded on in future seasons but it did feel like a huge missed opportunity to me, especially since the show was so open to directly talking about queerphobia. It ends up looking selective about what issues the writer is comfortable talking about.

Intersectionality connects with everything, including joyful stories. A queer paradise to me is a world where we reclaim indigenous queer culture that was suppressed by colonialism, a place where we don't have to cut our cultural ties and end up embracing a westernized version of queer identity, where our language expands to include queer people, where we acknowledge that things like "body positivity" and disability acceptance are inherently linked with racial justice, where we can be whole. In these narratives with QPOC that "feel white", something is always lost. Whether that be culture, language, religion, anything. In She-Ra, the QPOC are just that. We get a dumpling once and a while as "representation" but that's it.

[practically-an-x-man]

as I reread the Market of Monsters series I need to thank Rebecca Schaeffer again for giving us a set of main characters who openly discuss being on the aroace spectrum and have a QPR without it ever being seen as lesser than a romantic/sexual relationship, and having it be a core part of their relationship as characters without being used as a diversity play.

[writeouswriter]

People need to start understanding the difference between actually harmful or "bad rep" vs just rough around the edges but still complex and nuanced rep that doesn't quite line up with your own personal experiences or the over-sanitized ideal of what you think "good rep" should be

[deesi-academia]

the moment when you finally realize why you like this character and stuff that knowledge in the back for psychoanalyzing yourself later

[prince-liest]

I’m reading Witch King by Martha Wells, and now that I have read more than one (1) series by this author, I have been suddenly brained with a two-by-four sharpied over with “realizing that I really enjoy novels by Martha Wells because they live in the specific niche created by the intersection of casually and thoroughly queer casts and non-romance storylines”

I am as ever a sucker for non-human main characters struggling with their very human feelings, which is why I jumped on Witch King the moment I saw “the author of Murderbot wrote another book with a main character that’s non-human,” but I live in this dichotomy where I can really enjoy reading queer romances but I don’t really identify with non-ace characters (which is not actually something I figured out how to differentiate until I was Last Week Years Old). so there are lots of books out there that I enjoy reading but it’s comparatively rare for me to read something that feels like it was written For Me and Martha Wells does that very well

anyway, give me more ace it-pronouns human-spliced robot main characters and people-eating demons who consider rank over gender when finding new bodies to inhabit

[ladystoneboobs]

hot d s2 is like star wars the last jedi in that there are plenty of valid complaints to make but that valid crit is way overshadowed by nutbar fans making offensive or just downright dumb complaints. difference is the sw original canon trilogy (and even the force awakens) is better media than fire and blood ever was, which makes that whole line of complaint even more annoying imo. i can't like one legit post about the absence of nettles without seeing 10 other complaints i want nothing to do with.

[arson-09]

just saw an art from an artist who worked with sjm during acomaf, basically her work is the closestof the character's actual appearence, like, the anon who said sjm looked at natalie alyn lind for description, that is basically what happened, and in a cartoon style she made, lucien is kinda almost the same color as tamlin, and cassian and azriel are the same as rice.... it is all funny considering that in arts were they (except tamlin) are not "darker" some people complain about white washing...

also, gonna mention helion, bc he actually has a persian/iranian appearence, and there were people complaing with the official artist that she white washed him, in the official acotar coloring book... y'know, """"""""""""""""the official artist instead of drawning the character as my headcanon, no, she did as close as they are supposed be, that must be white washing!"""""""" like, people are so dumb

I hate when people hate on artists when they're just doing the best they can with the information given and what the author has said.

on that note, the issue comes down to what I call implied diversity. SJM almost never straight up says a character is a PoC, especially if they are a main character. She may describe someone's appearance one way, usually with flowery and ambiguous language then lets the fandom do the heavy lifting. She lets the fandom make the diversity.

Its why people attack artists for 'whitewashing' even if they are just doing their job. Because people read and interpret it how they like and canonize their perceptions. Its why there's so much skin color variation in Rhysand art (for example) ((it's also why there's so much discourse in this 'fandom' over characters in general but I digress))

Sjm is a bad author when it comes to writing diversity in her cast of characters, and when she tries its very halfhearted. People get their panties in a twist over everything in acotar. She fumbles writing cohesive characters (rhysand changing skin tones acotar-acomaf, tamlins whole character) but the majority of the 'fandom' can't handle discussion over that lmao.

anyway, kinda went off but yeah!! whitewashing is a serious issue when it comes to character art but it's a moot point in the acotar fandom because of sjm lmao.

[nexo-nex]

If we ever get an eah reboot i want more diversity ill die on this hill, cause the blatant racism and colorism eah has in it really throws me off a lot. And also they will get torn to shreds if they dont fix their diversity problem in the dolls in this current era

[theodoravery]

oop... i'm gonna say it.... but i think what ppl don't get about 7 brothers is that maybe you don't have to take everything so seriously ?? idk man. why not enjoy fun and silliness. why not embrace the cringe. like i'm really sorry the y/n book is already doing a better job at being inclusive than your faves </3