#on representation

[theladyofshalott1989]

On Representation (in Fandom Spaces)

I finished reading an incredible novel last week (Wellness by Nathan Hill) and there's a passage fairly early on that hit me hard. So much so that it made me cry. At the time, I didn't quite understand why it affected me so much, but it finally dawned on me this morning. My analysis will be after the cut. Here's the passage (from pages 208-209): "It's a lecture Jack gives to his Intro to Art class, during the chapter on American landscapes, how painters educated in the European tradition saw the endless tallgrass prairie of the Midwest and literally did not know what to do with it. They had no training that might have prepared them to depict something so monolithic. They were accustomed to scenes with easy scope and dimension: trees in the middle distance for perspective, rivers and valleys that made for convenient vanishing points, mountains on the horizon as an anchoring weight, all of it evocatively defined in light and shadow. But what do you do with a tallgrass prairie, where the middle distance and the far distance and the near distance are all flat and featureless and identical? What these artists did, mostly, was ignore it. They kept traveling west until they reached the Rockies and were rewarded with landscapes that matched their schooling, which is why, in the canon of American landscape art, the prairie is so underrepresented. It's not because the prairie wasn't beautiful—most of the painters acknowledged, in letters and diaries, that it was very pretty indeed—but rather that the prairie did not accord with the traditional standards of what was specifically beautiful in landscape art. These painters came looking for the things they knew how to depict—forests and mountains and beaches—and when they found none of these, they declared the landscape 'empty.' They did not see what was there. Instead, they saw what wasn't.

Jack means it to be a lesson on the difference between reality and the representation of reality. Beauty, he tells his students, is a constructed, not intrinsic, condition. The things we think are beautiful are only the things that have been depicted beautifully. And if it's not depicted, it's not seen. It never enters the imagination. It becomes a nothing.

Which is why the west got Yellowstone, and the prairie got destroyed."

I like to remain a positive space in this fandom for everyone, but I am human and I have my down days. Today is one of those days, so I thought I would (respectfully) wax on about this passage in the context of LGBTQIA+ representation in fandom spaces like Hogwarts: Legacy.

Despite a growing number of creators depicting diverse, queer narratives, there is often a noticeable lack of engagement with these works on platforms like AO3. I sometimes come across comments from users—which I don't think are made with ill intent—about only reading works by popular creators. While I understand this to some extent, as both a writer and a dedicated reader in this fandom, when I come across this sentiment in the wild, it's like a punch to the gut. I know and support many beautiful works that, if you were to sort by hits, kudos, or bookmarks, wouldn’t be considered “popular,” but are spectacularly written with wonderfully fleshed-out characters, and these stories deserve just as much recognition.

Suffice it to say, these stories—more often than not—do not center on heterosexual relationships or cisgender perspectives.

When queer stories are not engaged with, they risk being rendered "invisible" in fandom culture. This doesn’t mean they lack value or beauty, but simply that they fall outside the established norms, just as the prairie did in the eyes of the artists in the shared passage. This lack of visibility isn’t due to an absence of effort or talent but reflects a broader issue where what is unfamiliar or different struggles to be recognized and celebrated.

In this context, it's disheartening to see the potential for LGBTQIA+ stories to expand the landscape of fandom, only for them to often be overlooked. We deserve to see a fandom where all perspectives—like all landscapes—are equally appreciated and supported.

To those of you who do write LGBTQIA+ stories, you are seen and appreciated. Please do not stop writing. I know it can be very difficult to seemingly write into the void. Don't give up. You are doing the world a service. To those of you who are willing to expand your worldview, go out there and read outside of your comfort zone. You may find a new appreciation for an underrated pairing or genre.

Ultimately, I know this uncomfy feeling of mine will pass. It always does. But if you made it all the way to the end of this, thank you, and perhaps do me a favor. Think of a pairing (or even a story that doesn't have a pairing!) that you haven't explored yet in this fandom. Don't sort by hits, kudos, or bookmarks, as it's likely there aren't many stories yet to shuffle through. Browse the summaries. Does one stand out to you? Give it a try! If you enjoy it, give that author a kudo, maybe even a comment. You'll make their month, I guarantee it.

I suppose that's all besides I love y'all. Yes, all of y'all. <3

[saszor]

[ID in alt]

Tutorial on drawing characters/OCs who have some sort of facial paralysis. It doesn't cover all possible variants because I was using mirror as my main reference lawl

Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

[hamletthedane]

Thinking about him (the soldier in Poynter’s Faithful Until Death painting watching an apocalypse unfold around him with horror in his eyes as he tries to keep himself standing beneath a doorway, based on an actual 19th century archeological find of a man in full soldier’s garb under a doorway at Pompeii)

[dionysus-complex]

look I know it’s supposed to be a joke but that “irradiated wasteland” is the unceded homeland of the Paiute and Shoshone peoples and consists of fragile Mojave and Great Basin desert ecosystems that are actively being exploited and destroyed by mining interests who utilize the perception of desert as wasteland to justify their destruction of indigenous lands and communities. the joke's not funny. fuck off with this.

[abigails-ear]

Only been watching The Pitt for a few days but Mel King is THE best autistic character ever written in a medical drama. She doesn't "make connections no one else can" or "just see things differently" or any other Savant with Special Abilities stereotypical bullshit, she's a resident physician who's exactly as intelligent and capable as any other resident physician in the same year. She hates unnecessary yelling because it's loud and annoying, not because she's completely incapable of handling conflict. She usually keeps her stimming subtle enough to hide but sometimes she can't. She loves having a furry critter to pet. She accommodates an autistic patient by lowering the lights and closing the doors because she understands the sensory nightmare of an active medical setting. She speaks in a straightforward and honest way but she isn't an overtly rude inconsiderate asshole. She misses some jokes and takes things too literally on occasion but she does have a sense of humor and she is funny. She speaks up against misinformation and parent panic about autism and other developmental disabilities. She has emotions. She looks at a video of a lava lamp on her phone to chill. Doctor Mel King you have my entire heart

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

kinda hard to take it seriously people complaining about "toxic yuri" this, "toxic yaoi" that. i grew up on toxic comp het; in my day we called them "cartoon sitcoms"

[girlsloveupdates]

Western lesbian representation is so bad. It’s either the series gets cancelled, a character dies, they don’t get screentime, or the storyline only focuses on the homophobia they face.

Meanwhile in Thai GL, there have been over 30 series announced in 2025 alone. And let me tell you, there’s something for everybody. Childhood best friends to lovers, period drama lesbians, boss x employee trope, space lesbians, multiple couples and love triangles, mafia action lesbians, idol x bodyguard trope, lesbian with powers to control time, prisoner lesbians, black cat x golden retriever trope, crime-solving lesbians, messy sapphic friend groups who are all in love with each other, high-school sweetheart fluff, weddings, happy endings and so much more. And this is just the beginning. There will be many more great series to come in the future.

The only thing that’s stopping more western people from watching is because of subtitles. Which is such a pity because these people say “there’s no good lesbian representation”, but there is. You just have to be better at looking for it. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment anymore, don’t watch something for the bare minimum representation.

As Bong Joon Ho once said:

[spacebubblehomebase]

Crazy how the person you've been following for Team Rocket memes suddenly reached for the stars. But to celebrate another artist's success, I present to you another AU! Because we need more of those in this new fandom and I like the cliché trope of a traitor love interest. XD Though I admit this small doodle idea got way out of hand. Still, do you see the vision??? (🌕v🌕) -Bubbly💙

[annabelle--cane]

her pronouns are HE/HIM

[wolfythewitch]

👁️

[aerequets]

cost and benefit

[saszor]

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

second way more important edit: How are people seeing this post where I specifically talk about burn survivors being normal, real people, and still tag this as "TW body horror"? Not a single one of these drawings or pictures is a fresh injury. All of them are healed. How the hell would you feel if someone tagged a photo of you as "trigger warning: gore"?

Disabled people are not your fucking body horror. Grow up.

[cowsabungus]

Make pride accessible for everyone!!!!

I made a post about this last year and the year before, and thought if I did it this way it gives people and orgs something to work towards. Often people forget that disabled people aren't just wheelchair users, and even those who are, need more than just that ramp!

My first ever pride, not only as a wheelchair but my first ever EVER pride, I went in expecting to feel at home.

Obviously I wasn't, I'm disabled, so why should I?

Instead there was just a ridiculous amount of uneven flooring, a steep ramp to the disabled toilet, no sanitary towel bin in the disabled toilet (???) no allowances to be let out of the festival to fetch things from my car, no where quiet and organisers who seemed genuinely surprised to see a wheelchair user!

My next pride, three years later, I was a seller, and while they had sorted their toilet problem (still no sanitary towel bin???), the hill to get in wouod have been genuinely impossible for me to get to if I hadn't been driving to get my stall in anyway, even with someone pushing me, no quiet areas, plenty of kerbs for me to get stuck at and again, genuine surprise.

Why is it so surprising to consider disabled people might be at pride? Not only do queer disabled people exist, but parents and family of queer kids and people, vendors and even entertainers!

Making pride accessible is crucial!

ID available in Alt Text

[erinwantstowrite]

the dynamic for damian and tim should be "i want my older brother's approval but i could never let him know that or he'll be so annoying" and here's my pitch: think about damian doing smth reckless and being scolded, feeling incredibly bummed out, and then tim tells him "that was sick as hell actually those losers don't get it" and then damian's mood instantly lifting and telling tim all of the little details about how he pulled it off

[iant0jones]

"I feel very proud to be a black Creole vampire, in the show. I mean, I hope that all it does is opens the gates for more. Let's tell more stories. Let's be monsters! And enjoy it! Yeah, let's be problematic. Give us the space to be a problem." - Jacob Anderson