#representation ask

[andi-o-geyser]

a full SAGA of chaos choices at the diner in the centre of your mind

[am3ya]

the issue with shipping aro/ace characters isn't putting them into relationships, it's the fact that no one adds how their sexuality impacts the relationship at large. And how it'll always be different from your average romantic relationship in some way.

[jesuisnilunnilautre]

thinking about the night shift reactions to finding out he’s been stealing benzos and honestly i think in the two minutes they take to bitch to each other about it before they decide they give no fucks ellis and shen are like. so embarrassing. caught out by an intern on her first day. kid couldnt even treat methemoglobinemia. fuckin day shift. and then they go do a forty minute stemi or something.

[writingwithcolor]

The protagonist of my story is pressured into killing, should I refrain from making her Jewish to avoid stereotyping?

@run-remi-run asks:

Hello, I'm developing a teen character living in Michigan and have been considering making her/her family Jewish; however I'm worried they'll fall into the evil Jewish person stereotype. The teen is the protagonist of her story, but she is pressured into killing at least one person. I understand that villains in media being portrayed as Jewish or with Jewish features has furthered antisemitism, and I understand my character isn't exempt from this just because I see her in a positive light. Should I refrain from making her Jewish?

This doesn't fit the stereotype

If the whole idea is that she’s pressured into doing bad things, that doesn’t fit the stereotype or trope at all because the trope has us as evil masterminds but in your scenario she’s the one being manipulated. The negative trope isn’t just “Jewish person does something bad” it’s a lot more specific than that. -Shira

Any Michigan influences?

Commenting strictly as a Michigan resident: is there any reason why you included the character’s Michigander origins in your question? Is there something about Michigan that’s influencing how you think a Jewish character might be depicted or viewed by others in your story? I’m asking not to be interrogatory, but out of curiosity and need for clarification.

–Jess

Evil Jewish person stereotype

Shira’s answer speaks directly to this and a lot more concisely, but I wanted to take a minute and go deeper into the phrase “Evil Jewish person stereotype,” for the sake of helping break down what’s actually happening and why it works the ways that it does.

There are two forces at work here, not unrelated to each other but not identical either. One is the portrayal of evil characters using tropes that suggest Jewish coding, and the other is a cultural suspicion of Jewish people’s motives and actions. They’re two sides of the same coin, perhaps, but I’d like to look at them separately, since the difference--that one refers to fictional characters and the other to actual people--matters in the context of reading and writing fiction.

Jewish coding in Villain characters

There are aspects of a character’s physical appearance that can suggest Jewishness even as we acknowledge that Jewish individuals don’t necessarily match those looks. Those might include a hooked nose, hair that is curly or red, a sallow complexion, an angular face. These attributes are not inherently bad: a text portraying them is antisemitic when these attributes are a visual signal of bad motives or are only present in bad characters and not good ones. Although not at issue here, it’s worth noting that these attributes can also raise questions in settings where all Jewish characters have them, because the flip side of these attributes being used to denote Jewishness is the erasure of Jewish people who don’t have these looks. 

 There are also aspects of a character’s personality that are repetitions of historical accusations against Jews, justifications for violence or persecution rather than reflections of genuine events. These might include greed, arrogance, bloodthirstiness, and a willingness to hurt or kill children for personal gain. These tropes have accrued over centuries in spite of the fact that every single one of them runs counter to any genuine Jewish values because ultimately, they’re not based on real-world actions by real-life Jewish people, but a product of leader after leader over time riling up their followers into dehumanizing a minority population, for the usual reasons people have for dehumanizing minority populations. 

Jewish coding in villain characters is not necessarily the same as stereotyping Jewish people as being evil. It does however support and maintain unconscious antisemitic biases. That is to say, when you meet someone who is Jewish, you’re not necessarily thinking “Mother Gothel was coded with Jewish tropes so this Jewish person probably is evil,” but if someone shows you a picture of a person with a hooked nose and curly hair and says “this person is greedy and hurts children,” exposure to Mother Gothel and other fictional villains on the same model might make you less likely to say “That doesn’t sound right.” 

Meanwhile, back in Michigan

Like Shira said, your character is not the mastermind of the murder she’s being forced into. Rather, she’s a victim of whatever character or circumstance is forcing her into it. As long as that’s apparent in your narrative, you’re not supporting an existing harmful trope or stereotype. I would treat the concept differently if this were, for instance, a dark narrative of a remorseless killer. In the current climate I would also advise against any imagery of a Jewish person of any age or agency killing a child or person of color of any kind, as that is the latest iteration of the medieval blood libel in modern times.  I would even have pause in this situation, where she’s not the author of her own act but does commit it, if she does not experience remorse or if she enjoys doing it. What matters here is her motive. 

If this character is Jewish, then that’s going to affect her approach to the incident in certain ways. While Christian and Christian-influenced secular culture regard “good” and “bad” as the ultimate thing to worry about, even at the cost of martyrdom or murder, Judaism places life as the highest value. There are very few of the laws and customs of Jewish life that one is not expected to break in order to avoid death, but one of those is murder. Now, Jewish characters make choices that aren’t perfectly consistent with Jewish law all the time, so what I’m asking is not to not write this, but to write it on purpose.

What does it do to your character?

Who is she before and after?

How many of us could truly choose to die rather than kill in her situation?

Does she own perhaps a necklace or decor item with the word “חי” on it?

What does seeing it do to her?

In what other ways does her Jewishness make her interesting and relevant as a character?

If it’s just curly hair and matzah ball soup on an otherwise Christian character, why bother. But if you’re willing to put in the time to research Jewish attitudes toward life and death and how they differ--even and especially in a teenager’s schema--from the Christian and Christian-influenced majority conception, then there’s room for an interesting narrative here. 

-Meir 

[bixels]

As cameras becomes more normalized (Sarah Bernhardt encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use cameras because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by manufacturing companies. I paint not because I want a painting but because I love the process of painting. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

if i have to explain to you that using a camera to take a picture is not the same as using generative ai to generate an image then you are a fucking moron.

[sickly-sapphic]

apparently "include intersex people" is too high a standard for a lot of the queer community, but I don't think it should be optional anymore tbh. include intersex people or die by my sword 🤺

[ID: The intersex flag - a yellow background with a purple ring in centre. White, shadowed text reads; I will carve out COMMUNITY with my bare hands. End ID]

[sizzlinshy]

Swimming Lessons

Part 2 of 2. Prologue: here

[spamdelta]

“A Meeting with Queen Herself” (reupload, originally drawn in 2023)

One last one, before Deltarune officially comes out tomorrow.

[a-little-revolution]

what do you think about amethyst from steven universe as a little person?

Hello!! Yes I've mentioned Amethyst in passing, but I'd love to discuss her since I feel she's a great example of dwarfism within a non-human race!

Here we see that Amethyst is the same height as our main boy Steven (about 3 foot 5) and as Peridot who is average for her gem type.

In Steven Universe we establish that all the various gems have standard sizes that suit their professions and purpose - Amethysts are tall, broad, and intended as soldiers or guards. We learn that Amethyst was "born" late (emerged from her hole late) and is significantly smaller than she "should be". As a result, she faces a lot of internalized ableism wherein she feels incredibly alienated from her kind - it's a major point of character growth throughout the show. She later comes to find that there are other gems of differing sizes and "off colours", and that her fellow Amethysts embrace her completely.

This to me is a great example of dwarfism within a non-human species! There are clear rules set up that can then be broken by our Little character, her design is excellent, and her character arch is incredibly humanizing!

[haarute]

much in like the way a single dorito could kill a medieval peasant, a single episode of torchwood (2006) could kill a tiktok teen

[dismas-n-dismay]

Seeing Damian grow to make a community collective to better Gotham actually could make me cry. Him learning from Jason and how Jason is a hero to the people of Gotham but suffers from the stress of doing it all alone (as this is how it seems to Jason who’s inadvertently isolated himself) and instead incorporating more people into helping both themselves and others is literally so??? Inspiring?? I could fucking sob

[fatphobiabusters]

That post about Disney’s fairy godmother got me thinking about how Disney chooses to dress their fat (mainly female) characters. They tend to have very loose clothing, this is just apparent with the fairy godmother as in Descendants, she has a daughter who is played by a thin actress and the difference between how they choose to dress Jane versus her mother’s cartoon counterpart.

I haaaaaaaaaaaate the hypocrisy that companies like Disney exhibit. Whenever a character has fat parents, you'll never see that character designed as fat. No, young people have to be thin and conventionally attractive (unless they're the villain, bully, or fat best friend! Yay!).

Whenever I think about this, I'm always reminded of Astrid from How To Train Your Dragon. Astrid's parents look like this (her dad is the same size, but this is the only high resolution picture of her parents on Google Images):

Meanwhile, Astrid looks like this:

The forced thinness is even more obvious when you see Astrid next to her parents (she's the bride in this picture):

In a viking culture full of fat people, how did a girl with two fat parents and fat genetics galore "just happen" to be thin and match the requirement of thinness and conventional attractiveness for female leads in media?

The answer is fatphobia.

-Mod Worthy

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

As an owner of an xxy calico Jin rusong as an xxy calico is both so fun to see but so fitting and so sad in context of your warrior cats au

May I offer you a small consolation in the form of a slightly older Jin Rusong kitty?

[writingwithcolor]

Does the way my alien character disguises himself as a POC perpetuate harmful tropes?

Anonymous asks:

"Hi all! I'm a longtime follower, first time asker. There's something about my current story that feels a little sticky, and I haven't been able to find any applicable information on the blog. I'm working on a queer monster romance. The setting is a modern one with supernatural elements. One of the main characters is an alien refugee, and his species has an ability to possess corpses and retain some of the last soul's memories to disguise themselves. It's morbid, but it's supposed to be a story about monsters, and he doesn't do worse beyond that. I've read a lot of posts by Latinx and Jewish people talking about aliens on Earth as a metaphor for immigrants, with the struggle of adapting to a new culture and being separated from the one you were born into, and since my story takes place in Southern California, which has a large population of Mexican immigrants, I thought it made sense to make his ""host body"" Mexican. However, the more I think on it, I'm worried that his ""disguise"" method could be viewed as a violation of a brown body. I'm also concerned that he's just TOO monstrous, and could play into a harmful trope of making POC inhuman. The other main character is white and more visibly monstrous, and there are other POC who aren't monsters, but is it enough? Should my alien disguise himself in another way? I know mods aren't answering questions about Latino culture right now, but I think this is more about harmful tropes against POC in general. Thanks for reading."

I appreciate that your response is about the Mexican community rather than the Jewish community, but still take a look at Mod Shira’s post on Jewish Monster Characters Doing Harm  as well as Monsters in General.

Consider the tension that your monsters create. As those posts suggested,  could you swap out “monster” and replace it with “immigrant,” “Latine,” or "Mexican" and see real-world conflict? If so, then the story could be veering towards a metaphor for race-relations, despite being a romance genre and not an #ownvoices narrative. 

You mentioned that some monsters disguise themselves in white bodies but are “more monstrous.” That’s interesting, but I’m still unclear: does your alien monster merge with its host, or is it just wearing their skin? In the anime Parasyte, the alien Migi and its human host have deep conversations about humanity, culture, and perspective. These are all things Migi doesn’t initially understand. This exchange gives the human host agency while preserving their cultural identity. Will your Latine MC receive that kind of humanization?

If not, and these aliens are simply using a Latine appearance as a disguise, that’s a problem. It effectively erases the Latino experience while using a Latine character’s face, which feels deeply unsettling. It risks reducing Mexican identity to an aesthetic rather than acknowledging its depth of culture, traditions, history, food, music, humor, or language.

Since this is a queer romance, it also raises another issue: if the alien is just impersonating a Latine person, then the Latine love interest is, in reality, falling for someone who isn’t actually Latine. Does the love interest teach the alien about Latino culture? That could work, or fall flat depending on execution.

Ultimately, if there’s no strong narrative reason for this alien to present as Latine, it might be worth reconsidering their ethnicity. Maybe your next story could have a Latine MC without this sort of ambiguity, or you could make the alien merge with a real Latine host, similar to Parasyte. Alternatively, the love interest could be Latine, allowing for meaningful cultural exchange. Personally, I’d pass on a book where a non-Latine entity is running around murdering and romancing in Latine skin. But that’s just me. 

~  Melanie 🌻

since my story takes place in Southern California, which has a large population of Mexican immigrants, I thought it made sense to make his "host body" Mexican.

This just sounds exactly like the aliens disguising themselves as Latin American immigrants in The Men In Black (1997) lol. In MIB, it is an intentional joke/play on the word “alien” that only worked in the 90s. That’s going to be the first thing audiences think of when they read this scenario. 

~ Rina

Rina and Melanie’s Required Reading/Watching Recs:

The Men In Black (Columbia Pictures, 1997) 

The Host (Stephenie Meyer, 2008) 😖

Parasyte (dir. Shimizu Kenichi, Madhouse, 2014)

Our prescription: more research and genre awareness.

[fcaruana]

"I always say that I would've loved to have an argentinian driver to cheer for, to wake up in the mornings to watch their races. I used to wake up to watch Checo Pérez' races and it filled me with pride because we, all argentinians, felt like Checo was our closest driver." 🇲🇽 🇦🇷

[black-ace-culture-is]

Black ace culture is wishing the ace community cared about Selah Summers being the first aromantic-asexual Black girl in TV/Film history