#representation: racial

[icedsodapop]

I really need to stress how groundbreaking Martha Jones literally is. She made her mark as the first official onscreen Black Doctor Who companion, and quite literally paved the way for future Black and other companions of colour to star on the show, like Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, and Ryan Sinclair. And these characters would also make Doctor Who history in their own ways with Bill being the first onscreen Black lesbian companion, Yasmin being the first onscreen South Asian companion, and Ryan being the first onscreen Black companion with a disability.

Marth Jones' power? Unparalleled.

[comparativetarot]

Knight of Pentacles. Art by Deirdre Beck, from Star Crossed: A Queer Tarot.

[zepskies]

Racial & Ethnic Representation in Fanfiction

[🎙️ Podcast Interview]

Hey, friends! Sandra and Kasey, the lovely hosts of @idlingintheimpalapodcast — the podcast for all things SPN and fanfiction — invited me back on the pod for an interview on a topic that's very close to my heart…

With @rubyvhs, we talked about the fun moments and challenges about reading and writing fanfiction that represents specific racial and ethnic cultures, being bicultural/multicultural, the immigrant experience, and much more.

I offered my own experience as a Latina POC writing in the fandom space, specifically Supernatural and The Boys (and adjacent Jackles fandoms).

Check it out here: ⤵️

Interview Timestamps –

(Plus fic recs, SPN writer/reader shoutouts, and more! Links to all the fics we mentioned are at each time stamp.)

2:54 – When did you start writing fanfiction, and when did you join SPN fandom?

⟡ You can check out my first author interview with Sandra and Kasey over here. We chatted about Dean Winchester and Jensen Ackles’ early roles, the best and worst seasons of SPN, the joys and pains of writing Soldier Boy, and much, much more. For all the timestamps of key moments, fic recs, and SPN writer shoutouts, see this post (you'll find the link to the video there too).

6:18 – What is your ethnic, racial, and cultural background? (And how me and Sandra bond over “food and family” ties between Hispanics/Latinos and Italians.)

13:05 – The immigrant experience in America, what you take with you from the “Motherland,” the struggles of bicultural identity, my personal experience being a second-generation child of an immigrant family, and Sandra’s experience as a first-generation child of Italian immigrants.

16:58 – What do you look for when you’re reading fanfiction? (Canon-compliant, AU, romance, etc.) Does the length of a story matter?

19:52 – Bonus: The merits of drabble writing vs. long-fic writing.

25:54 – Have you ever actively searched for fanfiction that represented your ethnicity? (Whenever I do, it’s like finding gold.) Plus, the challenge of writing reader characters, the “gray area” of writing reader characters like OCs.

32:38 – The inherent “bias” of reading and writing reader characters as White. The concept of diversity being “cool” in popular media, TV shows, and movies is still pretty new.

36:36 – Why I started writing reader characters that might have a specific body type, race, and/or ethnicity.

Examples:

⟡ Midnight Espresso – Dean Winchester x Plus-size Latina!Reader

⟡ If I Stay – Dean Winchester x Plus-size!Reader

⟡ 10 ‘Til Midnight – Professor!Dean Winchester x Plus-size Grad Student!Reader

⟡ Unravel Me – Soldier Boy x Afro-Latina!Reader

⟡ The Honorable Choice & Outlander – Cowboy!Dean Winchester x OFC

40:14 – The fun challenges: like giving Dean a partner who takes care of him as much as he takes care of others in Midnight Espresso.

45:28 – The BIG challenges: like writing Soldier Boy being himself with a “person of color” (POC) in this new series, Unravel Me. What even is a POC? Where do you start with Soldier Boy, the Sandra-proclaimed “bowl of fishhooks?"

51:38 – Is there ever an element of fear when you publicly post a story that represents your culture, which is something very personal to you? What happens when you get haters in the comments?

1:05:33 – When and how did you begin to break out of the “ingrained biases” in your writing? (AKA: Always assuming my own characters are White.)

1:08:04 – When did you decide to explore writing plus-size!readers?

1:13:20 – What has your experience been in writing a race/culture outside of your personal experience? The Honorable Choice and Outlander, a western AU where Dean Winchester falls in love with a Native American Lakota Indian. (Shoutout to @jacklesversebingo!)

Plus, the ethical responsibility to “do no harm” when you represent different cultures, and answering question of not only can I write this, but should I write this?

1:32:42 – What advice would you give a writer interested in writing about a culture outside of their own that they don’t have first-hand knowledge of? How can a writer avoid cultural appropriation if their goal is cultural appreciation? How important is a sensitivity reader/beta reader for this effort?

1:40:35 – Final thoughts on diversity and representation of culture in fanfiction, whether it’s your own or someone else’s:

“Write what you know. Write what you can research. Write what you’re interested in. Remember that words have power, so be careful how you use them.”

1:45:30 – Sandra and Kasey’s outro: The importance of representation and diversity in fandom.

I hope you enjoy the ride!~ 💜

💗💗💗 Shoutouts to some of my beautiful friends and lovely readers who've supported my attempts to explore ethnic and cultural diversity in my writing:

@luci-in-trenchcoats @lamentationsofalonelypotato @waynes-multiverse @rizlowwritessortof @roseblue373

@tofics @deanwinchesterswitch @deanbrainrotwritings @deansbbyx @waywardlatina

@supernotnatural2005 @wayward-dreamer @spnwoman @waywardxwords @mostlymarvelgirl

@chevroletdean (shoutout to your 500 follower fic challenge at around 19:52 😘) @siampie @bettystonewell @wvffles

@iprobablyshipit91 @my-stories-vault @littlesoulshine @thatonewriter15 @jessjad

@deans-spinster-witch @winchestergirl2 @kazsrm67 @chernayawidow @jackles010378

@jollyhunter @leigh70 @foxyjwls007 @beakaleak32 @alwaystiredandconfused

[rhetoricsofraceandidentity]

[hazycola]

Yet another banger episode of doctor who. They put so much soul into it, as they have been doing for this entire season.

They recruited a Nigerian writer for this episode too which should be an obvious choice, but it still makes me happy to see that this story is full of REAL heart and traditions from African culture.

As a disclaimer, I am a white american so I don't have the same perspective as black people who have lived with and experienced African culture their whole lives. This, however, means that whatever my happiness feels like in seeing this episode... I can only imagine that it's that much more meaningful for those people.

This isn't the only thing- they've pushed towards inclusion for disabled characters. They're sprinkling in metaphors for what everyone is struggling with on a day to day basis. They're grabbing our hearts, and telling us that we're not crazy, and that even an alien with two hearts and essential immortality could see the problem.

Thank you, new Doctor Who, for handling real topics about real people with such truth. This season is an obvious representation of what has changed in the world, along with the problems and cruelty we have faced as of late, and I'm glad.

[grecoromanyaoi]

btw i will always advocate for writing a fantasy setting thats (at least also) inspired by nonwestern cultures over simply putting black n brown ppl in a setting thats based entirely on europe

[intothestacks]

Whenever I hear people complain about there being "forced" racial diversity in shows (eg. Encanto) I always think of my family.

My cousin looks Middle Eastern, my nephew looks Black, I look white, and I have some second cousins that look Indigenous.

We're all blood-related.

Pretty much the only look we're missing in my family is Asian.

[triple-pupil]

"Lowpoly whitewashed Esmeralda isn't real, she can't hurt you"

Lowpoly whitewashed Esmeralda:

Ironic since the Game actually has the character and it seems they did her skin tone right, if not a bit darker.

[comparativetarot]

The Empress. Art by Gay Little Izzet.

[defsiarte]

So. Just a heads up for people who don’t know the history— it is a racist dog whistle to depict black people as monkeys in art or literature. Be mindful of the animals you associate with certain groups of people.

For me, this imagery ties back to theories propagated by the eugenicist, rapist, and slave owner Thomas Jefferson in his writings to justify the institution of slavery and why black people were considered “inferior”.

Full text

[scoobydoofenshmirtz]

I guess my crazy radical opinion that I'm low key surprised isn't more common on tumblr is that I don't actually believe it's possible to have a 100% canonically straight character.

[bluemink-palestine]

Doctor Who's 15th Doctor (16th? 14th...? I'm counting Jo Martin but not David Tennant twice so 15th.) in brown-tinted pencil on mixed media paper.

Another request from my sibling of a fandom I'm not in but know much about anyways.

Daily portrait #8 and only BIPOC portrait #2, which is rather a shame, honestly. I do love the white/white-passing characters that I've drawn, but to me at least, drawing and painting people of darker skin tones is way more fun, and there's an actual reason for this. The highlights on people's skin will always be the same light shade, regardless of skin tone, simply due to how reflection works, but with people of darker skin tones, the middle values and shadows are allowed to be a little darker and a little richer, and you don't have to dance around putting actual value into the skin. BBC Sherlock, for example, is a great character, but absolutely pasty, and trying to get his skin an accurate shade was absolute hell. More importantly, I just love diversifying my artwork since every field, including art, seems lacking in representation, and it seems Doctor Who also picked up on this sentiment with Ncuti Gatwa, their first BIPOC Doctor here to stay.

Taking free requests for any live-action character you want to see in a monochromatic medium.

Other Doctors:

15

Fugitive

13

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

I once said this on Twitter and got a LOT of backlash for it, but I think it's worth saying. Piper McLean is not hyper-femme. She's not even femme. Piper McLean is a butch sapphic woman. Though there's no problem with portraying her in pink or doing "girly" things every once in a while, if everyone is doing it all of the time, it creates a fandom misinterpretation of the character. It erases her identity as butch. Yes, she improved her internalized misogyny. No, that does not mean that she has become femme or "feminine." Part of feminism and eliminating internalized misogyny is the realization that women have the choice of how they want to present. Piper presents in a more androgynous/masc way. That's how she is, and I don't think all fanart of her should misrepresent her in such a way.

[comparativetarot]

Two of Blues. Art by Stacey Williams-Ng, from the Rhythm & Soul Tarot.

The friendship in the 2 of Cups (Blues) is shown as a pair of Mississippi sharecroppers.