#(but i'd love to read discussions of it from POC) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

genericpuff · 4 months

Text

The Elephant in the Room - Queer Erasure and Westernization in Lore Olympus (and all its horrid stepchildren)

This is one people have been asking me for a while now, and I've been waiting for the right inspiration to hit, as is required for my ADHD hyperfixation-fueled rants. After recently watching a video that did an objective review of Cait Corrain's Crown of Starlight, I felt now was the time, because Crown of Starlight effectively proves exactly what Lore Olympus - and other Greek myth interpretations like it - has issues with.

And I want to preface this post with one question - why do we keep getting these Greek myth adaptations written by queer women that still wind up perpetuating toxic heteronormative culture?

Buckle up, because this one's HEFTY.

In that aforementioned review of A Crown of Starlight, there were a lot of points that came up about how Cait wrote the female protagonist - Ariadne, wife of Dionysus - where I immediately stopped and went, "Wait, this sounds awfully familiar."

It should be mentioned briefly for anyone who's unaware - Cait Corrain is an author who was recently (and still) under fire for using sock puppet accounts on GoodReads to intentionally sabotage the ratings of other debut authors, many of whom were her own peers or from the same publishing imprint as her (Del Rey), and most of whom were POC. I mentioned in that previous essay that I just linked that Cait Corrain is a fan of Lore Olympus and decided to give it 5 star ratings from these alt accounts, not just de-legitimizing the reputation of the books she bombed, but also the ones that she praised (including her own book, because of course she had to leave an obvious calling card LMAO). I felt it necessary to tie Cait into my discussion of white feminism in LO and its fanbase because people like Cait are exactly who we're talking about when we dissect the intent and consequences of LO's writing - much of its brand of "feminism" seems to only be catered to a specific kind of woman (i.e. white women who fetishize queer people/relationships) and seem to encourage/embrace violence towards women if those women aren't "behaving correctly" or just aren't fortunate enough to be white and rich - and so Cait choosing to give Lore Olympus 5 stars in her hate-raiding and even have it visibly in the background of her headshot photos was... not exactly disproving my argument that these are the types of people LO caters to and encourages, to say the least.

But then I watched Read with Rachel's "Did It Deserve 1 Star" review of Crown of Starlight and it cemented my assumptions and concerns regarding Cait's intentions and influences even more.

youtube

As a brief tangent, I've read A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Claire. It very obviously is using Lore Olympus as its blueprints, but it's not super obvious that if you didn't read Lore Olympus or weren't aware of it, you probably wouldn't notice. It's still not a great book on its own, it's riddled with writing problems, but at least it can call itself its own thing to some degree.

Crown of Starlight is just blatant Lore Olympus fanfiction pretending to be original, even down to its marketing (which I'll get to shortly) but swapping out Hades and Persephone with Dionysus and Ariadne, and setting the entire story in space. Why is it in space? There doesn't seem to be any actual necessary reason for this, it just is, go with it. I'd be willing to accept this because changing up the setting of pre-existing stories can be fun (god knows I loved the premise enough of Lore Olympus being a modern day Greek myth retelling that I had to go and make my own version of it that's still in that modern setting) but as RWR says in her review:

"... we're told that it's the 'island' of Crete, but then we talk about commbands, airlocks, [holo-shields] and it wasn't really written in a way that I felt meshed 'Greek retelling' and 'sci-fi' in a cohesive way."

Needless to say, Crown of Starlight unsurprisingly suffers from the same problems Lore Olympus does, where it will try to "subvert" the original myths by changing their setting and characters and then doing absolutely nothing interesting with them to justify those changes.

To really drive my point home that Crown of Starlight is undoubtedly Lore Olympus fanfiction, Lore Olympus was literally used as a comparison point in Crown of Starlight's marketing which is a fair tactic to use to advertise to a specific niche or demographic, and while some have argued that Cait isn't technically the one to come up with that marketing jargon, it's made much more clear that she used that comparison herself when writing and pitching the book because it is quite literally just Lore Olympus with a different couple in space, right down to the main female protagonist being part of a purity cult. And of course it wouldn't be a bad Wattpad romance if it didn't have our main female protagonist Ariadne talking about how inconvenient her MASSIVE BREASTS are and of COURSE Ariadne is a poor innocent uwu babygirl who needs a man to come in and rescue her from the evil purity cult and of COURSE it hints at them eventually having raunchy sex just for it to wind up being milquetoast bondage and of COURSE it all just winds up taking traditionally queer characters and stories and turning them into this sanitized Disney-esque plotline where the boy and girl were always meant to be together and nothing else matters except their love-

And that, at its core, really just screams "this is bad LO fanfiction". From the stylization of the book's writing which never outgrew its "adorkable fanfiction writing" phase-

"Realizing that I'm being gaslit by my entire world doesn't make it easier to deal with, but hey, at least I still have some part of my soul!" - an excerpt from Crown of Starlight quoted from RWR's review timestamp 13:03

-to the "creative" choices made to turn Ariadne into a chastity cult girl whose resolution is obviously going to be to have what's implied to be dirty raunchy sex just for it to be like... the most tame level one bondage stuff;

-to the classic "she breasted boobily down the stairs" focus on Ariadne's body and breasts and sex appeal that's being kept in check by that pesky purity club.

And that's really disappointing because I had seen people say, "Yeah, Cait did an awful thing and deserves to be removed from her publishing schedule, but it's a shame that that book was written by Cait because it's actually a really good book!" because now it's just making me even more sus of people's Greek myth adaption recommendations (I'm still mad at BookTok for convincing me that A Touch of Darkness was worth reading). All I could think while listening to some of the excerpts quoted by RWR was that if I didn't know about Cait Corrain and read Crown of Starlight blind, I'd undoubtedly assume it was being written by a heterocis guy... but it's in fact being written by a queer woman.

And this is where I segue into talking about the root of this problem, where the calls are really coming from - Lore Olympus and its erasure of queer identities and relationships, despite also being written by a queer woman who should know better.

I could think of no better character to help carry this essay than Eros.

Unlike many of the characters in LO that Rachel has managed to straightwash by changing their motives entirely or straight up changing their identity from the source material (ex. Zeus, Apollo, Crocus who was turned into a flower nymph, Dionysus and Achilles because they're both literally babies, the list goes on), Eros has largely remained the same on paper who had zero reason to not be queer within the story.

Eros is still the god of love in this, he's still a guy and presumed to be an adult, but we NEVER see or explore him having relationships with anyone other than Psyche, aside from a brief mention of organizing orgies in the beginning that's used as a quick joke and then promptly never mentioned again.

Just like with Crown of Starlight and A Touch of Darkness and all these other "dark romance" stories, it's that brand of "pretends to be sexually liberating but isn't actually" writing, where they'll briefly mention orgies or sex-related things and then beat around the bush or avoid involving them entirely like a kid at Sunday school who doesn't want to say the word "penis".

(fr out of all the corny and awful slang for genitals I've seen used in stories like this, "a certain part of my anatomy" is definitely one of the most boring and stupid, like for god's sakes Hades you're both adults and at the beginning of this comic you thought she wanted to bang in the kitchen, why are you suddenly talking like a 7 year old boy LOL)

All that aside, while Eros might still be hinted at being queer and sex-positive, it's only as vaguely as possible so that the story can quickly move on to focus on him and Psyche or, better yet, Hades and Persephone. When Eros isn't deadset on finding Psyche, he's being the gay best friend for Persephone, who he has NO right having a friendship with when he introduced himself by intentionally getting her as drunk as possible with the intent of dumping her in Hades' car as per his mom's command. It's brushed off later as "well Aphrodite maaade him do it, for Psycheee!" but Eros still agreed to potentially put Persephone in danger over a relationship that had NOTHING to do with her and was also mostly his fault in its fallout (which Artemis calls him out for, but of course, like all the other times characters have called out the actual issues in the story they're inhabiting, they get brushed aside so that Persephone can talk about Hades):

Now, the Eros and Psyche plotline is one I've talked about before here and not the focus of this essay so I'll keep this tangent brief, but it's absolutely wild to me that Rachel took a story about a woman going to the ends of the earth to prove her love for someone whose trust she broke (a common theme in a lot of Greek myth stories, such as the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice) and turned it into... woman of color gets turned into a nymph slave for Aphrodite to 'test' Eros, a test that isn't clear at all in what it's trying to achieve, and wait hold up, didn't Eros actually fail that test by kissing Ampelus while completely unaware that it was Psyche-

This is just that episode of Family Guy where Peter justifies emotionally cheating and eventually physically cheating on Lois because "well you were the phone sex lady the whole time so no harm done!", isn't it? (×﹏×)

youtube

Anyways. It's all very convenient that the comic will hint at queer rep just to either have it be a constant question of whether or not they're actually queer (ex. Morpheus) OR to have it be promptly swept under the rug to make way for other characters/plot points. It's like when mongie tried to be "inclusive" by writing a stereotypical vaguely Asian character with no specific ethnicity just to get angry at her fanbase for calling her out on this that you can't just call a vaguely Asian character "representation" of anything (because Asia is MASSIVE and covers so many different ethnicities and languages and cultures).

Eros is only as gay as he needs to be to fill the role of "gay best friend" for Persephone.

Krokos is no longer a male lover of Hermes but a flower nymph created by Persephone because... apparently we can't dare imply that Hermes would be into anyone besides his unrequited childhood love, Persephone.

Achilles is introduced as a baby even though it makes no sense in the comic's own timeline where Odysseus is presumably already a well-known hero in Olympus, so much so that he was invited to the Panathenea.

Apollo is turned into a flat-out rapist who's only concerned with getting Persephone at all costs and when that doesn't work, he tries to get ANOTHER flower nymph (Daphne) who's actually genuinely interested in him (contrary to the original myth, there's that "swap it subversion" Rachel is known for) to cut her hair so she'll resemble Persephone more because we can't have a single plot point not resolve around Persephone.

Despite there being loads of genderbent characters already, Morpheus is supposedly the only one we're supposed to assume is specifically trans and not just a gender-flipped version of a Greek myth character. Why? Not because Rachel stated so explicitly, not because the comic has actually explored her identity as a trans woman, but because the readers just assumed it in good faith and Rachel was clearly fine with taking credit for trans representation that's only there via assumption (and only confirmed via her mods in Discord, which is... not how you establish canon information in your comic, Rachel.)

Hestia and Athena are part of a chastity club, until uh oh how convenient that they're secretly in a relationship with each other even though it further vilifies them and their morals, particularly Hestia who was promptly called out for being a hypocrite for taking Persephone's coat gifted to her from Hades while secretly being in a relationship the whole time. Not only does the Hestia and Athena relationship manage to commit queer erasure - of two gods who are considered icons in the aroace communities - but it also makes the only two lesbians in the story come across as assholes AND ON TOP OF THAT ALSO manages to somehow invalidate queer sex and relationships as being legitimate due to the even deeper implication that breaking their chastity vows "doesn't count" because it's not a male x female relationship. It's the 'ole poophole loophole all over again.

And then there's Artemis, who has MORE REASON THAN EVER TO BE IN THE PLOT but keeps being conveniently ignored. Her finding out about Hestia and Athena doesn't get any more screentime than her going "oh you're in a relationship, okay" , we never see her question the true intentions of TGOEM or what it means to her, we never see her have any opportunity to carve out her identity beyond just being Apollo's twin sister (it tries to at times, but then immediately goes nowhere with it, amounting to just poetic word salad), and she really just comes across as what a lot of people assume aroace people to be - alone and standoffish, because obviously someone who's nice and a good person would be in a relationship, there has to be a reason they don't want to have sex or fall in love, and that reason obviously has to be that they just hate everyone and want to be alone forever (￢_￢;) Then again, like many of the queer characters in LO, I don't know if I can definitively call her aroace because it's kept as vague as possible, and - going by Rachel's answers to these questions way back in her Tumblr era - apparently people can't be gay and ace at the same time-

There are undoubtedly loads more examples that I could cover here but that goes for practically any essay I write about LO - the more you peel it apart, the more you start unearthing some really questionable and frankly mean-spirited stuff. Queer people feel largely ignored in LO, alongside many of its derivative offspring such as A Touch of Darkness and Crown of Starlight, and it really speaks to how so many people - queer women, no less - have somehow managed to bastardize and sanitize what were traditionally very queer stories with queer characters. It's like these people think "olden times" and can only get as far as "women were slaves and men were rich assholes". Like, yeah, okay, that was the case for many cultures, but not all of them, and for some of them it wasn't as clear cut as that, many had misogynist power struggles in them while also still celebrating women and queer people in their own way. Greek myth is full of stories of women being forced into marriage or being made the victims of assault, but many of them are supportive of women and their struggles, unlike works like LO that somehow manage to be less feminist and sympathetic to women and queer people than these works from thousands of years ago.

This is another topic that's surely meant for another post, but it really speaks not only to the straightwashing and whitewashing of Greek myth, but also the Westernizing of it. That's not to say Rachel Smythe and Cait Corrain and Scarlett St. Claire are intentionally trying to whitewash another culture's works here, but if you're raised predominantly on Western media, you're undoubtedly going to absentmindedly adopt ideas about society that are primarily molded around Western beliefs .

And this is apparent in LO, while Rachel is from New Zealand, you can tell she grew up on a lot of Western media and its influences are sorely showing through LO's worldbuilding, character designs, and narrative choices. That "modern setting" that I mentioned before is much less Greek and a lot more adjacent to The Kardashians which lends to the theories that most of the media that Rachel consumes is American. Rather than actually going to the effort of doing her research on Greek culture, she seems to just prefer defaulting to the easiest assumption of how modern society is across the board - a generic Los Angeles clone with big glass skyscrapers and pavement walkways. She rarely ever draws food or clothing from those time periods; despite this story being about gods she's spent so little time on the people who passed on the stories about those gods, the mortals, and the gods themselves rarely feel like gods, rather just like Hollywood celebrities covered in body paint. The clothing feels very generic and uninspired with often very little Greek influence, even though Greek clothing is designed around Mediterranean living which you could do a lot with, to such an egregiously Western degree that Hades and Persephone's wedding was Christian-coded. The food... well, there ISN'T any because as we've seen, like the stereotypical American child, Persephone apparently only wants chicken nuggies and Skittles for dinner, so we never see her eat; and not only do we not see Persephone eat, but Rachel weirdly tries to use Persephone's vegetarianism as some kind of anti-capitalist characterization when much of the Greek diet is predominantly vegetarian. It's NOT HARD or uncommon to be a vegetarian in Greece!

(it looks like they're literally all eating the same thing so IDK what Hera is referring to here, it looks like they're all eating toast and lettuce LMAO)

All that's to say, much of LO - and the books like it that I've gone over here - are written with this idea that every culture - including the one that it's trying to adapt - was subject to the same ideas that Western culture lives by in the modern day - that being a vegetarian is "counterculture" in every culture, that the notion of sexual purity is enforced in the same way it's enforced in the Western education system (cough Christianity cough), that queer or otherwise "unconventional" relationships should stay inside the bedroom and not be seen. As much as Rachel claims she wants to "fight the patriarchy" and "deconstruct purity culture", all she winds up doing is reinforcing it through a Westernized lens, which is, as I've talked about before, very indicative of right-leaning white feminism and what it embraces and promotes - being a "good woman" who follows the rules and willingly becomes part of the system that's oppressing them because that's what "good women" do. Women who are confidant in their sexuality are evil and should be shunned for being "sluts". Women who are in relationships with other women "don't count" as real relationships the same way heteronormative relationships do, and cannot be trusted because they're likely trying to spread an agenda that's designed to brainwash heterocis women. Women should only aim to achieve marriage and their entire personality has to be built around their true love. Women are allowed to be kinky, but only as kinky as roleplaying the exact same gender structures that puts the man in a position to dominate a woman, and it should always and only ever be with her first love who she marries immediately, no one else.

This is exactly what the critics are getting at when they hold LO - and its creator - accountable for the messages it's been sending for five years to its audience of middle aged women and young girls. Having a demographic is fine, if this were just a comic for girls it would be fine, but it becomes a lot more problematic when that demographic is being fed toxic power fantasy stories based on a culture that's being gentrified and sanitized of all its original messaging and characterization right before our eyes. It feels blatantly misinformed from the very beginning in its intention to be a "feminist retelling" of Greek myth, because somehow Lore Olympus manages to be less feminist than these stories drafted and written by men from 2000+ years ago.

I opened this essay with a question: why do we keep getting these Greek myth adaptations written by queer women that still wind up perpetuating toxic heteronormative culture?

I think cases like these really highlight how deep the heteronormative brainwashing from childhood onward goes. That, despite these writers being queer or women, still manage to reinforce the same ideas and tropes and harmful predisposed notions that were designed to be used explicitly against queer people and women. These are things that we can't ever stop challenging, and asking, and truly deconstructing, because it runs deep in many of us who grew up on popular media even as innocent as Disney. Learning about more complex social concepts like sexism and misogyny and queerphobia doesn't automatically absolve us of those very same biases that have been both blatantly and subtly ingrained into us since childhood. All that said, Rachel being bisexual does not mean she's not capable of straightwashing; Cait Corrain being a queer debut author with a POC main character didn't stop them from targeting other POC debut authors at their own imprint; being part of any minority group or identifier does not automatically protect you from perpetuating the cycle that you, too, likely had enforced upon you at some point or another in your life. The fact that these creators and writers are still perpetuating that cycle to begin with is indicative of why it's a cycle at all - it takes work to break on a subconscious level because those cycles are specifically designed to target and hijack the subconscious.

At its worst, do you really think Lore Olympus can claim to be a feminist retelling that's "deconstructing purity culture" when the creator herself admittedly never fully identified or understood sexism until her mid-30's and has the audacity to say her audience is "harsh" on the female characters that she constantly vilifies through her own narrative?

"I feel like female characters in general, people will be a little harsher on them and sometimes way harsher on them, and I used to be like.. before I started writing the story and like making a story I was like yeah, sexism is not that bad, and [now] I was like oh it's bad. It's quite bad [laughs], so like, I don't know, I feel like the female characters in the story don't get so much of a pass. But this isn't consistent across the board, it's not all the time" - Rachel Smythe, in an interview with Girl Wonder Webtoon Podcast

If Lore Olympus truly was just a series meant to be for fun "no thoughts head empty" drama and spice, that would be fine. I've said it time and time before on this blog and I'll say it again: I wouldn't have an issue if Rachel was just writing a story exclusively revolving around heterocis men and women. I'm just frustrated and tired and annoyed that she keeps lying about it, and doubly so that this comic and its creator who claim to be "feminist" have inspired other people in the same headspace to continue to perpetuate that cycle through works that are clearly inspired by LO and never challenged the things LO promoted - violence towards "unconventional" women, violence towards POC, and erasure of queer people. And worst of all, for writers like Cait Corrain, it's more than just writing a really bad book with really bad messaging, it's going so far as intentionally targeting those same groups of people that are regularly vilified in works like LO - people who are just existing, who don't pose a threat to anyone, but had the misfortune of becoming the target of a white woman's insecurity.

I don't know what the answer to this problem is. I don't know what form the solution will come in, if any, to address the ongoing issues with Greek myth adaptions that are being sorely written through an "America as the default" point of view and praised for "rewriting the script of Greek mythology", quite literally cultural appropriation happening live right before our eyes all for the sake of cheap entertainment. Maybe it'll take the failings of works like Crown of Starlight to really get people talking about it. But so long as the roots of these works - such as Lore Olympus - are still being protected and marketed en masse by the same kinds of people who don't see the issue in Americanizing other cultures and their stories, then Lore Olympus and Crown of Starlight will not be the last ones to cause harm to the source material - and the cultures that source material is born from and a part of - they're taking from.

I opened this post with a question, and I'm going to close it with another to really leave it as food for thought. That question comes from another video that I'll link here for you to watch at your convenience that spends even more time diving into and discussing the nature of works like this that have seemingly attempted to "deconstruct" the very dogmas that they still wind up reinforcing all the same.

Does the romance genre have a white supremacy problem?

youtube

(yes. yes, it does.)

#lo critical #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #cait corrain #a touch of darkness #crown of starlight #scarlett st claire #Youtube

350 notes · View notes

axailslink · 1 year

Note

Hey can I request a angsty fic with Scotty basically the readers ex pops back up and wants to rekindle things, and the reader reassuring Scotty that she doesn’t want them.💜

Your frown tears me apart

(Scotty) Vivienne Scott x poc FEM reader

Smmary: your ex of two years comes back into your life trying to rekindle an old flame and Scotty starts to get a bit insecure and unsure of your current relationship stability. Although she isn't aware that the relationship wasn't a good one.

Scotty watches as you get dressed for work "I have someone I have to meet today so I won't be coming home right after work can you handle everything on your own?" She nods but of course your speak of a possible disappearance from her usual day has her questioning you "someone?" You nod as you fasten your bra "yeah my ex just moved back and wants to see me." Scotty of course has even more questions now "ex? Want to see you?" You nod "yes babe." Scotty has this obvious frown when she doesn't like something and she doesn't like this at all. You read her facial expression and grab her face "Scotty stop you have nothing to worry about it was a long time ago she means nothing" of course your girlfriend wants to believe you but she can't. She can't she just can't bring herself to believe such bullshit. "You can never stop loving someone" you nod in agreement "yes that's true but my love for her has boiled down to only that of a small pea." Scotty nods trying to convince herself as you straddle her lap and force her to look at you "Vivienne Scott you have nothing to worry about she lost her chance years ago we were kids... You mean the world to me that's just a reminder. What I had with her is long gone but the love I have for you is here to stay I buy groceries, I cook, I clean and I love you so fuck her." Scotty nods gently letting her hand rub your lower back "then don't go" you sigh "I already told her I would however you can join me so you can see that your girl will be on her best behavior." She smiles as you peck her lips "my girl?" You nod as she flips you both around so that your back is against the soft sheets. "You're going to make me late" she laughs as she kisses down your neck "you get fired I can just get you to work with me" you laugh as your hand rubs the shaved part of her head "that can never happen then I'd really be late" she laughs and kisses you again "every day."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Work went well you couldn't stop talking about your girlfriend as usual which had Dean wanting to jump out of the closest available window. He could handle Scotty because she rambles and rambles but she's easy to ignore you don't just ramble you reenact, yell and grab hold of him to keep him engaged in the story. So when you're finally off the clock he silently cheers you of course grab some lunch for you, Scotty, and her mother on your way home. You're surprised though to see Scotty dressed and wandering around the house doing your daily chores "babe you had work today right?" She shakes her head "no I called in sick I have something more important to worry about at the moment the stake of my relationship." You sigh and place the paper bag down "Scotty I thought we discussed this this morning you weren't going to do this the whole jealous creeper thing. You know I love you." Scotty sighs and dries her wet hands "we didn't discuss anything Y/n we had sex and you left for work" you open the bag and hand her a sandwich "I don't like this jealousy Scotty I really don't like this fucking side of you eat so we can leave." You shove the sandwich in her hand and push past her taking the bag with you as you go to her mother's room.

Her mother can see it written all over your face when you walk in the room not that that truly matters she also heard it "I'm sorry she's just acting out of character jealousy? Scotty has never been jealous she's never even acknowledged the people who took passing glances at me because she knows no one could love me more than her." her mother smiles to herself "you're right that is out of character for her but maybe it's because of who she's worried about" you pause and shrug "my ex?" Her mother nods "you two have history in her eyes that's a whole past she knows nothing about so think like her she's probably running through everything that person could do better for you. Can they cook better? Can they treat you better? Can they love you better?" You nod slowly "oh" you hand her mother the sandwich "I got it just like you like it-" you mock her "no healthy shit but don't tell Scotty she'd hate me for it." Her mother smiles and pats your shoulder "she could never hate you she loves you too much."

As Scotty sits and eats her sandwich she's wondering just about everything which is why you join her in the kitchen and just stare at her until she's had enough. "What!?" You raise a brow and her face immediately softens "I didn't mean to yell I'm just-" irritated? Jealous? Upset?" She sucks her teeth as she dusts of her hands. "Just tell me she means nothing absolutely nothing tell me you don't have dreams about her please tell me I'm the only one." You grab Scotty's arms seeing her so shaken and worried and has you wanting to cry. "Not anymore Viv you're the light of my life really your smile warms my heart and you frown tears me apart."

She nods and you hug her immediately cradling her head into the hug and kissing her cheek "trust me she's a real peice of shit... Love I'm not going anywhere and I love you more than everyone on the earth combined"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You two arrive at the cafe and there she is you can see Scotty visibly tense up but you kiss her cheek "I think you should get a different table you're easily upsetting and I don't want to have to comfort you through a panic attack in front of all these people." She nods and stays back as you sit in front of your ex with a smile on your face. "I ordered your favorite apple pie" you smile kindly which Scotty finds annoying as she watches from a distance "my favorites have changed you're behind a few years I enjoy something different now..." You glance at the cup of coffee and smile "I also don't drink coffee anymore." She nods "okay so that's how this is going to be?" you nod as you cross your legs skirt rising just above your thigh "yes that's how this is going to be." She smiles softly.

"I missed you I didn't want to leave you but I had no choice" you watch as the smoke rises from the coffee and this causes you to wander just how hot this would feel on skin. "You leaving was the best day of my life it was the day when you could no longer use me. It was the day when I stopped being the sex object you wanted and that's fine. You don't get to come back and act as if you were good to me." She sucks her teeth her soft and sweet facade drops with the blink of an eye "then why come here?" You smile and glance back at your girlfriend "just to say fuck you and to leave you with your thoughts as I leave with my future wife." You get up and she grabs your arm causing Scotty to immediately jump up but you place your hand on her tummy gently shaking your head. "You remember that knife I stabbed you with the night you yelled at me and hit me? I still have that knife and you still have that scar would you like another?" She lets you go and you can see Scotty is visibly shaken you grab her hand and pull her out of the cafe. "You stabbed her?" You keep walking towards your car "yes with very good reason she raised her voice at me." Scotty nods slowly remembering when she raised her voice at you earlier. "...I would never stab you Scotty I felt threatened that night my life was in danger that's why she has that scar I spoke of." Scotty catches you in an unexpected kiss hands sitting in your waist "I know that should scare me but it doesn't I love just how much you can take care of yourself." You smile and look her up and down "if you were a guy you'd have a major boner right now wouldn't you?" Scotty bursts into laughter "I'm going to the car. I'm not even answering that!" You follow behind her both of your hands still intertwined.

A/n: unedited because I just didn't feel like it but I knew I had to post something today. So please love this as much as you love the older fics of mine.

@iwillbiteabitch

#vivienne scott #scotty x reader #letitia wright scotty #scotty my love #scotty banana #vivienne scotty #letitia wright x black!reader #letitia wright #letitia wright fanfiction #letitia wright fanfic #scotty x black! reader #shuri x fem!reader #shuri x f!reader #shuri x black!reader #shuri udaku x black!reader

164 notes · View notes

meet-you-at-the-cemetery-gates · 11 months

Text

Started playing Bioshock Infinite, and now I can say without a doubt that I can see why people either love or hate this game.

Being a piece of art, it has flaws. In Infinite's case, it suffers from what I like to call "white writing." (I can say it, I'm pasty as fuck.)

While I disagree with the game being, at it's core, racist, I can fairly say it handles race clumsily. The "both sides are bad" narrative is stupid. When it comes to the Vox Populi, I have a feeling they may have been trying to criticize movements that start with good intentions, but evolve into tyranny due to authoritarianism and an "us vs them" mentality. However, it fails miserably. I couldn't help but think to myself "the Vox Populi aren't that bad and I can see myself siding with them" while playing the game, aside from the killing of intellectuals by killing those who may appear to be intellectuals (need I remind you of the "kill anyone with glasses" line?), since that is usually a sign of an authoritarian regime.

What I find stupid is the idea that depicting racism at all is racist. I've seen people get mad that a fictional racist does what racists usually do and steal the work of a honest, hard working POC, that is simply realism. People are awful and will do awful things. Naturally, this is reflected in fiction, since fiction does not exist in a vacuum.

As for Ken Levine being a bad person, I'd say from what I've read I cannot help but agree. This doesn't mean liking the things he makes makes you a bad person, however, since art can and should be enjoyed critically. If you really want, just steal or pirate an artist's work if you find them so abhorrent. It is as easy as that.

I like this game. Sure, I hate how they handled the Vox Populi, and the use of an actual massacre of Indigenous peoples as a plot device is insensitive, I'd say it is still a good video game. Art has flaws and we must accept that. We must dissect and analyze these flaws and make sure not to repeat them. Shaming people who like flawed art is not productive, and will most likely lead to them not listening to your arguments, as well as shutting down critical discussions.

TLDR: Art is complicated and can have flaws. However, as long as a piece of media isn't literally "Mein Kompf" or whatever, enjoying it doesn't make you a bad person. To claim otherwise shuts down productive and analytical discussion.

#bioshock infinite #bioshock burial at sea #bioshock remastered #bioshock #bioshock 2 #please be nice in the comments we don't want a flame war #media analysis #media critique

44 notes · View notes

triviareads · 1 year

Note

do you have diverse modern romance recs?

Yep! I've (mostly) organized it by author:

Naima Simone: I'm obsessed with literally everything this woman writes, both Harlequin and not Harlequin. Naima writes a lot of fabulous Black heroines (and she writes great body diversity as well) and a decent amount of POC heroes as well. My favorites include . Black Tie Billionaire (Black heroine, Asian hero), Secrets Of A One Night Stand (Black heroine, Pacific Islander hero), and Trust Fund Fiancé (both the hero and heroine are Black). The best thing about Naima's books is just the uniformity in how she writes every body type as attractive and desirable and the sex is very hot. Would absolutely recommend.

Katrina Jackson: I haven't talked about Katrina enough, when she's out here doing the most for mafia romances and spy romances with diverse characters. I could happily read her novella Beautiful & Dirty over and over, but it's a prequel to the mafia series which ends with my favorite, The Don, which has a Black heroine. Katrina also wrote a spy series (The Spies Who Loved Me!) and the first in that series, Pink Slip, has a Black heroine who's lusting over her married bosses (the wife, Monica, is Latina I believe) and surprise, they're both into her too.

Angelina M. Lopez: Angelina writes excellent Latino rep. Her fictional town Freedom, Kansas, which is the setting in multiple stories, has an amazing Mexican-American community she builds on. I'd recommend After Hours on Milagro Street, which has a Mexican-American heroine, as well as her upcoming Full Moon Over Freedom, which is next in the series. The way she melds culture, magic, and romance is gorgeous. Also! Lush Money, which is set within this universe, has a Latina heroine and is very fun and worth reading.

Tara Pammi: If you want to read about Indians in India or Bollywood-centric romances, Tara is the author. I liked Claiming His Bollywood Cinderella and The Secret She Kept in Bollywood (that man is suuuch a DILF he's great).

Jadesola James: I've talked about her before (see here) but Jadesola has written a couple Harlequin Presents stories set in Africa. I'd recommend The Royal Baby He Must Claim and The Princess He Must Marry, which are about sisters who are Nigerian princesses.

Talia Hibbert: The Brown Sisters books are bangers, sexy and emotionally comforting at the same time. I'd recommend all of them: Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown. I also love her novella Guarding Temptation, which has both a Black hero and heroine and Wanna Bet? which has a Black heroine and a British-Indian hero (thanks for reminding me @viscountessevie).

Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai: The hero and heroine are in-laws (well, her husband, his brother, is dead) so the romance was very emotional and slow-burn, but the pay-off was absolutely worth it. The heroine Sadia is Pakistani-American, and the hero Jackson is of Japanese and Hawaiian ancestry. Alisha also delves pretty deep into South Asian family dynamics which hit a liiiittle too close to home, but I can't deny the accuracy.

Reel by Kennedy Ryan: This a romance between an actress and her director (both are Black) and I particularly appreciate the amount of research Kennedy Ryan put into the Harlem Renaissance, Black artists of that era (she created a fictional artist to base the movie off of), as well as their contributions to the Civil Rights movement which I think isn't discussed enough.

Sink or Swim by Tessa Bailey: See here.

From what I recall, Katee Robert did a pretty good job of body diversity without super explicitly mentioning race in her Fairytale Villains Who Fuck Wicked Villains series.

#naima simone #angelina m lopez #talia hibbert #tara pammi #jadesola james #kennedy ryan #alisha rai #tessa bailey #katee robert #contemporary romance #book recs #ask

62 notes · View notes

cloudbrooksblog · 9 months

Text

i am :pinched_fingers: THIS CLOSE to blocking the hazbin/helluva critical tags. its so fucking irritating to read that shit, cause most of it is just nonsense! things that don't matter! "Oh no viv likes the main character and his love interest! is this why people who hate the main character are portrayed as antagonists?" like holy shit its so annoying. the show is called "helluva boss" guess who the boss is.

and then with hazbin hotel, some of the criticism i understand (like specifically the parts about racism are points i can't argue against. cause every POC i see is agreeing with it and im white so like,, who the fuck would i be to say "erm actually" about it) but the other criticism is like... "theres too many stereotypes" "angels theme song is too stereotypical" like ok some things are stereotypes but look at the parts of the characters that you're laser-focused away from. people talk shit about the bad queer rep, but like. idk man, hazbin hotel as a show hasnt come out yet. Helluva boss has some criticism against it i guess, not as much as hazbin... that might be because there's less to criticise, but i also feel like that might be because hazbin isn't out yet lmao.

and this is the thing i hate about the internet, they dont enjoy new media, they analyse it to see if theres anything that annoys them, and then if too much annoys them they shit on it endlessly because shitting on things as a group is fun.

literally people are seeing how a24 is agreeing to the asks of the unions and the first thing they do is post about how they hope vivziepop promotes the show more.

maybe wait until the show comes out! stop making yourself stressed about the future of the show! have a little patience! I know its been "yeeeears" but for fucks sake we GOT a release date. vivziepop never promised a release date before now, and now we have an estimated release date, so why not chill? why feel so entitled?

i swear. whenever a new episode of helluva boss comes out, i race to the socials to just have fun with the community that enjoys the same show i do. i think "oh boy i sure do hope i've gotten here before the haters". if it wasn't like this, maybe i'd be less irritated about the more general discourse, but this is the situation we are stuck with. Do these people realise there's an actual... regular fanbase? Like, there's a fanbase for this show that engages with it normally. We speculate on where it might go, we talk about what we like about the show, and some of the things that missed the mark (in discord servers etc). Then inevitably a viv anti comes in the discord, causes a storm in the "discussion" channel, and leaves declaring that we are brainwashed. chill maybe

#word vomit #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #rant

29 notes · View notes

whimsikoi · 1 year

Text

🌱Hello all & welcome back to my bog!🌱

I'm Marlow (@palustrine)! I am a queer poc diviner who has been working with their craft for about 8 years almost now. Already really loved rocks growing up and frequented the local crystals store (a chain here in the UK at least) as well as being partial to garden potion making as a child! Combined with discovering the hit game Persona 4 Golden, these threw me into a magical world I never knew was possible before!! Plus many many decks... 💫

My first tarot deck was a mini Rider Waite that I bought secretly and used to practice. Eventually, I gifted this to an ex but it provided me an invaluable experience that has peaked my curiosity since. I now have a lovely little family full of different personalities, uses and more that I adore with my heart in this life past and future. Will share them with you all over time 🌿

I'd now like to offer my services to you lovelies if you feel you may need guidance at any stage of your life. Prefacing from the get go, I do not provide readings regarding relationships (romantic or not) as I do not want to involve someone without their consent in the process. My goal is to provide advice whilst giving you the encourage and tools you may need to invoke this into your life. Whether this may be a simple chat, spell, sigil etc. It will be tailored to you. 🌙

Feel free to contact me if this is something you are interested me so we can discuss details. I operate on a sliding scale currently with an regular price for each of my offerings. 🍃

Community simple readings shall hopefully be making a return here on the blog too! Look out for posts welcoming asks to recieve a 1-2 card reading or opt for a "pick a card" style instead. 🌠

39 notes · View notes

27-royal-teas · 1 year

Text

YET !!! ANOTHER ANALYSIS!! And for good reason this time because people keep misinterpreting Pete’s work to be about Mikey and it makes me fucking PISSED can you not let pete have one thing in his goddamn life i get it its fine to have headcanons and opinions but PLEASE for the love of god please stop discrediting all of his hard work & good writing to be about a white boy he fucked back in ‘05 this CONSTANTLY happens with poc artists and it makes me mad to no end

yep, that’s right. today we’re talking about I Am My Own Muse. writing this essay i have listened to it a grand total of twenty three times

i like this song a lot specifically because i do kind of relate to it a lot frequently i feel like smashing a guitar until i go insane but i dont have a guitar and i dont know how to play one regardless so. uh yeah

The thing about IAMOM is that it’s saying that in the TITLE. Hes his own muse. And obviously no one can take that away. sure , some of his songs might be inspired by someone, but in the long run, who do they come from? pete. romance songs might not be about anyone in particular. I know ive wrote songs that could be interpreted as romance, but they’re actually me talking to my younger self or my future self or my friend, and the point is, even though songs written by pete may seem like they were about someone that doesnt mean they are and you cant, you CANNOT discredit the fact that he is his own muse. just like the song title says.

The song begins with a BANGING orchestral arrangement. I think the intro to IAMOM is my favorite song intro on the album. It's just very well thought out and clearly carefully planned, and quite honestly I think patrick did an AMAZING job and I'd love to see him do a breakdown of the composition here because I am IMPRESSED. Not even to mention the vocals, he is on FIRE. anyway in the rest of this essay I’ll be interpreting the lyrics and tying them back to the central topic i just opened with: How Pete Is His Own Muse.

The first verse is quiet, and it begins like this:

“Here i am, not sure you should take a chance

I like playing dumb, letting you figure me out

But i was faded in my own defense

So drop a bomb on the things we dreamed about”

I feel as though this verse is very clear. He isnt sure that the person he’s referring to should take a chance on him, should think that he is worth it, and he likes being able to be up to someone else’s interpretation with no outside influence. i do this frequently with strangers- i stay quiet so that they can make up their own idea in their head about me. They can figure me out themself, since i clearly cant figure myself out, and i think that’s the idea pete is really aiming for here. ‘So drop a bomb on all the things we dream about” can be referring to himself or someone else, but here let’s take it in the context that he’s discussing himself. This line is repeated in the second verse, so it’s clearly one of the main points that needed to be stated here; here he is saying to himself that (again, it’s that self sabotage) he should give it up, give it all up, it’s not worth it, destroy it all, drop a bomb on all our dreams because they aren’t going to happen. Taken together with the previous lines we can basically say that pete is saying that because he is leaving himself open to interpretation from the public, the things he truly meant to say are lost. And i think that’s the main thing here, especially with the title, and obviously im doing it myself, maybe this isnt what he meant at all, but i definitely do think it correlates along those lines to some degree.

The chorus is repeated several times throughout the song (3 times to be specific) and it goes like this:

“Smash all the guitars ‘til we see all the stars

Oh got to throw this year away

We got to throw this year away like

A bad luck charm”

And then that repeats twice.

I think i can safely say everyone reading this right now has gone through the pandemic. I assume three year olds dont go on tumblr. The entire smfs album references 2020 and 2019 time and time again, most critically in What A Time To Be Alive, and it’s heavily present in this song too. “Got to throw this year away (like a bad luck charm)” vocalizes the wishes of pete and everyone else who wishes to cut those years out of their brains- pete has expressed in interviews how taxing the pandemic really was on his mental health, and i think that “smash all the guitars” could symbolize the frustration and pain he really felt in that time; destroying music (one of the main things he loves) until he can sink into that despair and just float away (“‘til we see all the stars”). Another way this can be interpreted is an act of rebellion (a lot of musical artists smash their guitars during shows, cough ryan ross cough) but i dont really think that that makes as much sense in this context.

The next verse:

“The trumpets bring the angels but they never came

No one let them in ‘cause they didnt know my name

I know i keep my feelings so tucked away

Just another day spent hoping we dont fall apart

So drop a bomb on all the things we dreamed about”

Another very pete based verse (BECAUSE HE IS HIS OWN MUSE). This kind of links to Heaven’s Gate because it’s related to the same thing- not making it on the list, not feeling worthy of getting into heaven, because this sort of self deprecation is reflected throughout most of Fall Out Boy’s albums. I could give a million examples of this, but I don’t want to be here forever. “The trumpets bring the angels but they never came/ no one let them in ‘cause they didn’t know my name” sort of brings to mind the image of a person waiting to be carried away to something they’re not entirely sure they deserve, and they’re proven correct because no one ever came to carry them away, no one ever decided that they’d be on the list to get to heaven and the angels just went marching past and pete can hear their horns, know theyre there for people who deserve heaven much more than he does. How sad is that?

“I know i keep my feelings so tucked away/ just another day spent hoping we dont fall apart” carries the feeling of not wanting to be a burden with every emotion thought and expressed, even the good ones, and ‘we’ can be referring to himself, every single aspect of himself, hoping he doesn’t fall apart into shards of the stars his guitar is made up of. and then of course it’s the line about the bomb again, although this time it feels even more internalized and personal because it’s the second time he said it, and he dreams of getting into heaven but how can he make it up there if the angels themselves know he does not deserve to and so. drop a bomb on all the things we dreamed about, folks, because they aren’t going to happen.

The bridge:

“So let’s twist the knife again, twist the knife again

like we did last summer

So let’s twist the knife again, twist the knife again

Oh, i’m just trying to keep it together

But it gets a little harder when it never gets better I'm trying

To keep it together, to keep it together, oh”

To me this entire bridge just feels really deeply confessional and personal. Im going to start at the bottom because i like it the best.

He’s trying. He’s trying so damn hard- to be optimistic, to be hopeful and stay full of happiness and love but it’s SO HARD when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel to motivate him. This is still talking about quarantine, i think; i remember i was in middle school at the time; they said that we would be back in two weeks. I remember i was grateful to get a break and time off. Then two weeks turned into two years and it got really, really hard to see an end to the pandemic. When things stop improving it gets harder and harder to keep it together when you can’t see the results of any of your actions, when you’re trying your best but it still gets you nowhere. Wouldn’t you stop trying? i know i would.

And let’s talk about “let’s twist the knife” just a little bit. “Last summer” might refer to the last album release, which is Mania (even though it was released in January). Another album cycle, another twist of the knife; another bit of words that pete has to pull out of himself like ribbons, and although he loves it, that’s his job, it still feels like dredging up all the pain again. So let’s twist the knife again, dig it in just a little deeper, just like we did before.

So, yeah. Pete is his own muse and i truly do think that that is heavily reflected in this song, even this whole album. A lot of songs in smfs seem more him-centered, because he is the writer and he is talking about himself. So Good Right Now and What A Time To Be Alive are especially good examples of this.

And the interesting thing about the title is that it’s pulled from a Frida Kahlo quote, which goes like this:

“I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. I am the subject I want to better.”

And isn’t that just it? This whole album, it’s an album of self discovery and going back to your roots and staying current anyway. It’s patrick pulling pete out of his funk and getting him back in the game; it’s an exploration of a new style, a new fall out boy. And like a phoenix, every album they rise again, still the same but somehow completely brand new. The orchestral arrangements displayed in IAMOM and SMFS and LFTOS showcase this, the new feeling but still the same, something bettered, and I’m really, really happy with how far they’ve come not only in their expansion of music but also with themselves. And I feel like this song and this title- I Am My Own Muse- is really a stand up, it’s a show of how far they’ve come. Because they are the subject they know the best.

#Toby speaks #Toby’s meta #fall out boy #fob #pete wentz #patrick stump #andy hurley #joe trohman #fob meta #meta #lyric analysis

23 notes · View notes

licncourt · 2 years

Note

hey, do you know of any posts that discuss the racism throughout the series a bit more deeply? someone just shared a post from Rice's facebook dated around 2014 about how the QoTD movie sucked but one good thing was that Akasha was played by "a lovely black woman" since fans of color had felt "left out". i think that shows interesting self-awareness and growth, but i'd like to know more about the portrayal of characters of color over the decades, and how it improved (or didn't)! Tysm in advance!

There's been lots of discussion of racism in VC over the years, but I don't know of any posts that specifically break that down the way you're asking. I can talk a little bit about it though!

Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't read the books!

Racism is pretty present from the beginning of the series. The first part of Interview with the Vampire takes place on a plantation and that's fairly controversial in itself. The decision to make Louis a plantation owner and the way that subject is handled is a point of contention among fans in general, but that's not really what you're asking about, so I'll discuss it another time.

What's important here is that it's the first time POC are present in the series and while the treatment of them as little more than props makes sense, unfortunately, for the setting, Anne Rice has never been known for her excellent views on race/treatment of characters of color, so it becomes more uncomfortable on a meta level. I think the best example of how this expositional element tips over the edge into something more is with Lestat.

While he's largely the villain of IWTV, the account Louis gives of his cruel treatment of the enslaved people on the plantation is very unsettling when you consider that Lestat is the protagonist by the second book and this particular issue is never addressed in AR's attempts to retcon him into a likable, sympathetic anti-hero.

The Vampire Lestat introduces the characters of Akasha and Enkil, ethnically Iraqi characters residing in Egypt who are also the oldest vampires in the world. A famously insensitive element of VC is what exactly being an elder and/or more powerful vampire entails appearance-wise, namely being bleached white skin regardless of the vampire's original race or ethnicity. I think it's pretty self-evident that having vampires become paler and paler as they grow more powerful is not a great story element to have in the first place, and it's not one that was ever changed between the 80s and the 2010s. This phenomenon affects a significant chunk of the black, MENA, and South Asian vampires in the series.

(There's also some odd white-washing of the characters Maharet and Mekare, pale redheads of Mesopotamian origin? I don't think it's explained why this is the case. When I first read QotD, I assumed that they were Celtic because of the description, but no, not the case.)

Queen of the Damned is probably the worst of the trilogy as far as making it obvious that AR had some antiquated ideas and prejudices about POC. I'll talk about specific characters in a second, but a running theme in this book is "the East vs the West" in terms of morality. "The East" is characterized by the narrative as barbaric, materialistic, and regressive in contrast to "the West" which is philosophical, enlightened, and has "no place for evil" (that's a real quote).

It would be one thing if these views were expressed by characters we're supposed to disagree with, by the one who pushes these ideas most of all is Marius, a character who is very clearly presented as one of the wisest, most intelligent, and most admirable of the vampires. It's not hard to tell based on the books as a whole that AR had a serious hard-on for "Western culture". It permeates every book in an increasingly obvious way.

As for characters of color, a few are introduced in QotD. One is largely unimportant, Davis, but he's a random vampire gang member. The ones I want to talk about more are Khayman and Azim. I don't have much to say about Khayman other than I enjoyed him but his part is fairly small and then he's killed off in his next appearance so....

Azim is...more unfortunate. Even though he's only around briefly, the stereotypes are off the wall. He's an Indian vampire who lives in a Himalayan temple where he's spent centuries posing as a god and glutting himself on the blood of worshippers. The book describes him as being practically swollen with blood and dressed in lavish Oriental silks, the stereotype of an arrogant Eastern decadent who then fools the naive mountain people into sacrificing themselves. Ultimately, he's too consumed by gluttony and greed to be terribly powerful and is killed easily.

Next up is Tale of the Body Thief, and boy, it's a doozy. Without explaining the entire plot, the consciousness of the mortal Englishman David is swapped into the body of an Indian man. This body was stolen from its original owner by the antagonist of the book, but this is the form David resides in for the remainder of the series.

I think most people would see the metaphor for colonialism pretty easily, the body of an Indian man taken, inhabited, and used by a white British man with no regard for its original resident. Sadly for us, AR gives no indication of understanding the optics here and seems not to see an issue with this.

Even worse in some ways though is the way Indian!David is described. It's so fetishistic sometimes it makes my skin crawl. Lots of focus is on his skin color and "exotic" appearance and this continues pretty much for the rest of the series. It's very uncomfortable and it didn't stay in the 90s just like the skin whitening didn't live and die in the 80s.

I'm not going to spend too much time on the three Mayfair crossover books (Merrick, Blackwood Farm, and Blood Canticle) because they all have very similar issues among them, but I do want to talk about the witch Merrick. She has the makings of a very cool character, but instead she's just a disappointing stereotype of a black/mixed woman. She uses her (rather racially-coded) magic to draw Louis and David to her at which point she continues to hold Louis in magical thrall in order to brainwash him into turning her (non-consensual blood drinking/sharing is explicitly analogous to rape according to AR) and entering a romantic relationship.

Again, this doesn't look great. It really mimics caricature of a black seductress who takes advantage of a helpless white man and pushes the idea of black women as aggressive, materialistic, and hypersexual. The treatment of Louis in this book is awful, but the writing of Merrick as a character is quite offensive as well. Yet again though, she's killed in the next book.

If we're keeping count, this is the sixth named character of color I've mentioned so far who is killed in the course of the books, so all except one gang member and Indian!David. A vast majority of POC in VC before the 2010s are killed off. I think I've listed all the named characters of color up to Blood Canticle/2003, and only one (a gang member) survives to the end of the series. Proportionately, the deaths of POC FAR outweigh those of white characters.

Things change somewhat in 2014 with Prince Lestat and it's widely speculated that AR's son, an author as well, was somewhat involved in trying to rectify the racism in the books. Whatever the case, the more egregious examples taper off here and there is far less discussion of Eastern barbarity, the moral bankruptcy of inner cities, and "Bedouin caramel skin". That's not to say it ends though.

A larger cast of ancient vampires are introduced in this book, including characters of color like Seth, Teskhamen, Arjun, Gregory/Nebamun, and Fareed, all of whom are, you guessed it, white as marble. Something else that's never remedied is the total lack of black vampires. Most of the characters of color are Egyptian/MENA or South Asian, even at this point and it stays that way. Black VC vampires are still unicorns. It might just be Davis (nearly irrelevant as a character) and Merrick actually. If I'm forgetting someone, please tell me though!

There's also an unfortunate characterization of Arjun as violently jealous and controlling, particularly towards women, as well as scheming and manipulative, two prolific stereotypes about brown men. At this point you shouldn't be surprised to find out that he is also killed, in this case by Marius, AR's wise ancient Roman Aryan sage. So that's fun.

As far as I remember, Gregory, Seth, and Fareed are largely fine? Nothing crazy that stood out to me as far as race, at least not enough that it's coming to me right now.

So yeah, 2014 sounds about right for that Facebook statement you mentioned. If she tried at all, it would've begun around that time. I hope the attempt was genuine because it was certainly an improvement, but I guess I struggle to give her the benefit of the doubt after...so much shit. I hope that was helpful!

Edit: I've been informed in the tags that Avicus might be black? Someone else is saying he's just burnt. Idk. AR has too many OCs, that woman is killing me

#please add to this if you have anything to say/correct!#this is all off the top of my head #i'd also love to hear from fans of color since i'm still white-passing #answered #vc #interview with the vampire #meta #iwtv

93 notes · View notes

orionsangel86 · 7 months

Note

recent follower here saying hi (not white, was aware of the recent conversation re: racism in the sandman fandom and followed closely but felt I didn't have anything to add). I remember reading your metas a while ago and I enjoyed your analysis a lot! and now I'm glad to learn you and many others have been focusing on encouraging people in the sandman fandom to branch out and appreciate characters other than dream and hob. I do think that unlearning the racist 'only shipping the two white dudes' pattern across English-speaking fandoms can actually free us up for more creation and more joy!! I certainly feel tempted...

Hiiii! Welcome!! ❤️

Thank you so much for your message! I'm glad that we are having these conversations but I would really like to encourage fans of colour to speak out and get involved as well. I am trying to focus on finding a solution to the problem that doesnt resort to petty ship wars and I think one of the best ways is to just encourage more engagement in fan works focused on the characters of colour, and just broadening the space to include everyone and making people aware that these conversations are totally fine to have. I want to hear from poc and I really hope that my blog feels welcoming for you.

Definitely get involved and if you have creations to share please tag me.

Im looking forward to the Sandman femslash week in October and I'm also thinking about some other events we could hold but as I'm just one blog and certainly not one of the bigger blogs I'd love to hear any ideas or other upcoming events planned by other members of the Sandman fandom.

I was wondering for example if anyone in Sandman fandom is thinking of running a Sandman themed inktober event? I'll tag a few of my fave Sandman artists here just in case there are some discussions already in progress:

@teejaystumbles @fishfingersandscarves @designtheendless @endlessdoodles @alexzpaintings

#asks #lovely people #tackling fandom racism #the sandman #sandman events

5 notes · View notes

advestager · 5 months

Note

I feel like saying Josuke doesn't have any daddy issues whatsoever isn't entirely fair (I've seen some fic and comics go further into how he and his mom might have been treated due to the circumstances of his birth that were pretty compelling) but people who act like he grew up without any father figure are definitely off base imo. Every single adaptation and extra material have always had a focus on his close relationship with his grandpa for a reason!

see, that's precisely the thing. it is literally impossible to be a grown up human without having internalised some sort of illogical Feeling about oneself or the world – but fandom as a whole tends to just assign arbitrary ones to characters based on stereotypes rather than what they actually are like.

i do think josuke feels some sort of way about his lack of a father growing up, but that's as inevitable as joseph himself (or giorno, or jolyne, or even jonathan) having feelings about his own dad, and yet somehow jorge's absence does not get brought up despite joseph and josuke's fairly similar upbringings. the fact is that most of western fandom tends to view the JJBA characters through a (white, usa-centric) lens that simply does not lend itself to a fair or accurate reading when most of the cast is either POC or from an entirely different cultural background. that's why i'm so resistant to label josuke as having 'daddy issues'; the term means something entirely different to me than it seems to do to most of the fandom, based on all the fic, comics, and discussions i've seen (and had) about the topic. it's not exactly like the organised crime aspect of VA, but it fills me with a similar kind of frustration. i don't think one needs a degree in cultural studies or history or whatnot to enjoy a silly series about people punching each other with slutty soul-ghosts, but it's exhausting to see the same thoughtless, very specifically westernised takes being regurgitated over and over as Absolute Truth until the characters are so flanderised they seem nothing as much as a caricature of their original versions. i love transformative works as much as any other fan creator, but i also happen to like the source material. it is infinitely more interesting to me to think about what kind of relationship josuke might have to his heritage as a mixed-race person, or his identity as the son of a single mother or the obviously cherished and spoilt child of a family such as his own (especially in a place and period like canon's late-90s/early 00's japan), than to hear yet another iteration of 'haha, josuke has daddy issues' where the person saying it has no intention of analysing that premise beyond the puddle-depth obvious.

at barely sixteen years old, even as interested in high-end fashion (and as very much part of a working class family who could definitely use the nest egg) as he is, josuke's immediate reaction to being told his missing father is incredibly rich and wants to take care of him is to say that it's not necessary, and he's fine as he is. sixteen. i worked as a teacher with kids as young as a year old and people as old as mid-seventies; that kind of ease of mind is one-in-a-million and not something you'll find on someone who fits fandom's definition of 'daddy issues'. he's not angry at joseph, he's not grasping for money, he hardly even wants to find out more about the missing part of his origins. his only thought is to wish he wouldn't be the reason other people were hurt, and to protect his mother once there is a risk she might find out and be distressed about it. his entire morality system is (from what i remember of canon) mostly based around the question What Would Grandpa Do?, with some leeway allowed for the temper he clearly got from tomoko and for the fact that he is, again, a big and slightly spoilt sixteen year old.

so yeah. it might not sound fair to say he doesn't have daddy issues, but i don't think the terms fandom's operating under are fair to start with, so i'd rather recuse myself (and my interpretation of the character) from it all til we're playing the same game. the sandbox's wide and wild, and the block and mute buttons are there for a reason, so i'll just stay in my corner writing about higashikatas wielding their feelings like sledgehammers til my mum says it's time to go home.

#tl;dr: everyone's absolutely entitled to their opinion! i just happen to find the most common one the equivalent of soap-flavoured cilantro #i definitely agree with the part about his rship with his grandfather! it's a whole thing in my own writing for them #it's just 'daddy issues' has become shorthand for a combination of takes i quite dislike the past few years #so yeah. i'll just... Not. if y'all don't mind #(i do think Other characters have daddy issues in the traditional sense. and even in the popular modern sense. but not josuke particularly)#anyway i hope this doesn't read as confrontational as i fear it sounds bc that was. so not my intention orz #ty for the ask!!!! i really love discussing character analysis i'm just rly tired rn so i probably sound super Debate Team Mode haha #ps ryohei was 100000% josuke's favourite person in the world growing up and he's still tomoko's special baby gremlin at age 50 pass it on #josuke higashikata #jojo #the funny thing abt my fic is i'm really at ease abt posting my shippy stuff bc it's just like. treating myself to sth nice #and then sharing with everyone as a bonus #but the stuff where i actually talk abt familial and platonic rships for my faves lives in eternal development hell bc i just LOVE it #and never feel like it's perfect enough to share. it's never complete because it's always evolving #which is why i once wrote a novel allegedly about detectives in love but in reality about 100kish of family/friendship character analysis #meaning there was no way this ask could've ever been answered succinctly lol #ask tag #joji.txt #joosk #anonymous

2 notes · View notes

ladyimaginarium · 11 months

Text

Title: lemonade. Genre: Family, Friendship, Hurt-Comfort, Slice-Of-Life. Fandom: TWDG. Characters: Clementine Maria Jasmine Cree, Isis Onyx ( OC ), AJ ( cameo ). For: Aja / @creolejesus !! Summary: For the first time in a very long time, she felt soft. Feminine. Fierce. Beautiful. Magical. All her life, it seemed like she had to fight, but now, she can simply… unwind for what appeared to be the first time in forever. This was what peace looks like, she thinks, and she prays to any god that would listen that this won't be taken away from her like all the others before. Rating: 16+. Warning(s): Clementine discusses her experiences with antiblackness & texturism as a child in non-explicit detail. Overall, this is a very uplifting ficlet. A/N: this was a concept ficlet i'd& written a while back for my& dear friend aja where back when i& was in the rpc, clementine & isis were basically like a mother-daughter duo where isis would teach her hoodoo & black history & black feminism in the deep south in a ranch area with horses nearby a bayou !! keep in mind that all this was approved by aja who is a afro-indigenous ( specifically black cherokee ) writer who i& always know would make sure i& write accurately should she ever see something that needs fixing. i& write clementine ( & as she is also an introject in our& system ) as a afro-indigenous chinese two spirit nonbinary girl; isis belongs to aja & she is a black creole rootworker & witch from new orleans louisiana with a mysterious past. i& intentionally left this vague whether or not this was in the canon universe of the apocalypse or this is somethin' else but this was actually inspired by the visuals of beyonce's lemonade album, poc cottagecore ( or ig more specifically black & native cottagecore ) & like. i& always hced clem as like always having to codeswitch especially around nonblack and nonnative folx so that mostly white survivors wouldn't view her as a threat ( bc. antiblackness smh ) & so when she's around isis, she feels like she can let those walls down & be authentically herself; i& do my& best to respect the language & aja said i& did a wonderful job at writing it so correctly & with respect as yt folx are really out here doing the absolute most & acting like it's a meme language when it's a language w/ its own dialect, rules, history & culture. i always got like. warm colors & black cottagecore / black witchcore vibes w/ isis & i wanted to reflect that in the visuals bc clementine eventually does do natural protective hairstyles in the future when she grows out her hair so i& think it would've been cool if isis was the one who taught her how to do her braids & stuff like that !! this is all mostly headcanon & exomemory based on clem's part. i& only ask that out of respect considering that this is a gift for a friend that only aja reblogs it but anyone can like it. if you enjoyed this content & you want to leave a tip, you can do that here, while far more importantly, if you want to support black folx, especially queer black folx on juneteenth, you can do that here !! happy juneteenth, black folx who read this, you're so loved!<3333

"Well, ain'tcha' as sweet as a peach, sweetpea!" Isis shrills as her hands complete her latest masterpiece and holds a handheld mirror up for Clementine to see.

The sunlight filtered through the window as Clem's amber eyes gazed back at her reflection, mouth parting with no words coming out, a smile blossoming upon her lips. Her dark brown hair had been tied up in two beautiful afro puffs. "Thank you, ma'am, it's beautiful." Clem murmurs, feeling safe enough to let down her walls that she usually kept around nonblack and nonnative people, so many who had tried to look at her funny even as a child for even speaking in her peoples' dialect. A deep inhale as her eyes flicker over to baby AJ who was suckling on warm milk and honey in a bottle.

"When I was a girl, kids used t' laugh a' me when I went on the schoolbus, call my hair "nappy", look at me funny like I was a clown or Booboo the fool or somethin'," her voice wavers for a moment, trying to hold back the river of tears that was threatening to break the dam before her breath hitches, "an' then I used ta' come home from school cryin' sayin' I was ugly. My daddy never forgot that an' raised hell for all the city t'know, including that school. He used t' tell me every mornin' that I was beautiful and capable of doin' anythin' I set my mind to. I tried... God above, I tried to believe that message but I guess after a while I forgot 'bout it. Hell, I don't even even think I believed him."

Isis listened to every word she said quietly before her lips press gently over Clem's forehead. "You know, your daddy was right, baby. Look at your reflection fo' me."

Clem did as the older woman asked her and as they looked into the mirror together, her voice gently whispered into her ear. "That face is your ancestors staring back at'chu'. They love you, babygirl. Your eyes are as golden as the sun and your heart is even brighter, sweetpea. They're proud that you're here still livin' and breathin' here with me and baby AJ. How many kids your age know how ta' fight like a soldier? How many grown ass adults have the power you got? You keep holdin' your head high and don't let nobody play wi'tchu' 'cause you are that girl and you can be whoever you wanna be. Don't let nobody forget that, don't let nobody play wi'tchu, babygirl, you are not the one to be played with. Black is beautiful and so are you, baby. You hear me?"

The younger girl can't help but smile in the mirror, feeling the warmth of a thousand suns fill her heart, before she turns to the older woman who may as well have been a mother figure to her. She hadn't felt this way in so long that she wanted to cry. "I wanna make you AJ's godmother, miss Isis."

A golden smile graced the woman's features, a soft laugh as sweet as honeycomb filling the room in all its glory as the sun filtered through the window and illuminated her ginger curly locks, "I can be that for baby AJ, babygirl. Now," her doe brown eyes glinted in the sunlight, "you got the herbs I gotchu' to get fo' me? Lemme see. I'm gonna teach you a bit more on herbs and then we gon' ride on horseback together. How that sound, sweetpea?"

Clem nods, a grin revealing pearly whites, "Yes, ma'am," before she stands up and gets her wicker basket and unveils the basket to reveal rue, palo santo and ginger root, her white dress trailing across the floor of the cabin. For the first time in a very long time, she felt soft. Feminine. Fierce. Beautiful. Magical. All her life, it seemed like she had to fight, but now, she can simply... unwind for what appeared to be the first time in forever. This was what peace looks like, she thinks, and she prays to any god that would listen that this won't be taken away from her like all the others before.

#arcana.writes #idk im& really proud of this one qwq #whenever c.lem interacts w/ other b.lack & n.ative & a.sian characters its. So Good especially if they're b.lack women & b.lack enben ilism #& ik aja really loved it & im& so glad it made her happy so im& giving her the chance to reblog it so now the rest of yall can see it !! :>#fictives.#clementine maria jasmine cree.

4 notes · View notes

bonetrousle · 2 years

Note

ok officially asking you what's up with the published drarry fanfic with the numbers filed off

Okay sorry it took me a while to get to this I had to. sleep etc. I'm making this post non-rebloggable bc im 99% sure the author has a tumblr and I don't necessarily want them to see me slagging their book off LMAO. under the cut bc its pretty long

Ok so my partner tumblr user tackythor went to the bookstore. To get some books. As one does. And someone working there was giving her recs including this book. She gave kind of an inaccurate description of it too by the sounds of things? So anyway she brings some books home including this one and I'm reading the blurb which is like "two boys who hate each other fall in love at a magic school in new zealand!!" im like ok. sounds bad but i wont say anything bc i dont want to be a dick. I read the first page and am like ok yeah this is NOT for me.

So tumblr user tackythor reads some of this book and im like ok how's it going?? She's trying to figure out how to explain it and goes ok so it's like the characters are basically Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. That's when the PENNY DROPS and she's like oh my god that's. that's LITERALLY what it is. So me being nosy I rifle through the book and find thank you's/acknowledgements to people on tumblr and ao3. It's all starting to make SENSE. Anyway a real quick google of the books title will rapidly find you the title of the og fanfiction AND a pdf of the (now deleted) fanfiction which I obviously immediately downloaded and read so I could compare the two.

ANYWAY, the book isn't great, because none of the characters really have a personality. This is because you are expected to already know who they are. Because they are harry potter characters with established personalities and backstories. None of these made it in to the book however. Ron and Hermione have been genderswapped to make it less obvious that they're Ron and Hermione. The Harry character is a real cranky dick a lot of the time, which makes sense if you realise he's Harry and has gone through a lot of trauma, but makes less sense for someone who's Literally Just Some Guy at a School. There are also no descriptions of the school beyond "there are no windows and it's grey and depressing". There are also no visual descriptions of any of the characters save Harry and Draco. There's also a lot of weird... sexism? and other isms? in the og fanfiction, most of which has been thankfully edited out, but occasionally some weird stuff filters it's way through (can't think of any examples off the top of my head rn, a lot of kinda strangely rigid gender stuff for the most part.) the general premise is they have to raise fake egg babies for a class assignment which is how Harry and Draco get together because they partner up to get back at their exes and I guess.. pretend flirt in the process? In the book it's not really clear why they don't like each other. They just sort of.... don't. Draco isn't a wizard racist but just a rich guy from a big city who pulled a couple of pranks on Harry or something. Again, not quite on the same level of trying to murder the headmaster etc etc but WHATEVS.

This book won an award which is how it got published. I think the fact that it's a queer novel set in nz with a POC as the main character and an indigenous magic system means that people sort of focused in on that, and thought it was a unique premise for a book and glossed over the fact that it is not super well written and the plot is very, very thin, because it is of course mostly a vehicle for drarry sex. (which has been edited out but the book is still fairly adult for a YA novel). Clearly the people running the award had no clue??? There are some nuggets of interesting stuff in there such as the system of magic but again, these are a bit of loose world building that aren't fully fleshed out. I could GO ON but I'd need to do another rifle through the book/have another discussion with tumblr user tackythor to refresh my memory about some of the finer details of the book lmfao. Anyway everyone's giving it really good ratings and reviews and it JUST DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME but I don't really read YA so who the fuck knows. Maybe it's good in the YA world. I find that difficult to believe though. The editing really improved the book though. Like by a LOT. But where it struggles is in the lack of fleshed out ANYTHING.

I've avoided mentioning the title so far bc i dont want this coming up in the search results for the book LOL so I’ll mention it in another post. yes im paranoid what about it

#i feel like such a hater but honestly its just really funny to me to encounter published fanfiction in the wild #sorry to the author i guess <3

4 notes · View notes

tiime · 28 days

Text

#TIIME : private & selective personification of time original character, crafted & cherished by jem ( PST - She/Her - Filipino/Laos ) please read rules before interacting !

LINKS: RULES / INFO / MEMES / WISHLIST

blogroll: indigodreames ( oc multimuse ) && wiildroses ( poc & women-centric canon multimuse )

Ⅰ. GENERAL: This is a PRIVATE, SELECTIVE && MUTUALS ONLY blog containing various original characters created by me. Please read all my rules before interacting/following, etc.

Ⅱ. ACTIVITY: Due to my anxiety and depression, as well as personal/family things going on, I can’t guarantee how often i will be online, which means this blog will be LOW TO SPORADIC, this will entirely depend on my muse, mood, energy level, etc. I will always prioritize my mental health as well as my family over being online. I will also be PRIMARILY QUEUE-BASED, unless I have the muse for a certain thread/muse/pairing or unless you'd rather me not queue something that we have, just let me know.

Ⅲ. PAGES: If your blog doesn't have any links or pages for rules or information about your muses I will be less inclined to follow you. I like to know what people's boundaries are as well as what their muses are like to see if yours will mesh well with mine before following. I always read people's rules and muses pages before ever following / following back. Please give me at least a week to check out your rules/about page since I'm not always online or mostly mobile.

Ⅳ. FOLLOWING & UNFOLLOWING: I'm not always online, so it will take me a while to sometimes follow blogs back. Give me about a week or so to check out your blog and if I feel like there's a chance I see us meshing well together in terms of writing or characters I will follow you back. However, I will not hesitate to unfollow or soft block you if it's obvious to me that you haven't read my rules. There's there for a reason, not for you to gloss over them and ignore them. If you follow and unfollow me multiple times when I haven't followed you back, this will likely result in a hard block. I don't follow everyone who follows me, and more often than not I will end up soft blocking if we aren't mutuals.

Ⅴ. PLOTTING & ENGAGEMENT: over the years, I've learned the best way to spark my muse is through plotting. iI doesn't even have to be anything in-depth. Even if it's just 'I'd like these two muses to interact' is enough to spark something. However. Extensive plotting is highly preferred to drive my muse as well as wanting to write. I love plotting between muses as well as any headcanons or ideas and aus so please don't be afraid to approach me if you have any ideas.

Ⅵ. SHIPPING: I ship CHEMISTRY above all. I will never force a ship upon you and neither do I expect that from you. I am open to any/all types of relationships aside from romance, such as: platonic, enemies, frenemies, etc. and while I’m always here for shipping, with this blog being plot-driven, I would PREFER TO PLOT OUT any and all relationships before exploring them through ic interactions. I am far more partial to having pre-established relationships that have been plotted out to some extent, so don’t be afraid to reach out to me if you’re interested in any sorts of ships.

Ⅶ. FACECLAIMS/FACE CHASING: I fully understand have preferences for faceclaims, but please do not follow me simply because of the fc that I use for my muse. It's one thing to personally like a specific faceclaim and even wanting to write with a specific fc, but that's just not for me. It feels very weird and fetishizing in my opinion, and I just don't like it. I will never follow a blog because of a faceclaim with the intention of shipping with that faceclaim, and I'd appreciate if you did the same for me. Of course, I'm always open to discussing ships, but I will not ship with a muse solely based on their faceclaim and I'd very much like if you didn't do that with me or any of my muses. If you can't respect this rule, please refrain from following me, thank you <3

Ⅷ. LITERACY: This is a LITERATE blog, which means i will write short para/para/multi-para/novella style. I do not like one-liners, short or unplotted things. That being said, I don’t mind testing the waters and figuring out chemistry. But I highly prefer to plot out any/all dynamics and relationships in general. Especially before being approached for ships of any kind.

Ⅸ. MEMES: If you reblog a meme from me, please try to send something in ( if applicable ) and if you don’t plan to send anything my way, please kindly REBLOG FROM THE SOURCE and not from me ! In regards to memes you we don't always have to have anything plotted out if you want to send something in, they're great ice breakers. But I can't always guarantee responding to memes if we've had no interactions or have plotted in any way.

Ⅹ. GRAPHICS & FORMATTING: All icons and any graphics on this blog are my by me. please do not take them, use them or claim them as your own. Formatting will be small text with some bolding and italicize, but I will gladly adjust my formatting to my writing partner.

Ⅺ. TRIGGERS & NSFW: I will tag typically try to tag basic triggers, but if I fail to tag anything that makes you uncomfortable or I forget to tag something or don't tag something please feel free to message me! That being said, if you could please tag ANY/ALL CONENT WITH CLOWNS. This triggers severe anxiety for me (espcially with characters such as The Joker or Pennywise). There will be NO SMUT on this blog, and mun is of age, however for my own comfort i will not write it. however, any other nsfw or mature/triggering content will be tagged accordingly. If I fail to tag anything properly feel free to shoot me a message and I will readily fix it.

Ⅻ. DNI & BANNED FACECLAIMS: I don’t have any specific live or animated faceclaims that I am against rping against, however, I WILL NOT interact with any muses that use DECEASED FACECLAIMS. I will not follow or interact any blogs that write and use REAL PEOPLE as muses even if they're aus. Also, I will not follow anyone who does not cast or use their fc correctly ( i.e: whitewashing, interchanging pocs such as using a korean fc for a japanese muse, ignoring their rl pronouns, disabilities, etc. ) Lastly, if you use anyone as an fc that is known to be problematic in anyway ( ie: racism, abuse, etc. )

XIII. THE MUN: Jem - She/Her - 30+ - Bay Area - Pacific PST - Filipino/Laos - Mun FC: Maris Racal - Discord available upon request !

#𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐃.

0 notes