Hey, so I saw your post about some fics demonizing Neytiri. That has actually been one of my major fears as a fic writer, attempting to balance Neytiri's extremely valid trauma and the POV I'm writing from (that is typically flawed in some way). I was wondering, since you seem very well-versed on the topic, what do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri? Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted? Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

I really want to make sure I'm doing right by Neytiri and improve as a fic writer overall, so any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated!

Whoa, what a complicated and nuanced question. A great one! And I'm super flattered you came to me! Just one I'm going to try to answer to the best of my ability. I'm assuming you're referring to Norm's pov in your fic?

First of all, I do not want to at all proclaim to be an expert on generational trauma; I am not a person of color, and I have been lucky enough to have a very normal and healthy family. I just had a best friend growing up in an abusive household and took steps to educate myself best I could to understand the situation, which I believe anyone would do. So I'm just gonna try to word vomit out my thoughts for you, please ask questions or challenge any of what I say if any of you see anything you think is incorrect. Buckle in, this will be long.

What do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri?

Demonizing means portraying someone as wicked or threatening, as evil or worthy of contempt and blame.

For me, demonizing for Neytiri is the trend I've seen lately of portraying her as this unyielding, animalistic type character who's hatred of humans, Spider specifically, goes so far that she gets physically violent with Spider and eventually ends up tearing apart her family. In these fics, Jake is always a sad sack loser bystander, loving his wife too much to step in but of course shamefully knowing how wrong what she's doing is. Infantilizing poor white savior Jake Sully, being brow beaten by his mean indigenous wife into neglecting a child is a weirdly strong take in this fandom. Often Mo'at is a wise elder chiding Neytiri for being unable to get over her prejudice. Mo'at and Jake understand Neytiri as much as anyone would, they wouldn't shame her. To me, it's an extremely reductive and frankly borderline racist characterization. When paired with a sympathetic view of Quaritch, it is at best irresponsible and at worst knowingly dangerous.

Neytiri is representative of an indigenous woman. I feel like I don't have to explain why making her violent, volatile, and completely unreasonable is a little bit of a harmful caricature. In these fics, for me, Neytiri ceases to be a person. She looses autonomy to sort of represent this monolith of hatred and prejudice that has hurt our little baby boy Spider. It's crazy to me that people can't apply the exact same empathy they have towards Spider (saving Quaritch) to Neytiri (not being able to trust Spider). They are the most foil of foil characters. Their storylines are extremely similar, if I'm being honest. Essentially, ignoring the fact that Neytiri is a member of a minority community being actively genocided by Spider's people is intentionally reductive. If you can empathize with Spider, and ESPECIALLY if you find Quaritch sympathetic, finding Neytiri's actions unforgivable is racism, plain and simple.

Also, side note, the lengths people go to where Neytiri just literally will not budge under any circumstances at all is INSANE.

(I read a fic the other day where she gave Spider to child protective services behind everyone's back. That's LUNACY. She only came around after she almost lost Tuk when Tuk was suddenly born prematurely and Mo'at came in and was like "Eywa made it so you can never have kids again because of what you did, have you learned your lesson yet?" Like?? I do not understand the HATRED some of ya'll have for her, the suffering you all think she deserves. She's having an EXTREMELY NORMAL trauma reaction to surviving GENOCIDE? Examine yourselves greatly).

But where I was going was Neytiri is the same character who pushed her parents to let them go to human school, fell in love with human Jake, defended him and trusted him despite her family, mated with him and lost her religious position because of it, and then had a bunch of part human kids with him, and adopted a fully freak of nature kid born of a human she loved and respected. She has human friends, she wears and uses human tech, and she forgave Jake after he had betrayed them. Basically what I'm saying is Neytiri, despite her continuous trauma, is the most open and curious and non traditional Na'vi of all time. Girl is READY to meet new people and learn new shit, and to be open to everyone. Sometimes I think about a no trauma Neytiri and I get emotional. I think it's crazy to say she would never budge on Spider, if it wasn't for his dad I'm pretty sure she would've softened lonnnnng ago, if not having liked him from the get go.

Um, that got way too long I have too many thoughts. Second half of your question.

Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted?

This is a tricky question, because technically there is nothing you can't do as a writer. Of course, it also means there is nothing anyone can't criticize you for writing. Like, Colleen Hoover can say she's writing realistic depictions of domestic abuse until the cows come home, I'm still going to say she's romanticizing and normalizing it in a super callous way. Neither of us can stop the other. So yeah, of course you're okay to write from the perspective of a character that doesn't like Neytiri. I just think the point will be what your prerogative is. One of my MFA professors says it in a way I like and I'm sure I've referenced before, if you aren't trying to make a point about something that might have to have a trigger warning then don't include it. I always say I would take it a step further; if your point is to defend that thing, don't do it. So for me, my big points would be try not to project my own feelings onto the character either way; if the character is wrong about something and the narrative intends to show that they will either learn, or we the reader will grow past them. But to be sure what you feel the takeway of the piece is is what you wanted it to be, I guess.

Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

Well, I have a few on white writers writing BIPOC characters and the ethics of that if you're interested in that. But I don't have any on specifically writing generational trauma. I guess I'd say reading and absorbing are my biggest tools; so reading books/watching movies or TV that use the speculative to translate generational trauma, and learning about and taking in the real life examples the character is based on. Read up on some genocides, and indigenous people today and how their lives are still affected. Even just watch the news; we're witnessing a very public genocide being pushed right to our attention right now. And of course, that is not the only genocide happening rn, it's just the only one we're talking about, so there's plenty of real world case studies unfortunately right in front of us.

Hi, I'm so sorry but I'm about to dump a million asks on you. I really wanted to reply to that post about writing for Javier but my anxiety is destroying me. I don't mind if you wanna post these in a reply on there instead, or just keep them to yourself. It just means a lot if someone listens. Okay here i go:

Please don't take this as me being mad at you, I just wanted to share a perspective that was missed in that writing for Javier post. Your advice was good, but it was kinda only written for people who don't write about Javier because they don't want to be called racist. I don't write for Javier because there are still "bad apples" in the fandom. If I block them they can still see my posts on other people’s blogs and just the idea of them reading my writing makes me so upset I feel sick because I can’t control the lense they view my writing with.

And I’m really not trying to be shady but I’ve seen you and some other people in the replies for that post be kinda supportive of some of those “bad apples”. I don’t judge you for it, I follow you and I think you’re great. Maybe you just don’t know they’re bad apples, either because tumblr moves fast and it’s easy to miss things or maybe you just genuinely don’t understand why what they do is wrong.

But if you see people of colour, especially Latinx people, upset about Javier content they’re probably offended for a good reason. They’re also being made feel unwelcome in their safe space. And the fandom might be really important to them considering a lot of other media is literally talking shit about them constantly. It may seem like they’re upset about something “small” to you, but they’ve learned to notice the “small” things because they’re often the tip of a racist iceberg.

In some contexts being able to notice that stuff can literally be life saving, it pays to be hyper vigilant. But if they’re reaching out asking you to make changes instead of avoiding you, it’s because they think you can do better. And usually they’re not asking for much, just for people to be more aware when they’re writing for Javier. Like you said, just try to write for his character traits and not because of stereotypes you might have absorbed.

It’s a challenge though because Javier’s character was founded on stereotypes, the entire original game was. It pays to put a bit more effort in, just like rockstar did the second time around. He IS passionate but I don’t think they ever used the word passionate to describe him in rdr2 (maybe I’m wrong) I kinda wish writers would avoid it too when they write for Javier.

Even when it’s a perfectly fine use of the word, I just automatically slam the breaks when I see “passionate” used to describe latinx people. I can still get back into reading and enjoy the fic, but I’d enjoy it even more if I didn’t have the abrupt pauses. And it’s a pretty small change to make that can make a huge difference and also be a good creative exercise.

The other thing I wish writers would avoid is peppering “Mexican” all over the place. Like don’t erase his race where it’s relevant, but when someone throws in a random “the Mexican sat down” or whatever it almost always comes across as fetishising. There are so many adjectives in the world, ask yourself why you automatically go to that one. Or just use his name a lot, it might be “annoying” for some readers but it’s not gonna legitimately hurt someone like coming across as fetishising might.

-♥-

I just want to say thank you so much for reaching out to me about this. I deeply appreciate your perspective and insights, especially on enlightening me to things I hadn’t thought about. I want to give you the prior understanding that I am not American/Mexican, I have never been to America/Mexico and I’m not educated on American relations/media/perspectives relating to Latinx people. At least, not in the way that people who live and experience that are. Please understand that when I express my thoughts, feelings and opinions. I only have my perspective as a British woman.

For this reason, I am more than happy to listen to constructive criticism and insights from Latinx people, especially if what I’m doing directly harms them or makes them feel unsafe. Fandom is a safe space, especially my blog. I will never be offended or defensive about it so long as I’m treated with mutual respect. I’m in a position only to learn and better myself as much as possible. That’s why I’m here.

As for “bad apples” in the fandom, I admit that I don’t know who they are. If I do something supportive of them, please don’t be afraid to let me know! I will listen to you. I try my best to be vigilant and thoughtful, but I’m not as educated as I should be. I’m aware of that. Any enlightenment is appreciated by me. I’ll just state that I’m not, and never will be, interested in drama or attacking anyone.

I agree that Javier’s character was based on stereotypes. I actually omitted that point from my original reblog post because I didn’t want to draw too much attention to it. He’s still got a lot of stereotypes attached to him in RDR2. But I don’t like to view him through the “lens” of a stereotype, I try to expand on his character as much as possible to counteract that and I think that’s what writers should do. We don’t have to lean into the stereotypes we’re given. But he is the character they wrote, and we can only do so much while staying “true” to him.

The “mexican” descriptor is a thing I’ve also learnt to avoid (by digesting posts I’ve seen about that!) and think it should be applied to every writer. It’s ok only in contexts where it matters. I also hate the use of slurs in fics, especially when they aren’t given the weight they actually carry. Always puts me off. It’s rare, but I have seen it and I hate it. I will also omit the use of the word “passionate” in my fics/conversations about Javier, thank you for telling me about that!

I have no issue with people expressing their thoughts/feelings/opinions about how people write/interact regarding Javier. In fact, I wholeheartedly encourage and support it! I will always reblog posts like that. What I do have an issue with, is how those posts are worded. I’m never going to support, like or reblog a post that is aggressive, demeaning or offensive about any topic. Even if it’s coming from a good intention.

As for your reluctance to write Javier because of “bad apples” seeing it through the wrong lens, you are never going to be able to control who sees your posts. I see posts from people on my dash who I don’t like and who make me unhappy any time I see them - even though they are blocked. Tumblr has an awful blocking system. I completely understand why you feel that way and wouldn’t want to do it.

But I think you should do it for the “good apples”. You should do it for you. There is no way to stop people interpreting what you create differently from your intentions. That’s just one of the laws of creating. Don’t let that hold you back. If anything, set the example that you want to see. Be the “good apple” and to counteract the rot the “bad apples” bring. You have that power and you should actively embrace it.

Thank you again for speaking to me about this, I hope my response was okay. If you like, I can post your asks as a separate post on their own. Please just let me know ♥