continuing the Hux Is A Symptom rant
Apr. 30th, 2016 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1SBoPhX:
galadhir:
bomberqueen17:
And like. I’m not saying that nobody should do any hard self-examination about who they ship and why. I have a billion things in progress, many of which are noodling along in spare moments with no particular direction to them.
But.
That doesn’t mean I periodically don’t step back and say “why doesn’t Finn have any lines in this?” And maybe in the end I leave him out of stuff, but it’s not going to be because I just can’t think of anything for him to say. No. It’s going to be “well the things he’d do don’t fit with the story, so I won’t use him as a character”.
You have to deliberately do that. You do! Look at underrepresented characters and remind yourself that to be fair, they should be in this story. It’s not effortless. It’s not magic. But it’s not innocent if you exclude them. “But I’m just doing this for fun!” listen. Listen. Literally everything is better if you apply some discipline to it. And this is a form of discipline. If you always write pretty white boys doing stuff to each other because that’s always been your source material, that doesn’t make you a bad person. But if you have, for example, a pretty black boy in your source material now, and you don’t naturally think of including him– still not a bad person, but you need to apply some discipline and think about it. Step back and remind yourself. We were all super excited to get a black lead. Revisit that, and remind yourself, and put some thought into it. You have to kind of affirmative-action your shit because you’re so used to there not being any option that your thoughts are in grooves.
It takes thought to break those. It does. Think about it. (We live in a racist society. Every one of us is racist. It doesn’t make you bad unless you don’t choose to fix it. You gotta fix your shit. But that’s not just racism, that’s literally everything. Everything is always a work in progress. You have to be always trying to fix your shit. Internalized misogyny, classism, ableism, racism– all that shit will make your stories weak and careless and make your life dull and icky, and it is a constant process to unpick those things and try to fix your shit.)
Don’t be a dick. Fix your shit.
And if you’re not a writer, make more of an effort, seek out the stories that have the representation you want. Offer support. Rec those stories. Encourage those authors. If your favorite author doesn’t have much Finn in their story, maybe gently ask about it. When people ask for prompts, submit Finn ones. If they answer Finn ones, like and reblog.
I know Individual Activism stuff is a little mealymouthed but it’s a fuckload more effective than chain-reblogged rants about systemic problems, and angry attacks on People Who Are Doing Fandom Wrong.
If we’re all obsessed with white dick because that’s all we’ve had before, it takes a bit to adjust. Remind yourself, and indulge in some introspection, and be the change you want to see.
I thought this was interesting http://ift.tt/1SBoPhZ
as an explanation for why Stormpilot was hugely popular at first and then went into a mysterious decline. If the ability to take risks with the characters was being policed out of the lightside pairings then it’s not surprising would migrate somewhere where they could get their kink on in peace.
All the same, I think you’re right and the encouragement to do better is the way to go, rather than shaming people for what they are doing now.
I’m already partially reluctant to start writing for this fandom because if I was going to write for it, I would want to write about Hux and the First Order. But now that I think about it, Finn was in the First Order most of his life, so there’s no reason I couldn’t write about that. What was his career on the Finalizer like? What was the stormtrooper program like? What does ‘reconditioning’ actually involve? etc.
People are already starting to write dark!Poe. So if light and fluff is not your thing, maybe bringing the heroes over to the darkside would work just as well for further exploration of the characters as trying to force yourself to be interested in the lightside stuff that you’re just not interested in.
Yes– this is my point. I was a little inarticulate this morning, I’d just crawled out of bed and was kind of shaky with indignation and also possibly the anxiety attack that woke me up in the first place (wtf, brain?).
But that’s my point. It’s not that there’s no place for being mad about racism but the last thing fanfiction, and “fangirl culture” etc. on the whole, really needs is to be berated yet again from another front for our tastes. Look, we already know that whatever it is that we love is deplorable and wrong and unworthy, okay?
But I’ll tell you what there’s space for, yes, is encouragement. Yes.
I would love to read more backstory for Finn. It’s not the sort of thing I’m good at writing; I feel like the First Order is not a good place for the kind of worldbuilding I like to do, so I’m not going to do a Finn backstory or a Hux backstory. I’m doing Poe’s backstory instead, because I can get in there, there’s room for me to create the things I like to create.
But if you write complex Finn, if you write backstory, I will read it, I will rec it, I will support it.
And in the meantime– I’m working on this epic and I have iteratively, on every re-draft, expanded Finn’s role. It was at first all Poe’s POV. I am making myself pay attention to Finn. I am making myself reconsider him. I am making myself complexify him. It is work, it takes effort, and it is important.
I’m not saying this because I want a cookie, i’m not saying oh-look-how-I-suffer. I’m just saying, it was not my first inclination. It was not the first thing I thought of. It was not the easy quick thing to write. It was not the obvious thing. I have had to work at it. I have had to make myself think of it.
The first draft had a bunch of spaces with asterisks and brackets that said [FINN] in them. Because he was not easy for me to slip into. He was not obvious to me. (And in my case, part of it, jarringly, was that he’s definitely too young for me. This has never happened to me before, but I’m 37 now. He’s 23. I’ve always been younger than my heroes. MCU was the first time they were younger, but like, a year or two. That was okay. This is– my god, he was just a baby, I could have killed him. It’s the first time that’s happened to me. I’m still dealing. But I’m not dealing so badly that I can’t put him in the goddamn story. It just takes more imagination than I needed before.)
galadhir:
bomberqueen17:
And like. I’m not saying that nobody should do any hard self-examination about who they ship and why. I have a billion things in progress, many of which are noodling along in spare moments with no particular direction to them.
But.
That doesn’t mean I periodically don’t step back and say “why doesn’t Finn have any lines in this?” And maybe in the end I leave him out of stuff, but it’s not going to be because I just can’t think of anything for him to say. No. It’s going to be “well the things he’d do don’t fit with the story, so I won’t use him as a character”.
You have to deliberately do that. You do! Look at underrepresented characters and remind yourself that to be fair, they should be in this story. It’s not effortless. It’s not magic. But it’s not innocent if you exclude them. “But I’m just doing this for fun!” listen. Listen. Literally everything is better if you apply some discipline to it. And this is a form of discipline. If you always write pretty white boys doing stuff to each other because that’s always been your source material, that doesn’t make you a bad person. But if you have, for example, a pretty black boy in your source material now, and you don’t naturally think of including him– still not a bad person, but you need to apply some discipline and think about it. Step back and remind yourself. We were all super excited to get a black lead. Revisit that, and remind yourself, and put some thought into it. You have to kind of affirmative-action your shit because you’re so used to there not being any option that your thoughts are in grooves.
It takes thought to break those. It does. Think about it. (We live in a racist society. Every one of us is racist. It doesn’t make you bad unless you don’t choose to fix it. You gotta fix your shit. But that’s not just racism, that’s literally everything. Everything is always a work in progress. You have to be always trying to fix your shit. Internalized misogyny, classism, ableism, racism– all that shit will make your stories weak and careless and make your life dull and icky, and it is a constant process to unpick those things and try to fix your shit.)
Don’t be a dick. Fix your shit.
And if you’re not a writer, make more of an effort, seek out the stories that have the representation you want. Offer support. Rec those stories. Encourage those authors. If your favorite author doesn’t have much Finn in their story, maybe gently ask about it. When people ask for prompts, submit Finn ones. If they answer Finn ones, like and reblog.
I know Individual Activism stuff is a little mealymouthed but it’s a fuckload more effective than chain-reblogged rants about systemic problems, and angry attacks on People Who Are Doing Fandom Wrong.
If we’re all obsessed with white dick because that’s all we’ve had before, it takes a bit to adjust. Remind yourself, and indulge in some introspection, and be the change you want to see.
I thought this was interesting http://ift.tt/1SBoPhZ
as an explanation for why Stormpilot was hugely popular at first and then went into a mysterious decline. If the ability to take risks with the characters was being policed out of the lightside pairings then it’s not surprising would migrate somewhere where they could get their kink on in peace.
All the same, I think you’re right and the encouragement to do better is the way to go, rather than shaming people for what they are doing now.
I’m already partially reluctant to start writing for this fandom because if I was going to write for it, I would want to write about Hux and the First Order. But now that I think about it, Finn was in the First Order most of his life, so there’s no reason I couldn’t write about that. What was his career on the Finalizer like? What was the stormtrooper program like? What does ‘reconditioning’ actually involve? etc.
People are already starting to write dark!Poe. So if light and fluff is not your thing, maybe bringing the heroes over to the darkside would work just as well for further exploration of the characters as trying to force yourself to be interested in the lightside stuff that you’re just not interested in.
Yes– this is my point. I was a little inarticulate this morning, I’d just crawled out of bed and was kind of shaky with indignation and also possibly the anxiety attack that woke me up in the first place (wtf, brain?).
But that’s my point. It’s not that there’s no place for being mad about racism but the last thing fanfiction, and “fangirl culture” etc. on the whole, really needs is to be berated yet again from another front for our tastes. Look, we already know that whatever it is that we love is deplorable and wrong and unworthy, okay?
But I’ll tell you what there’s space for, yes, is encouragement. Yes.
I would love to read more backstory for Finn. It’s not the sort of thing I’m good at writing; I feel like the First Order is not a good place for the kind of worldbuilding I like to do, so I’m not going to do a Finn backstory or a Hux backstory. I’m doing Poe’s backstory instead, because I can get in there, there’s room for me to create the things I like to create.
But if you write complex Finn, if you write backstory, I will read it, I will rec it, I will support it.
And in the meantime– I’m working on this epic and I have iteratively, on every re-draft, expanded Finn’s role. It was at first all Poe’s POV. I am making myself pay attention to Finn. I am making myself reconsider him. I am making myself complexify him. It is work, it takes effort, and it is important.
I’m not saying this because I want a cookie, i’m not saying oh-look-how-I-suffer. I’m just saying, it was not my first inclination. It was not the first thing I thought of. It was not the easy quick thing to write. It was not the obvious thing. I have had to work at it. I have had to make myself think of it.
The first draft had a bunch of spaces with asterisks and brackets that said [FINN] in them. Because he was not easy for me to slip into. He was not obvious to me. (And in my case, part of it, jarringly, was that he’s definitely too young for me. This has never happened to me before, but I’m 37 now. He’s 23. I’ve always been younger than my heroes. MCU was the first time they were younger, but like, a year or two. That was okay. This is– my god, he was just a baby, I could have killed him. It’s the first time that’s happened to me. I’m still dealing. But I’m not dealing so badly that I can’t put him in the goddamn story. It just takes more imagination than I needed before.)
