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Sorry to dash in and ask this but I'm on a tight schedule.
Anyone willing to beta a ~1,900 Teen Wolf thing by Monday?
Anyone willing to beta a ~1,900 Teen Wolf thing by Monday?
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I've switched browsers, which only intensified my urge to lurk. So, hi! I've been reading your posts, I've just been ... mouse quiet.
And I've been thinking about my nigh humongous writer's block. And the recent big bang fails that J2 rps and Bandom has had and I kinda realized why I can't finish my Ryan turns into a Naga story.
White bread character, Indian mythological creature, white guy going to India, the plot centering on two white guys in love against the backdrop of transpacific angst and another culture's myths, mysterious Indian bookshop owners... it made me nervous.
Really fucking nervous. Even when I was still writing it, I was nervous how people would take it, because I didn't want offend anybody. I still think it's a good thing I didn't finish it, and I don't know how to strip away the things I think are problematic and still have the bones of the same story. Ryan becoming a Griffin or a unicorn doesn't have the same cache as a snake sort of creature.
These are not the same as writing your story amidst a country's still ongoing natural disaster with caricatures in the place of actual characters of color. Or rewriting a secular Jewish character as a Catholic priest.
I think something slightly different is going on in the latest round of *fail, though.
A caveat: I do not know the author, nor have read the fic in question. In other words, I am talking out of my ass and talking aloud. And it is early in the morning, and I will poke at this subject tomorrow, trying to get what I want down right.
I think that in light of the only readily agreed upon Day of Importance for the trans community is a day which honors the dead, this fic is in a sticky situation.
Trans kids don't exist in a vacuum, the same way other lgbqt kids don't exist in a vacuum. We all grow up in this toxic stew with gender roles and slut shamming and tons of other crap that says girls and boys are entirely different species. They and their allies know the statistics, know the danger of simply going to find a bathroom by yourself, among myriad other things that should be completely mundane, safe. (It makes vauge sense, then, that Ryan would want to guard Spencer while she's in a venue showering after a show. It's not a safe space to them. )
Some people grow up and buck all the gender/societal crap they don't like, some people buy in to all of the things pointed out here: (I'm thinking of the "Spencer is better than those dumb Barbie girls! If you take a drink from someone at a bar you're a slut!" bit)
Sure, there is badfic, and there is fic so offensive it makes your head spin. There is fic that gets trans issues so right (anything by azure_jay on LJ) you print it out and clutch it to you.
Trying to help in the form of fiction writing is always precarious, especially when the writer may not be from the population she is writing about.
I personally don't plan on reading the mtf!Spencer story, since I think it itself is the problematic 'after', but I can understand what the 'before' part felt like.
And I've been thinking about my nigh humongous writer's block. And the recent big bang fails that J2 rps and Bandom has had and I kinda realized why I can't finish my Ryan turns into a Naga story.
White bread character, Indian mythological creature, white guy going to India, the plot centering on two white guys in love against the backdrop of transpacific angst and another culture's myths, mysterious Indian bookshop owners... it made me nervous.
Really fucking nervous. Even when I was still writing it, I was nervous how people would take it, because I didn't want offend anybody. I still think it's a good thing I didn't finish it, and I don't know how to strip away the things I think are problematic and still have the bones of the same story. Ryan becoming a Griffin or a unicorn doesn't have the same cache as a snake sort of creature.
These are not the same as writing your story amidst a country's still ongoing natural disaster with caricatures in the place of actual characters of color. Or rewriting a secular Jewish character as a Catholic priest.
I think something slightly different is going on in the latest round of *fail, though.
A caveat: I do not know the author, nor have read the fic in question. In other words, I am talking out of my ass and talking aloud. And it is early in the morning, and I will poke at this subject tomorrow, trying to get what I want down right.
I think that in light of the only readily agreed upon Day of Importance for the trans community is a day which honors the dead, this fic is in a sticky situation.
Trans kids don't exist in a vacuum, the same way other lgbqt kids don't exist in a vacuum. We all grow up in this toxic stew with gender roles and slut shamming and tons of other crap that says girls and boys are entirely different species. They and their allies know the statistics, know the danger of simply going to find a bathroom by yourself, among myriad other things that should be completely mundane, safe. (It makes vauge sense, then, that Ryan would want to guard Spencer while she's in a venue showering after a show. It's not a safe space to them. )
Some people grow up and buck all the gender/societal crap they don't like, some people buy in to all of the things pointed out here: (I'm thinking of the "Spencer is better than those dumb Barbie girls! If you take a drink from someone at a bar you're a slut!" bit)
Sure, there is badfic, and there is fic so offensive it makes your head spin. There is fic that gets trans issues so right (anything by azure_jay on LJ) you print it out and clutch it to you.
Trying to help in the form of fiction writing is always precarious, especially when the writer may not be from the population she is writing about.
I personally don't plan on reading the mtf!Spencer story, since I think it itself is the problematic 'after', but I can understand what the 'before' part felt like.
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