Seeing yourself.

[bladespark]

I just finished reading an essay I was linked to about the importance of fanfiction for people of color, who almost never see themselves in the beloved stories that we grow up on. Fanfiction is a way to claim and belong to worlds that otherwise exclude people like you, and that's very vital.

The essay also mentions the way that fanficion is linked to women and girls, and therefore dismissed in a sexist way.

This always makes me think of bronies. Which I think proves that yes, the reason women and girls write more fanfiction than men and boys is because of the desire to see yourself in media that doesn't include you.

Bronies, you see, write massive amounts of fanfiction about males, human or equine, in the female-majority world of Equestria. Friendship is Magic almost entirely lacks male characters. For most of it we had only two with any recurring major role, (Big Mac and Shining Armor) and both of those are brothers and/or husbands of more important characters. Watching male bronies re-invent everything that female Trekkies or Harry Potter fans have come up with, but inverted, is honestly fascinating!

It also proves that sexism really does swing both ways, because bronies and their art and literature also get dismissed, because Men Writing Important Stories do so about Manly Things, and so men writing about pastel pony princesses aren't being Properly Manly and can therefore still be dismissed.

For me, well... Want to know how many of my fanfic characters are plural, or trans, or otherwise gender variant? A lot! Creating representation isn't the only reason I write fannish stories, of course, plenty of the things I write are about other things, but plenty are. Trans people just don't appear in media yet, not really. POC got Black Panther, at least, and it's an absurdly tiny step coming absurdly late, but it's there. When will trans people get our Marvel movie? Technically I guess this upcoming Loki show might count, but unless Loki is visibly embracing his female side (which he has not so much as mentioned to date in the movies) I don't think it counts.

I should write more gender-bending Loki stories, tbh. He's such a fun character.

Comments

[chalcedony_starlings]

^βOddly enough, our second-order predecessor got curious about ponies for quite a concretely different but abstractly similar reason:

Quadrupedal protagonist!

*cough*

I think he would have been displeased to find out how much more anthro-like behavior crept into the series later on.

[conuly]

Trans people just don't appear in media yet, not really

And when they do show up they tend to be Issues Characters with Tragic Backstories. Realistically tragic, I mean, but still.

[bladespark]

Yup, yup, yup.

There's nothing at all wrong with issues stories as such, but it's the same old problem: when "your" story is told as if it were only one kind of story, and there's only one way for people like you to be, that's bad.

[conuly]

Though, on that note, I don't know if you like Rick Riordan - I find all his characters tend to sound the same - but I am pleased that his Magnus Chase series has a non-binary character where a. other people were generally familiar with the concept b. it's not the core of Alex's story (I mean, standard tragic homeless backstory, but our main character was a homeless teen too and those aren't even the worst parents in the series) c. Alex gets to be a love interest.

Honestly, it was a surprise. Go Rick.

And that makes exactly two transgender characters in YA I've encountered where the story wasn't all about that.

[adafrog]

I didn't know that about brony fanfic.

ITA about wanting to see Loki embracing both sides (or even the middle).

[bladespark]

...I have a sudden urge to write about Loki's feelings about motherhood. It might not be Marvel compliant (has Sleipnir or any of his other offspring turned up there? And were they his children? Hela was his daughter in the proper mythology, I'm pretty sure...) but hell, MythLoki is fun to write too, just more vaguely characterized than Marvel Loki.

[adafrog]

That would be cool.
I thought Loki had Hela, Sleipneir, and Fenrir as children. No?

[bladespark]

Yep! But in the Marvel universe Hela is his adopted sister, and Fenrir seems to be associated with her but not with Loki.

[adafrog]

Yeah. Although I've read some fanfic that totally had them as children of Loki anyway. :)