Short and Salty #1: They’re All About The Whiteness

Stitch

Normally, I keep my saltiest thoughts to twitter or my Dreamwidth account. It’s better for all of us.

However, this salty thought is part of a currently shelved follow-up to my What Fandom Racism Looks Like article on Beige Blank Slates and I figured… “Why Not”.

So, have at it, friends and folks:

Attraction is supposed to be subjective.

This subjectiveness, in fandom, is used to say that attraction and desire can’t be connected to or criticized for on the grounds of morals or politics as if Black people weren’t legally prohibited from marrying outside of our race until the 60s and as if people of color aren’t seen as inviable partners to most white people.

Sometimes, when I look at the fandom darlings that fandom loves – the dark/light haired go-to duos like Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Merlin/Arthur (Merlin), and Hux/Kylo (Star Wars) – I genuinely question what I’m seeing and how subjective attraction is.

Across multiple Western slash fandoms, when you look at what gets popular and what characters just get the fans a-thirsting one thing stands out to me about their attractiveness –

The most attractive/appealing thing about these guys – or the thing fandom actually finds integral to their adoration – really is their whiteness.

Even if they won’t say that.

Fleeting Frustrations # 7: Archive Frenzy and Being (Un) Grateful To Our Fannish Foremothers (Stuck In 2002)

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Note: This Fleeting Frustrations installment mentions racism as well as fanworks involving sexual violence and underage characters. It’s also not very nice. Obviously.

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There are things to love about the AO3. I won’t list them here because I don’t need to. Almost every single piece written about the big ole archive – especially in the wake of its 2019 Hugo Award nomination – has been positive. 

It’s been gushing. 

The AO3 is positioned as a site for queer and/or female exploration and empowerment.

It’s so amazing, these articles and adoring fans write, because it allows queer people and women the freedom to understand their identity and play around with sexual and gender roles as they figure themselves out.

We should be grateful to the grand ole archive because it gives us room to be queer, be women, and to explore kinks and identities that we can’t in real life.

Which is a cool story, let’s be real here.

If I wasn’t a queer Black fan who’s used the AO3 and been in fandom for most of my life, I’d even take those claims at face value. After all, a space for female and/or queer fans is pretty cool, right?

But what about the racism on the archive – in the form of fanworks or in how fans of color have talked about the response from archive staff volunteers have given when they talk about their experiences with racism on the platform?Read More »

Bloodbath (Harietta Lee #2) by Stephanie Ahn

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Bloodbath Cover

I spent a lot of time reading Bloodbath (Harrietta Lee #2) and wondering how on earth Harry manages to make it from one day to the next. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that she has no idea how she’s managed to survive as long as she has either.

In case y’all somehow missed me talking her up, Stephanie Ahn is currently my favorite urban fantasy writer in the game.

Her first book, Deadline, left me stunned by how amazing it was. My introduction to Harry, a dashing and disgraced witch booted from her community after making a bad call and dabbling in some demonic magic that led to the death of her mentor, really changed the way that I flat out looked at the urban fantasy genre.Read More »

Stitch on The Shipping Podcast

Stitch

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I had a blast talking about cannibalism and Hannigram with Shirasade! This was such a delightful experience and I loved every minute of it!

If you’ve ever wondered about one of my favorite fandoms (and one of my favorite ships) or how devoted I am to my #EatTheRich ideology… this is something you’re going to want to listen to.

If you want to listen to Shirasade and I talk about cannibalism, the value of Hannigram, and how much I REALLY like the ABO fanfic from this fandom well…

Have I got a podcast episode for you!

Major thanks to Shirasade for having me! It was brilliant!

LISTEN HERE

Urban Fantasy 101: A Fast Guide to the Freaking Fae Folk

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I’ve been reading about the fae in urban fantasy ever since I first got my grubby little hands on Holly Black’s Tithe way back when and I think that the fae get a weird rap in urban fantasy series.

Like with the other predatory species, they exist in this weird in-between space where they’re generally oppressing someone but oppressed by others. Fae hold a complicated space in urban fantasy because you never really know when you’re going to get an innovative fae-filled fairytale retelling or something that poorly handles tough themes like imperialism, abusive relationships, and slavery.

But the fae are fascinating even when I don’t exactly love the way they’re being written in an urban fantasy book. Like some of the supernatural species I’ve written about before, they can often hide in plain sight as they navigate a world that actively harms them – literally considering that many fae physically can’t interact with man-made materials and the pollution of the human world can kill some of them – but that’s not the only fascinating thing about them. Read More »

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread: Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake #10)

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This cover s from the 2009 French edition of the novel Narcissus in Chains and is from Laurell K Hamilton’s website.

I’m still hoping the ardeur is temporary.

The last installment, I told y’all to make sure that you had alcohol ready because we were getting into the really stressful parts of the Anita Blake series. While it’s not as rough as I expected, it’s still something that drove me to crave a drink or two.

Narcissus in Chains is the tenth book in Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake series and the start of what I view as the downward slide of the series’ trajectory.

Set some six months after Obsidian Butterfly, Anita has finally decided that she’s ready to restart things with Richard and Jean-Claude so that their power base isn’t left vulnerable. She makes this decision right around the time that a mysterious shapeshifter starts targeting the people in the various packs that she has sworn to protect. Which is great timing considering the power boost that they all get as a result of her return.

While the official blurb for the book makes it sound like a dark mystery and a battle for Anita’s very soul are bound up in the novel (“Nothing can save Anita from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to the brink of humanity–to finally surrender to the bloodlust, the beast, and the desire transforming her body and consuming her soul.”), the actual book is… way more boring than you’d think.Read More »

[Guest Post] Why White Supremacy Can No Longer Provide Cover for White Academics by Robin Anne Reid

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Note: This is the write-up of Robin Anne Reid’s segment in the roundup on race and racism in fandom that we had at PCA 2019 April 17, 2019.

Why White Supremacy Can No Longer Provide Cover for White Academics

The main point I want to make for this discussion is that Academia, in general, is having its own versions of Racefail ’09 in various disciplinary spaces and conferences. I am working on a book about Racefail ’09, and the more I work on describing and documenting the events of a decade ago, the more I see how current academic imbroglios follow a similar pattern, one that fits Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s definition of color-blind or unconscious, racism.

When academics of colors who, in the same way that Avalon’s Willow pointed out racist tropes in fantasy and sf during Racefail ‘09, point out systemic racism in academic disciplines, specifically, Medieval Studies, Classical Studies, and Anglo-Saxon Studies, they are met with claims from white liberals whose dominant response is “I’m not racist.”

The problems include programming at the major conferences, statements made, and actions taken by tenured white scholars in positions of relative privilege, against tenure-track scholars. The academic Racefail I am most familiar with involved doxing, death threats, and attempts to drive scholars of color out of the profession and was recently covered in the New York Times.Read More »

It’s a HAUL!

Stitch

Several weeks ago, Tiny T and I spent an hour going over Wish.com and Aliexpress looking for cute and cheap things just to experiment with the platforms. Here are some of the results!

[Pitch The Stitch] What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Antiblackness in K-Pop Fandom and Industry

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Pitch the stitch - kpop fandom and industry antiblackness

In case you’ve missed it, I’m doing a project for my website on anti-Blackness in K-pop fandom spaces and why the industry’s understanding and appropriation of Blackness/Black culture for the aesthetics of it all partially fuel the problem.

It’s already a massive project, but I want to make even more work for myself by opening up for guest posts related to the series I mentioned writing over on Patreon.

While of course, anyone can send me a pitch and I’m open to anything, I want to center the voices of other Black fans and Korean fans across their diaspora who’ve talked about the genre/industry’s relationship with (anti?) Blackness across this project.

If you’re interested in doing a guest post at any point in this project – about your relationship with K-pop as a Black fan or how you engage with the reality of the fandom or industry’s anti-Blackness as a Black and/or Korean person in these spaces – here’s your chance. I’d like to open up my platform and my site to you!

I’m looking for:

  • 5 guest posts (for the time being, i’d eventually like to post as many as 10 essays/guest posts)
  • 600-1000 words each (i won’t say no to longer posts, but I feel like that works best for what I can pay)
  • posts can be celebratory OR critical when it comes to talking about your experiences as fans

While I can’t pay a ton because I’m poor and money’s tight, THESE ARE FOR PAID GUEST POSTS @ $40 a post!

This is my first attempt at doing this kind of organized guest post set-up so please, don’t let this flop!

🙂

You can find the Google form here.

Finn, Reskinned

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Originally Posted On Patreon: February 12, 2019

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Quote Source: Who the heck is Ben Solo?

Fandom’s Ben Solo is just a reskinned Finn.

There, I said it.

Actually, I’ve been saying it for years and so have many other people in the Star Wars fandom who have seen the way that fandom claims to love Kylo as a villain while the majority of the fandom writes/treats him like a reskinned version of Finn.

I’m not surprised though.

Fandom has long been a space where “good” characters of color – like Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Finn (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), or Sam Wilson (Captain America: Winter Soldier) – are always either brushed off for being “too boring” or vilified for their goodness.Read More »

Stitch Does Stuff In June 2019

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Stitch does stuff in june 2019

I actually finished most of my catch up events in May!

I did that while struggling to find a work-life balance.

Yes, I still have my job. It’s been a hard month and I’m definitely not sleeping or eating enough, but I’m still employed. I’ve still got two more months of probation to go before I can feel confident in my long-term (ish) career goals so I’m honestly going to be SUPER ANXIOUS about things until then.

But I enjoy my job, I like my bosses (no lie, I’m not kissing ass in case they find my site), and marketing has always been a career path I was curious about. I’m looking forward to devoting a reasonable amount of time to this job and having it lead to a career that I can be secure in!

My main goals for June involve developing a work-life-writing balance, responding in a timely fashion to emails for work and not for work, and figure out my hustle. I also want to figure out time management and work with friends to keep ourselves accountable as we work on our own projects!

I’m feeling pretty jazzed about this!

So let’s look at what June will bring us!

What I’m Into In June

Books: Stephanie Ahn’s Bloodbath, Abigail Barnette’s The Boyfriend, Dal Yong Jin’s New Korean Wave, Nalini Singh’s Wolf Rain, and Kim Suk-Young’s K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance

Music: BTS’s Map of the Soul: Persona, this playlist of Korean Rappers, Dolly Parton’s Jolene, the soundtrack for Hamilton

Shows: Absolute Boyfriend, Love O2O (again)

Movies: Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,

Food: chicken rice, Publix subs, salmon

Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preferences

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problem with preference

Back when Captain America: Winter Soldier first came out in 2014, I noticed something… strange about many members of the MCU fandom and how they would talk about Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. Many of them honestly saw no shame in how they treated Sam Wilson as if he was the first Black character they’d ever engaged with.

Not only did some people (sorry scifigrl47, but I’m incapable of letting go of this) go above and beyond to posit that it’d make “more” sense for Sam to be a member of Hydra than Tony Stark at a time when Marvel wasn’t trying to make Hydra an equal opportunity employer for all marginalized people –

But you had folks who literally made and shared posts that outright said things along the vein of “[Sam Wilson] is the first time I’ve ever been attracted to a Black man before.”

No one should feel that comfortable with expressing their racist preference thatthey were outright comfortable with confessing that a Black actor in 2014 is the first time they realized that Black people could be attractive.

(Especially not Anthony Mackie who is honestly only “alright” in the looks department.)

The thing is that the word “preference” allows folks in fandom to feel as though they’re just expressing their totally neutral preference for white male characters above everyone else when they’re practically playing into literal centuries of sexual racism and the complicated politics of desire and race.

Preference isn’t neutral.

Neither is whiteness.

In 2019, it’s time we sat down and accepted that fandom’s overwhelming preference for white male characters in and out of slash ships/fandom isn’t neutral.Read More »

Fleeting Frustrations 6.5: “We Can’t Have Anything, Can We?”

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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is the focus for the cover story for Vanity Fair’s Summer 2019 issue and readers were “blessed” with dual covers – one with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and the other with Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Written by The Magicians’ author Lev Grossman and interspersed with photos from Annie Leibovitz, this massive article was the talk of the Twittersphere for days after its release.

Grossman’s Vanity Fair article is… alright. It doesn’t really focus on Finn, but I gave up on folks remembering that Finn was supposed to be the male hero of the franchise – and just as heroic as Rey – back when The Last Jedi came out.

In the article, there’s a particularly stunning photograph of John Boyega’s Finn and newcomer Naomi Ackie’s Jannah sitting astride a pair of orbaks – an equine adjacent species new to audiences. It’s an iconic photo as well because Jannah is only the third Black female character with dialogue in the franchise – and the first to be in a main trilogy – and this is the first time that the Star Wars franchise has had two Black characters interacting like this.

It’s something that clearly belongs to Finn and to Jannah –

So, of course, someone had to make it about Kylo Ren Ben Solo.

Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Keep Calm and Wait Your Turn

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One step forward for white women in nerdy culture… doesn’t actually equal a step forward for all women.

After years of talking and writing about the need for representation in media, I obviously recognize the need for representation in media.

However, I can’t stop feeling some frustration about how white women are frequently set up by nerds and within fandom as the proper first stop for representation. Read More »