What Fandom Racism Looks Like: (Not-So) Sexy Slavefic

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Note: before we get into this piece, note that I am coming from this position as a queer Black person who has, in the past, purposefully read and written stories of the kind I am talking about in this piece. I’ve also got experience in researching and writing about Blackness in history, media, and fandom.

Predominantly, the form of slavery I’m going to be talking about in this piece relates to the enslavement of Africans and their descendants because that’s the form of slavery that many of these stories build off of (and I’m Black), but I’m going to mention slavery in ancient cultures. Additionally, any links to my blog stitchmediamix on tumblr won’t work because I have the blog locked while I’m on hiatus.

Content Warning: This piece will talk in depth about slavery in romance work, fanfic, and in history in a way that highlights the violence of slavery. Many of the website links embedded in this piece will link to pages that contain images and/or descriptions of brutality related to slavery including lynching, rape, and whipping.

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Right now, on the Archive of Our Own, there are currently 12,236 stories tagged with “Slavery”.

Almost half of the stories with that tag are rated “Explicit” – most likely for sexual content and/or violence – with “Rape/Non-Con” making up a third of the stories’ warnings. While the stories are too varied to stand out with one or more particular pairing having the lion’s share of stories, in the relationship tab for that tag, the top pairings (with under 400 stories each) are primarily M/M stories focusing on white characters.

This is just a small snapshot of what slavefic[1] in fandom and how slavery is portrayed in fandom looks like.Read More »

[Small Stitch Reviews] Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport

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BUY HERE

I stayed up until 2AM reading this book.

It’s good.

Generation ships are a staple in the science fiction genre, with the theme showing up across the genre for decades with vary levels of success. The idea of a generation ship is interesting enough, a hypothetical form of interstellar travel that’s basically a space ark for humanity (or another group of beings) traveling to a usually unnamed and partially unknown destination after the destruction of their homeworld.

Medusa Uploaded is about life on one such ship, but it’s also about a brilliant, kind of murder-prone augmented human named Oichi Angelis navigating the politics of the generation ship and the ruling class that are responsible for the death of her loved ones. I love Oichi. Seriously. Her evolving worldview, coupled with the fact that she’s literally just ready to kill at a moment’s notice, makes her one of my favorite characters in a sci-fi novel. And she was ready to kill before she got a bad ass AI suit.

Imagine what she does with it…

Medusa Uploaded is a brilliant book with beautiful writing, tons of exquisite violence, characters of color in different positions of power, and an interesting plot that opens the universe up even further.

I liked it, and I think y’all will too!

And, as always, if y’all come across any commentary or criticism on race in the book, feel free to send them my way!

I’ve Got Some Complicated Feelings About Rose Tico’s Characterization

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Edit 5/28/21: if you’re here because a Rey/Kylo or Kylo/Hux shipper linked this post as “proof” that I was somehow anti-Rose or anti-Asian people and therefore didn’t deserve to interview Kelly Marie Tran, please note that you’re being led by racists (and yes this includes other people of color) who have spent months and even years in some cases harassing me. In February, they actively tried to get me fired and they constantly misrepresent what I actually write (which is some ship of theseus shit) in the most negative light. You’re following the words of active anti fans and the thing they’re anti… Is me.

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“Poe, this will save the fleet and save Rey,” Finn said. “We have to do it.”

Rey Rey Rey. Rose really wanted to stun him again.

–— From Jason Fry’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi novelization

One of my biggest issues with folks who really loved The Last Jedi is that they keep trying to lump everyone that dislikes the film together. Everyone that hates The Last Jedi has to hate it because they hate seeing women and people of color in charge, right?

Except, I went into The Last Jedi expecting that Finn would continue his heroic arc alongside the Force-focused plot with Rey (or, if not, that he’d have something focused on himself and figuring out who he is on his own). I went into the film expecting Rose Tico to be AMAZING and for her and Paige to be significant and positive characters.

What I got was Paige dying in the first part of the film, Rose’s unbelievably frustrating interactions with Finn, and my boy Finn being frequently reduced to comedic relief and a naïve child with no common sense or intelligence as Rey tried her darndest to find the good in Kylo Ren for most of the movie.

I keep being told that Rose and Finn are great representation in The Last Jedi and that I shouldn’t complain because that’s just mean, but… Representation in media or fandom isn’t a “one-size fits all” set up where it works for everyone in the group being represented.

Additionally, why does Rose’s status as the first East Asian (specifically Vietnamese-American) female main-ish character in a Star Wars film suddenly mean that I can’t critique her behavior towards Finn or the fact that the writing for her characterization is weirdly nonsensical? (And note that Finn being the first Black character with a main role in Star Wars didn’t stop certain parts of fandom from criticizing the hell out of him and John Boyega for stuff neither character nor actor did… They still do it even when asked not to!)

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[Patreon Preview] Stitch Talks Tropes

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I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of weeks as I planned, and now I think I’m ready to share a preview of something I’ve been working on and planning for almost all of June: Stitch Talks Tropes (Or, possibly, Talking Tropes) will be a half-hour long, monthly podcast-y series where I talk about tropes in the media we love.

I’m planning on talking tropes in romance novels, urban fantasy, science fiction, and fandom spaces. Some of these tropes will be ones we love and always will. Others will be tropes that are problematic and need a little subversion. And at the end of every episode, there’ll be a recommendation for at least one work (published fiction or fanwork) that displays a trope I think is positive or subverts a problematic trope.

So here’s what you need to know about Stitch Talks Tropes/Talking Tropes:

  • Will be Patreon-exclusive at the $5 Tier (with articles being written and posted on my website once 6 or more episodes are completed, providing a likely six-month delay between what Patreons get and what my website readers get).
  • Won’t have transcripts until I can afford to pay for transcription services, but hopefully that will be soon.
  • The first three episodes are already planned out
  • All of the episodes will have a header image because those are cute
  • Each episode will likely be about 25-30 minutes of audio
  • And at least one recommendation related to the trope will be provided at the end of every episode
  • I’ll hold polls and ask for feedback for future episodes.
  • The first episode will release sometime during the second week of July

If you’re interested in hearing me analyze the tropes we love or loathe (and really want to support an unemployed writer of color), please consider signing up to be a patron at the $5 Tier today!

Patreon, folks.

[Stitch Likes Stuff] Fence

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If One Tree Hill and basically any sports manga out there had a literary lovechild that grew up to be queer and was also invested in fencing, that’d be Fence.

Written by Australian author C.S. Pacat and with art by Johanna the Mad and colors by Juana Lafuente, this series got me invested by the end of the first issue. Heck, from the moment character design posts went up on Tumblr in the months previous, I was hyped. I was intensely invested in Western creators’ comics that were obviously inspired by their love of Japanese sports manga as well as their own experiences with sports in the United States and Fence seemed like it’d be my thing.

And it was!

Pacat and Johanna (who created the series together) come together to make a charming and absolutely engaging sports-drama with diverse queer characters right on the page. I love everything about Fence so far. Six issues in and I’m beyond invested in the way that character development is revealing more and more about the complex characters and their backstories. The art is cute and crisp, the characters are interesting, and the drama is never-ending. It is everything I could’ve asked for from such a series.

Legit, from the first issue I had favorite characters and even some light shipping going on. It’s a series that seems tailor-made for fandom and I hope it gets a good one!

If you’re like me and you love Ngozi Ukazu’s Check, Please, I’d suggest checking out Fence as issues 1-6 are available now on Comixology/Amazon.

Don’t forget to reach out to the creators if you enjoy the series!

(And come talk to me about the series too!)

Where Are Y’all Getting Your Characterization From? Finn Isn’t A Coward, Or Selfish, And He Doesn’t Need A Damn Redemption Arc.

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I’m not Resistance. I’m not a hero. I’m a Stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken
from my family I’ll never know. And raised to do one thing.  In my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them. So I ran, right into you. You looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But, I’m done with the First Order. I’m never going back.

— Finn to Rey in Maz’s cantina in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I know that the Star Wars fandom – both the dudebro hubs and the supposedly feminist and progressive parts on Tumblr and Twitter – is racist as shit, but I still can’t believe the audacity of people calling Finn a coward and demanding he be killed off as like… a form of progressive protest on his or Rey’s behalf.

In her article “Star Wars: The Last Jedi Could Have Been Better If This Character Had Died” author Alessia Santoro goes above and beyond in order to “prove” that The Last Jedi would have been a better movie if only for one death – that of John Boyega’s Finn. She does so, of course, by completely crapping all over his character, problematizing his behavior and, wishing for his death because that’s the only possible way for him to matter to her.

Despite the fact that she – and many other members of the Star Wars fandom – claim that they really do like the character, there’s no bigger sign of disliking a character than by wanting them dead.Read More »

Signal boosting an emergency fundraiser

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A very dear friend of the family – she’s my mom’s best friend and her daughter and I grew up together – is trying to raise funds so that get to New York by the sixth of June in order to attend the funeral of her sister, who recently passed away.

I know money’s tight all over, but if donations aren’t a possibility (and even if they are), can y’all share this so that she can see her sister off?

Please.

FACEBOOK DONATION LINK

May Wrap Up and June Plans

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Stitch does stuff in June

Out of all the things I said I’d do in May on this post, I’ve done… most of them? Well, for Patreon at least.

I didn’t get to do the “Worldbuilding Wednesday” post on Secret Societies or the post on Anita Blake #5 (in part because I still haven’t finished rereading it) for Patrons, but I’m going to slide those forward to June.

Aside from that, i finished everything on the Patreon and I’ve decided to scrap the grad school wrap-up in general (I’m uninterested in further commentary on grad school at the moment) and I’ll be posting book reviews and the “Life as a (Semi) Professional Hater” post next month.

So here’s what’s up for June:

Patreon

  • WIP Snippets of: ” Too White Bread for This Shit: Race and Racism in Laurell K Hamilton’s Urban Fantasy Series”, “Urban Fantasy 101: Crime and Punishment”, the Misogynoir post, and WOC in the MCU: Mariah Dillard ($1 Tier)
  • Worldbuilding Wednesday: Secret Societies ($5 Tier)
  • Images for various blog posts ($1 Tier)
  • Great Big Anita Blake Reread: Bloody Bones ($3 Tier)
  • Finished Drafts of the Laurell K Hamilton post and the misogynoir one ($3 Tier)
  • Reapproaching Social Justice and Fandom Racism ($5 Tier)

Blog

  • Life as a (Semi) Professional Hater
  • Untitled Rose and Finn post
  • Where Are Y’all Getting Your Characterization From? Finn Isn’t A Coward, Or Selfish, And He Doesn’t Need A Damn Redemption Arc.
  • Stitch Likes Stuff: Fence
  • Untitled Black Panther/MCU piece on motherhood
  • Book Reviews

While I’m here, if there’s any content that y’all would like to see from me this month (or any other), please let me know! I’m also extra open for writing or editing gigs!

Become a Patron today!

Stitch Went to the U.S. Virgin Islands

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As y’all may have noticed by the very lengthy threads about fandom racism I keep making on my twitter, I’m back in Florida.

I had a lovely time visiting my father and once hurricane season is over, I’m going to go back and visit him (or get him to come up here once airports are open and whatnot). I loved being in my childhood bedroom and getting to bask in a sense of community that I still don’t really have in Florida. Those of you who grew up in/have lived in small towns know how it is: everyone knows your business and your face.

It can be stifling if you’re there all the time, but when you come home to visit? It’s just delightful to realize how many people know you, love you, and miss you. I’m a pretty likeable person and I’m So Good at making friends, but there’s something about coming home and having your people literally embrace you with giddy joy when they see you walking down the street that’s just… something else.

As much fun as I had with my darling dad and being reminded that I’m just beloved by so many people, there was a serious purpose to me going back home too: I wanted to see what the island looked like eight months after Irma and Maria.Read More »

[Stitch Elsewhere] Jessica Jones Doesn’t Care About Men of Colour @ Anathema Magazine

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The thing about the feminism on display in Jessica Jones is that it isn’t universally empowering or accessible. This is a series that centres the titular character’s pain above that of other people, and that treats the lives of people of colour—particularly men of colour—as accessories to her narrative.

As a show, Jessica Jones has represented peak ‘white feminism,’ centring white womanhood, from day one. Like Agent Carter, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman, it’s a narrative focused on white female characters in worlds where characters of colour are afterthoughts, sidekicks, villains, or background support. From Reva Connor’s death being used as a catalyst to jumpstart Jessica breaking free from the control of her abusive ex, Kilgrave, to the overwhelming lack of characters of colour in the series’ New York City, to killing off both of its black female characters in the second season, and to Jeri Hogarth filling the “Evil Lesbian” trope, this is not a series that cares about putting forward an inclusive or intersectional form of feminism.

However, one of the most glaring examples of this is in the way that the series treats its male characters of colour, particularly in its second season. Men of colour and their experiences (including their trauma) are never seen as important or as valid as Jessica’s trauma.

I got to write about Jessica Jones mediocre second season and how the season failed the three recurring male characters of color for Anathema Magazine last month. This season was even more awful about how it treated male characters of color and that’s saying something considering how the first season had Jessica stalk and sleep with Luke Cage knowing full well that he was connected to the woman that she’d killed on Kilgrave’s command.

If you’re interested in reading me at some of my saltiest, check out “Jessica Jones Doesn’t Care About Men of Colour” at Anathema Magazine!

(And if you like me at my saltiest, consider becoming a Patron today because oh boy am I salty over there!)

A Quick Quibble: Supposedly “Straightwashing” Okoye in Black Panther

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A Quick Quibble_ Supposedly “Straightwashing” Okoye in Black Panther

In a (now deleted) tweet thread from April of this year, writer and artist Kate Leth went in on superhero media for the lack of queer representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The thread was fine and absolutely valid right up until the last tweet where she wrote that:

“There were queer characters in Ragnarok and Black Panther whose scenes were cut. Okoye was awkwardly made straight with a plot that went nowhere. Loki exists in subtext. It’s bullshit, pardon my french, that we’re just supposed to go “oh yeah of course, because of money”

You know what this tweet shows me?

It shows me that Leth might not be able to tell Black women apart from one another and that she doesn’t see the value in a character who chooses love of country and her faith in justice over the love of her life (after he sets himself against their country).

It shows me that while Leth knows the basics about the characters and the film (the cut scene with Ayo flirting with Okoye and the Ayo/Aneka relationship in the World of Wakanda comics), she doesn’t know enough to recognize that Okoye and Ayo (or Aneka) aren’t the same characters.

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In Fandom, All Villains Aren’t Treated Equally

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In Fandom, All Villains Aren't Treated Equally

From Hannibal Lecter eating the rude across the northeastern United States to Loki’s attempts to subjugate the human race and Kylo Ren’s patricide and misogyny, fandom just loves to look at villains who have committed atrocities and decide that they’re in fact complex characters who just need a redemption arc to set them on the right track (because they have a good reason for what they did/the heroes of the series are in fact the real villain) …

But only if they’re white dudes.

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[Small Stitch Reviews] May 21st

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Whatever for Hire by R. J. Blain

A paranormal romance novel with jokes everywhere and a minor enemies-to-lovers relationship between the main characters, what makes Whatever For Hire fall flat for me is the copious use of the g-slur. Yes, that g-slur. The main character Kanika is half-Egyptian and half-Rromani (but also, maybe not even that considering the hints that the literal devil kept dropping), but did this book have to be rife with the g-slur being dropped willy nilly all over the place on top of Orientalism out the butt? (Aside from Kanika, all of the Egyptian characters were evil, teenager-selling, forced-marriage-having assholes so… problem much?)

Whatever For Hire could’ve been decent but instead, it was kind of a mess where the little moments that I disliked wound up adding up fast.

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Ship It by Britta Lundin

Ship It, as you can tell from the title, is about shipping and fandom. It’s about Claire, a teenager who watches a Supernatural-esque primetime drama and ships the main characters. When she actually gets a chance to talk to one of the two leads on the show at a convention, things go pear-shaped when she brings up shipping and representation and he kind of… doesn’t react well.

I know a lot of people that liked Ship It in my group of fandom nerds who also read young adult fiction. I wanted to like it too. I even requested it on NetGalley because I thought it’d be amazing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into Lundin’s debut novel even though I tried my hardest. I’ve been stalled at 40% for a few weeks now and while I might eventually return to it, right now I’m not that into the portrayal of fandom or fans. While Lundin’s writing is fun and full of snappy banter between the characters, I found it incredibly difficult to care about most of them or what they were going through.

I also, honestly think that with everything I’ve been going through in fandom, this kind of book would’ve been a good read for 2013!Stitch or younger – you know, before I got in the thick of things with the discourse.