My big issue with all of this “after the fact diversity” that we’re seeing around JR Rowling and the Harry Potter series is that she’s getting so much credit for doing basically nothing with regard to representation.Read More »
Writer: Brian Christgau
Artist: Adrián Sibar
Letters: Bram Meehan and Dave Sharpe
Support the creators and get the comic on: COMIXOLOGY | AMAZON (Link to the first issue only) | KICKSTARTER
Note: Brian Christgau provided me with this review comic. The thoughts expressed in this post are entirely my own (obviously because who else would write an intense ode to a fictional gorilla?) and are honest representations of my opinions.
There’s something cathartic about watching a gorilla shoot the hell out of bad guys.
When I was trying to describe Six Gun Gorilla‘s premise to one of my friends, I wound up saying that it was something close to what you’d get if the long dead Edgar Rice Burroughs and Quentin Tarantino had a baby and if that baby was cooler than its parents while also being a gorilla.
As far as descriptions go, it’s a bit nonsensical, but it’s also what makes Six Gun Gorilla my kind of comic book. It’s a comic set in the American West during the times of cowboys and cattle rustlers and there’s also a gorilla running around blowing people’s heads off.
I’m sorry, was I supposed to refrain from falling in love with this ridiculously awesome comic?Read More »
Content notes: Aside from discussing racism in different forms across different cultures, this post also will talk briefly about the Holocaust and Transatlantic slavery. Note that I am AfroCaribbean and my lens is vaguely Western tinted as is much of the racism that I speak of. This doesn’t render my thoughts on racism (especially anti-black racism) invalid, but tends to kind of keep it narrow.
If you want to share your experiences with cultural or historical appropriation in fandom as a fan who is from somewhere else in the world or that has a different cultural background, feel free to message me and we’ll work something out in terms of posting here or on my tumblr.
If you’re arriving to this party a little bit later, head on over to the introduction post for this hybrid essay series so you can get a feel for how things are done here.
Last month, we talked about the techniques of erasure that fandom uses to decentralize people of color in popular media and prop up white (and often male) characters. We covered techniques from rewriting the relationships between characters to distancing characters of color from white characters they’re often shipped with.
It’s been a long month full of conversations about shipping and race. Many of these comments have been insightful and almost all of the responses that I have received so far have been positive.
This month, we’re looking at aspects of cultural appropriation in fandom and the ways that fandom frequently takes the culture and history of real and marginalized people and applies them to white characters.
In addition to defining cultural/historical appropriation and discussing why they’re not cool, we’ll also be looking at specifics like the use of horrific events in history (the Holocaust and the Transatlantic Slave Trade) as background/scenery for ship within fandom, and the Alpha/Beta/Omega trope and how fans tend to coopt and mutate actual history in order to manufacture gender/race –based oppression for cis white male characters.
We’re covering some heavy stuff both in terms of content and density. When talking about this aspect of how fandom gets it horribly wrong when creating fanworks, we’re going to look at:
I know this seems like a lot of text content, it’s all for a good cause. So let’s get started!
I just put the finishing touches on my own Grayson post’s first draft and am working on commission work for the rest of the night but I have a few things that y’all can look forward to coming up in the next week or so:
There’s other stuff of course, but I wrote this list on the fly while not looking at my actual to-do list so prepare to be pleasantly surprised over the next two weeks!
Welcome to Urban Fantasy 101, where we look at Dos and Donts along with discussions about good and tropes when writing Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance stories. Later on there’ll be themed book reclists (AKA – Required Reading) and eventually we’ll even include guest posts from/interviews with published authors writing diversity into these genres.
It’s been a couple of years since I read the last Southern Vampire Mysteries book from Charlaine Harris or watched the show, but one thing that really made the series difficult to consume (aside from well… a lot of other stuff with regard to sexual content) was how the vampire Bill Compton was originally a soldier in the side of the Confederate Army.
I don’t know about you, but I find it extremely difficult to sympathize with or even like a character that fought on the side of the Confederacy. It doesn’t matter what he does in the present day story or even if they’re a current crusader for justice. They were a part of something horrible in history and chances are, that they weren’t forced into it.
I still remember watching those first few episodes of True Blood and just frowning at the way that the townspeople in Bon Temps were fawning all over Bill. I felt so uncomfortable. It wasn’t only the fact that he was a vampire in their tiny town that had them losing their minds, but that he was old enough to have fought in the Civil War – on the side of the Confederacy.Read More »
At first, when Danae sees the horse in the canal, she thinks that she’s dreaming.
This is one of the stories that is going to show up in my fantasy collection sometime in the early parts of next year. Set in South Florida, along the same stretch of road that I would walk along when coming home from student teaching, this story is set to be humorous with an edge of intensity.
Hope you all enjoy reading the story!
This story is available only to monthly Patreon subscribers at the $5 level for anyone interested in reading the story and supporting me in my endeavors as a writer. It comes in .PDF, .MOBI, and .EPUB formats so that you can read on whatever device you want!
Today I’m going down to Miami in order to make the sort of academic decision that’ll move me forward on my goals. I’m being vague now because I’m terrified but please wish me all the luck in making a good choice!
This is the first post of what’s going to be a regular feature on the blog. “Problematic Fave” is going to look at what else – my problematic faves from all over the place. From comics to the romance novels I have loved to things I’ve watched that were just plain weird, I’m giving a critical look at stuff that I genuinely love, even when I probably could dial things back a notch.
To be absolutely honest, the Authority, Stormwatch, and their characters make up approximately 60% of my ultimate problematic favorites.
Sometimes, some issues or characters stand out more to me because they’re messed up or because they messed me up and then despite that, I continued to overflow with love for them. So it makes sense to start with one of the books from Wildstorm’s best series for this new article series I’m doing.
The Authority: Human on the Inside is one of those books. Written in September of 2004 by novelist John Ridley (Spoils of War) and artist Ben Oliver (that first amazing run on Batwing), the standalone comic centers on our favorite aggressive superpowered misanthropes going up against a villain that comes at them from an angle that they least expect, trying to take them out from the inside.Read More »
I’m writing less and less fan fiction lately.
Obviously. I mean, I went from writing dozens of pieces of fan fiction a year (I went from writing 400k words a year to less than 70k) to less than twenty in 2015.
Something’s changed.
Part of it can be that fandom, the ones I write for at least, has changed. Many of the people who read the stuff I write aren’t there anymore because they’ve moved on to other fandoms or they’re just too busy. The new folks maybe aren’t interested in what I write or they don’t feel up to communicating as much, so if they’re there, I don’t know it.
Maybe it’s because my ships, tropes, or kinks aren’t super popular anymore and people just aren’t reading the type of content that I’m putting out so I’m putting out less content in response.
Either way, I’ve noticed that I don’t really even think about writing fan fiction lately outside of commissions and the rare burst of creativity.Read More »
This is an older project I’m picking at after a few months on the side. Mastermind is a science fiction and (eventual) romance story that focuses on a nonbinary telepath (or Mastermind) named Jare, zir detective partner Lucien, and Thalia, a gorgeous heiress in need of their help.
I really need to work on this some more because there’s so much potential to it so hopefully I can find what makes this click. If you have thoughts on this snippet, feel free to share them!
Originally written in 2013 on Tumblr.
I hate the word preference. Or at least, I hate the concept of that most people have of it in terms of dating.
I hate that not only has society made it okay for everyone to have a (frankly racist) preference against Black women, but that it’s also socially acceptable to talk about why you won’t date a Black woman… TO BLACK WOMEN.
Read More »
One of the things I complained about on twitter is that I legitimately don’t understand how Tony could think that he and Steve were friends — like BFFs on the level as him and Bucky or chill buds like he is with Sam. It’s been a few days since the Civil War trailer and I still don’t get it.
And this is coming from someone like me that thinks of Tony as neuroatypical and as someone that misses a lot of social cues in life due to reasons directly related to his neuroatypical nature.Read More »
If you’re supporting me on Patreon (at any level) and want to keep up with what I have planned for December, I have the list up for what’s heading your way along with some news on my upcoming SECRET project.
December is going to be a pretty busy month in terms of writing and hopefully, it’ll be a pretty rewarding one for my followers.
Patrons, you can check the list out HERE ON PATREON! (Everyone else? You’ll just have to be pleasantly surprised when content rolls out here!)
🙂
In case you wanted to pick and choose from different Bond films that I covered while doing the Bond Girl recaps for The MAry Sue, there’s now a handy list of links!
Originally posted on Tumblr on September 28, 2013.
After closing, Naeem’s bodyguard Malachi arrives at the café to deliver plenty of harsh words for Josie along with her clothes for the evening. Later, Josie gets the rug pulled from underneath her feet when Naeem introduces her to someone that truly shouldn’t exist.
Ricky’s closes at half past six.
By the time that Josie finishes stacking chairs and sweeping the floors, the sky outside is dark and everyone else has gone home except for Ricky himself who lives upstairs in a heavily warded apartment.Read More »
Stitch's Media Mix 
You must be logged in to post a comment.