One trend on ao3 that I feel uneasy about is the increased use of “author is trans” “author is disabled” “author is ace” etc tags.
On the one hand I can understand how it can feel like a reassuring sign for readers who are trans/disabled/ace etc that their lives are less likely to be misrepresented in that fic because the writer has lived experience.
But at the same time, when we’re writing fanfiction—about kids who can manipulate the force of the waves, about necromancy, about flying on dragons—I think the suggestion that you need to have lived experience to write sensitively about something is so limiting.
Like if we aren’t exercising the full force of our imaginations and empathy in fanfiction, where exactly are we doing it?
It also makes me sad because sometimes you can tell from the nervousness of the author’s note that the writer felt they had to justify their writing with their lived experience. And I don’t think you should feel ethically obligated to gesture toward personal and often painful aspects of your identity to justify writing you do in your spare time that makes you happy.
Some of the best fics I’ve read about disability have been written by authors that didn’t have experience with that exact condition and did heartfelt research and really let themselves inhabit it. And I think that’s a bravura display of empathy and the very best that fiction can offer: caring about a character enough, and caring about your readers enough, that you want to understand what it’s like.
Sometimes friends have asked me about my visual disability to better understand Zuko for their stories, and I’ve always found it really moving. It means they care so much about the fictional world that they want to get the real world right too. It means they’re learning and growing so they can make stories about disability.
It means they love the show, and it means they love me.
I have an addition to this but that will require some addendums / additional points.
This got a lil long so I threw the rest under the cut but tl;dr
The interrelation and complexity of marginalized identities irl makes authors' usage of them as protective labels on content counterproductive and discourages community and empathy.
Either don't mention your identity, or at most save it for the author's note instead of the tag when it's a contribution instead of a protection.
We don't need to hide what parts of ourselves inform our writing, but we do need to avoid normalizing the sharing of personal information to justify writing choices.
Too Long But Reading Anyway:
I know the degradation of privacy is getting normalized everywhere else on the Internet, but that sounds like all the more reason to avoid dragging that new norm into fandom.
A lot of this comes from the fear of making mistakes in public. After all, many fans (especially young one) grew up with the hyper-awareness that damn near their entire lives -- or at least their entire lives since entering social media -- would be documented and therefore could be dragged up from the depths of the past and used against you. People are trying to achieve "perfection" not for a sense of superiority, but a sense of safety; "if I do everything right, no one can call me out." I'm telling you right now, bullies don't work that way. They'll find a way to twist anything and everything into harassment campaigns. It is much better to be willing to write outside your lived experiences, to learn and grow, to own up to any mistakes you do make, and be ready to tell anyone who tries to castigate you for mistakes you didn't make to go screw themselves.
A lot of these identities are fluid. Maybe you're still trying to figure out your sexuality or gender, maybe you'll convert religions, maybe you'll discover something new about your heritage, maybe you will be able to treat your disability such that you won't have it in the future, etc. The fact that your identity might change in the future doesn't change your past, so it doesn't affect why you are putting that label for yourself on a fic…but, it does mean that if some bully wants to cause you trouble, they can absolutely turn around and use this against you. Just throwing this out there as a follow-up to both the first and the second points.
Being close to or part of a marginalized group doesn't give you carte blanch to write whatever you want. You can absolutely be part of a marginalized group and also perpetuate stereotypes or problematic tropes. (e.x. Transformative fandom is heavily dominated by women, yet so much of the het fanfiction is also saturated with sexist or downright misogynistic tropes. Obviously, being part of the marginalized identity group didn't help anyone writing that marginalized identity group. This is just the most prolific example but hardly the only one.) And that's if your own marginalization really matches the character's to begin with. Some axes of marginalization are incredibly vast (ethnic experiences and disabilities come to mind) and encompass a wide variety of identities, so being part of one doesn't give you magical insight into all the rest.
I feel like this also ignores the way identities and marginalization experiences intersect with each other. If we're so focused on labels for one identity, we end up discarding the others. This applies even when thinking about fictional characters in completely fictional settings. Most of these settings will, to varying degrees, reflect our real world. By using an identity label for only one aspect of a character's in-universe identity that happens to reflect a real world identity, what does this about all their other in-universe identities that reflect real world identities?
Circling all the way back to OP's point (sorry for the hijacking!):
Fandom is made up of communities. That doesn't sound like much on the surface when everyone uses that as a buzzword, but what I mean is that fandom isn't an institution or object that exists without people participating in it. Fandom is the participation, fandom is the interaction, fandom is the mutual connections fans build with each other. The 'mutual' there is important; a lot of social media makes it very easy for people to feel like they are friends with someone, when that other person barely knows them or doesn't know them at all. (The word is "parasocial relationships" if you wanna learn more.)
The "Author Is X" tag is about the author as an individual. Sharing facets of yourself as an individual isn't an inherently bad thing. Sometimes, we're proud of that and want to share that; or our specific experience is relevant to the specific story we're telling; or we want to make others with the same identity who feel alone know that they can reach out to us. These are all ways that sharing part of your identity with your audience can build a community. (Hell, even just writing out this long ramble right now, I find myself debating whether or not I should mention my own ethnic heritage on the fanfic where my heritage is influencing the way I'm worldbuilding.)
But using it as a justification or as a defensive measure is inherently contradictory to the spirit of community and the pursuit of empathy. It's implying that an individual author is supposed to be on their own and only relying on their knowledge and experience to write something; or that the author who already wrote something had no input from people around them. Quite frankly, that's never true. It's extremely rare for someone to just start writing fanfic without some semblance of community, even if it's literally just the single fandom friend. (Never mind the fact that fanfic by default always has at least two creators, the author of the fic and whoever made the canon thing that the fanfic is about.)
When we ask each other how our various experiences affect our lives, that is a connection we are building. When we ask multiple friends for their various inputs, for the different ways they experienced the same marginalization as their identity, for the ways a marginalized identity might have impacted their lives (even if that identity wasn't their own), all of that is building connections and thus building a community. These are threads of empathy fans build with each other.
“We don't need to hide what parts of ourselves inform our writing, but we do need to avoid normalizing the sharing of personal information to justify writing choices.” So many good points but I I really love how you put this.
The Magnus Archives (Season One) Production Design Project
Hello everyone! Let me introduce myself- I'm Tilda (or Tilde), and I'm want to be a production designer.
Production designers create the overall look of a piece of media. From costumes, lighting, environments, props, etc., these designers make sure that everything looks cohesive and sets the mood.
So, I thought it would be fun to put my skills to the test by designing season one of The Magnus Archives. My winter break started as soon as I became interested in the show. Needless to say, a new obsession and an abundance of free time go well together.
You may have seen these illustrations posted separately, this is a master post of the whole project. My thoughts, processes, and critiques are all included under the cut. If you read them, I hope you enjoy! If, not, thank you for supporting my work regardless.
The Characters
When designing these characters, I tried to avoid being influenced by fan interpretations. Though, that was a challenge (especially with Jon and Sasha). I found that I looked to my friends for inspiration. Certain elements (Jon's glasses) were based off of what they wore.
Pinterest was also useful for finding clothing and pose references. Some looks were based off of different actors- in particular, Tim was inspired by Nicholas Galitzine and Elias inspired by Matthew Lillard.
Jane was the most fun to design! I believe in making terrifying characters actually terrifying.
Elias's design needs the most work. Having now finished the show, I see that it doesn't fit him. The purple is overly saturated, especially compared to the set. He looks out of place! I'd reverse the color palette to mostly green/yellow with purple accents instead. Although, I will forever defend the purple tint in his gray hair.
The Set
Jonathan's office was a treat to design! Balancing the color and clutter was especially important. This room is meant to be claustrophobic and uncomfortable, but not overbearingly so.
The wood looks to be full of splinters, but not so worn that it can be thrown out. The chairs offer no back support, and the shelves make the room smaller. The goal was to represented Jon's mind. Intricate, messy, and suffocating (Note: that is more of a season two description).
One goal was to capture the look of an actual archive. Valuable times was spent researching the different kinds of storage, files, paper, etc. The texture and color had to be accurate.
A split-complementary color palette of blue-green, yellow-green, and red was used. Of course, I had to get green in there, and the varying hues and desaturated reds worked well for the wood and filing supplies.
Jane's ashes and the Web lighter on the desk place this set at the end of season one. I find details like this to be important, it's one of my favorite parts of design. There is much needed abundance of eye imagery as well. Most obviously in the carpet, but eyes are carved into the table and watch from the shelves.
My main critique is the lighting- the filters used could be adjusted as to not distort the colors of the boxes. They look inconsistent. The Web lighter could also be more obvious, yet it is small and pixelated.
The Props
I designed these as I re-listened to season one, and it is the most recent piece I finished. Combining the details described in the show with what the objects would have realistically looked like was interesting. That was most useful for the clown, the Ming vase, and Ex Altiora.
Each of these objects came from a specific time with a specific look. Ex Altiora was bound in calf leather from the 1800s, so those books were referenced. Same with the frills on the clown's outfit.
The Ming vase was especially interesting, as it is from the Jiajing period. When looking at photographs of Jiajing vases, I found that many of them lacked handles and had an hourglass shape. That was fascinating to me, as many artists depict a standard oval-shaped vase. Also, the vase's design is described as straight lines that create distorted patterns when looking at it. That effect was achieved using chromatic aberration and the liquify tool (chromatic aberration was used to create a vertigo effect on Ex Altiora).
My critiques are... nitpicky. minimal. The shading on top of the garbage bag is unnatural. The thickness of the gold engraving on Ex Altiora is uneven. The "I" in "Immediate Consideration" is not capitalized. Other than that, I'm happy with how the props look.
Conclusion
First off, if you read everything, thank you!! It is a lot, I know.
My greatest takeaways are that 1) ask for critique, always 2) research skills are necessary for design 3) references are your friend! Seriously guys, use your references.
I hope you enjoyed this project and I'm excited to share more of my work in the future!
(Spoilers for seasons 1-2 of TMA) HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!
I got hyperfixated on The Magnus Archives back in November and now I can finally post some fanart for it! Here's my season 1 and 2 dump. I have much more stuff for the later seasons, which I will be posting soon hopefully.
Enjoy my drawings of the Eye's special little boy!!!!!
learning to stop hating yourself isn’t something that happens overnight.
it’s a series of negotiations you make with yourself over your whole life. it’s making one less self-deprecating joke. it’s looking at yourself in the mirror with a little more generosity. it’s forgiving yourself for that little mistake.
it’s not one thing and then you’re good. it’s many small choices you can make that slowly make your brain and body a little less uncomfortable to live with
my prof just explained on the syllabus that he’s included more pionts in the class than we needed to pass, so we could skip up like?? 20 small assignments/quizzes/participation!! and still get a very high grade!!
the idea was that we could focus on assignments that played to our strengths - only do the participation stuff if we like to talk out loud - only do the quizzes/readings if we want to do the class remotely - only do online discussions if we like to talk and share opinions but struggle with anxiety in class ect.
and that’s cool enough but then he pulled up DnD character sheets with drawings he’d done of these hypothetical student player classes and how our various accessibility needs could be gamified to ‘max out’ different aspects of the class to get high grades and like!!!!!
hell yeah!!!! let’s treat accessibility in higher education not just as a necessity but as the fun, engaging, and creative aspect of learning that it is!!! I love this!!
other profs: sobbing and screaming bc someone needs to take notes on a computer
this dude: I record and upload every lecture for the paladins, monks, and rogues, but barbarians can watch them too I guess. Bards you only get one participation point per class, even if you talk multiple times, it’s only fair.
{Quotes: lilyrainpoety ( insta)/ Albert Camus, The Fall/fausto melotti l'uomo costant (1936) /Gemma troy/ainslie hogarth motherthing/‘what i could never confess without some bravado’, emily palermo/ Richard siken/mohmmad darwish//painting:holy Warburton//photos: pinterest}
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