chatgpt is a threat to the symbiotic relationship between fanfic writers and their betas. we are losing our traditions. eradicate the soulless machine and ask your friend who has a full time job and 3 kids to annotate your omegaverse fanfiction like any other responsible adult.
i've not read the children of blood & bone books, but as a nigerian diaspora kid, i'm still gonna poke my nose in & have an opinion. I'll just say that Tomi Adeyemi, a Nigerian-American woman who only connected w/ her Nigerian ancestry in her 20s, was never gonna have anything "less" than an black-diaspora-excellence adaptation. In an ideal world, a Nigerian production studio would've brought the story to life with Nigerian actors who could at least pronounce Orisha w/o getting tongue-tied. But Tomi Adeyemi has put out a book with incredible success and has gained a limited fame that puts her among Black American celebrities, who are the people that she rubs shoulders with. She wouldn't "settle" for her NYT Bestseller book being adapted by a small(er) Nigerian production company w/ limited reach beyond the African continent & diaspora, featuring Nigerian actors whose names likely mean nothing to her (has she heard of Richard Mofe Damijo? Funke Akindele? Ramsey Nouah? Genevieve Nnaji? has she even glimpsed any of their films?). Paramount Pictures have the reach, they have the money, they have the glamour that fits the kind of glossy black-excellence narrative that has built the book up (hers was really the first African-flavoured YA fantasy books to get any kind of popularity/push in a western market). Paramount have seemingly thrown all the hottest Black diaspora actors into the pot, w/ no attempt to even look anywhere else. And again, I think Adeyemi defends the casting because she's sincerely very happy with it - a prestigious cast as deserving of a NYT bestseller, by a woman who clearly and understandably enjoys her success (if her insta is anything to go off).
It's an American adaptation of an American book, by an American author whose engagement w/ her heritage was severely limited by design (which I don't judge her for, I'm not exactly miss naija myself). I think this outcome (all diaspora Actors) was kinda inevitable, but idk why the ppl in charge of this film ever decided to pretend that was going to NOT be the case, by doing that whole "open casting" song and dance. Like just be straight up, you're not going to cast anyone who isn't 100%, bulletproof bankable. Like wth is Amandla Stenberg doing here lollll, always at the scene of the crime, that girl.
I'm pleased people are upset though. Black Panther was tolerable, but this isn't a Wakanda situation - Orisha, indigenous religion practitioners, the ethnic group it emerged from are very real. That being said, I think if you want fantasy works that sincerely engage with African cosmologies, you can easily do much better than Adeyemi's book. Nigerian SFF literature is on the up and up - you can start with the Nigerian authors in the Africa Risen anthology, who have published great work everywhere. These authors' works are very accessible - they're published in various online magazines. My personal faves are Dare Segun Falowo and Pemi Aguda - Falowo's work reads like a heady, nauseous fever-dream, but Aguda is always controlled, she knows the perfect moment to twist the knife. Her anthology Ghostroots was one of the best things I read last year. Falowo's Ngozi Ugegbe Nwa is a terrifying riff on old stereotypes about women living the high-life in the big city. And Aguda's Manifest is a total encapsulation of her work, her ability to condense societal anxieties into just a few narrative beats. I could go on and on (Wole Talabi, Oluwatomiwa Ajeibe, Chinelo Onwualu etc). While I don't know if I believe in a singularly "authentic" Nigerian culture that can be codified and then represented, these authors are living (or have lived) & publishing straight from the continent in spite of everything, so check them out.
Although Tomi Adeyemi’s experience in the book industry reeks of classic misogynoir (that we should indeed call out with nuance) I don’t personally sympathize with her🤷🏾♀️ sooooooo many people saw this coming when Amandla was casted and she was so nasty about criticism of her books. She also stood on the casting (cough similar to The Hate U Give) It’s why standing for nothing ends up biting you right in the ass — especially because we ARE black women - you are never bigger than the program in these spaces
2. The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard
3. "Abolitionists turned the tables on Europeans by accusing them of being cannibals when they ate sugar tainted with the flesh and blood of slaves."
4. Zombies (which I would class as cannibals, since they were human and need to eat humans to live) have a root in Haitian folklore and represented enslavement.
adding that, if you can find it, cannibal culture by deborah root is about exactly this. the way the white western world is a hungry, destructive force that cannibalizes non-white cultures and creates wealth and status through the cannibal colonization of those cultures.
here's the intro
i almost think there's an essay in bell hooks' black looks about this too? yes! just checked, there's an essay called "eating the other"
Don't forget that "cannibal" was a slur, popularized by Christopher Colombus to essentially call Indigenous people of the Carribbean a bunch of savages 😬 X
Go ahead, make your OC the sibling/child/friend/whatever of an important canon character. Ship your OC with a canon character. Its fandom, its posts on social media/fanfic/fan art. Go for it, have fun, make up your own headcanons.
At the end of the day, who really are you if everything you know about yourself stems from the life of a person you're pretending to live as?
Edit with typed out text under the read more!
My name is Muto Yugi.
I like games. I like my friends. I like burgers. I have a grandpa at home who loves me.
My name is Muto Yugi.
I go to school everyday with my friends. I wake up at 5AM so I have time to do my hair.
My name is Muto Yugi.
I meet them everyday. We play games together.
My name is Yugi Muto.
I don't like the taste of burgers. I don't like eating.
My name is Yugi Muto.
I wake up at 1AM everyday. I sneak out through the window. There is this guard in my home that I don't know.
My name is Yugi Muto.
He grabs my arms and keeps me trapped in my home. He claims he's "worried" and that "I'm injured" but HES LYING!! HE WANTS TO TRAP ME INSIDE!!
My name is Yugi Muto.
The guard is wrinkled and says my name like he knows me. He's lying. It's a trick.
My name is Yugi.
My friends look at me funny. I don't like looking at them.
My name is Yugi?
I don't brush my hair. I don't wash my face. I don't go to school. Everyone is WATCHING ME at school. I don't know ANYONE AT SCHOOL.
My name is Yugi?
WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP SAYING I'M ACTING DIFFERENTLY??!! I'M NORMAL!!
MY NAME IS YUGI??
I don't know what school is I don't know who you are stop looking at me STOP LOOKING AT ME ST-
MY NAME IS-
I seem to fall asleep for days at a time I'm dressed my face is washed my hair is brushed I'm fed. It is my captive doing it. They're forcing me here. They're keeping me here against my will. I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape I have to escape-
I DON'T THINK MY NAY NAME IS YUGI.
I don't recogniz recognise--I don't think I'm me wh--
Move eec each limb--the reflection isn't me
I don't know who I a--y myself. Please someon-
I DON'T THINK MY NAME IS YUGI
THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME THA-
Sometimes when I wake up I'm a new version of me I haven't met and I don't remember where I am and I think. Like. I belonged somewhere far far away and got trapped here as a form of c o s m i c p u n i s h m e n t. Like. A sinner taken to the slaughter. And I stop sleeping and suddenly I realise these people I call my family are people I don't know OR love. But that's cruel right. And I wake up not remembering days. Weeks at a time. And suddenly the house I thought was mine feels like a prison and when I look in the mirror my face it changes every time and I feel sick and have to look away because that's not me.
And I begin fearing that I don't recognise myself in any of my memories and I dont recognise the friends the me I see in my memories fought so hard to get and I realise that I REPLACED HIM. I AM THE REPLACEMENT. And so I try to gamble my life away and I fill "my" body with meds and caffeine and I pity the "ME" I replaced so much that I run around and s l a u g h t e r everyone who ever hurt him because he deserves to rest in peace. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually dead and this is my afterlife but haha.
That has to be a lie right. Right. Please. Tell me I'm right. Who the fuck am I now? Him? M-
romaincrisis
kianamaiart
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
titsay
