#bodytalkgate

[hatosyscurls]

So to sum it up, she's done racist shit and yeah she's weirdly side stepped a real apology and yeah she blocked everyone who tried to approach her about it and yeah she's now monetizing the very same work including keeping the protagonist brown just to maximize the "white woman author profits off brown culture/characters" bit on the heels of being unrepentant about her previous "errors"

Emily Adama devoted to filling up the entire racist white author bingo card

[hatosyscurls]

What was the racist brown character fiasco? It's the first time I'm reading about it. I genuinely liked that fic and the author but I want to be wary about white people being racists and profiting off of brown characters/people.

they wrote a stereotypically dramatic latina woman character in their fic as the dead wife, blocked people who tweeted them about it, changed the passage/the character, and posted an "apology" statement that personally struck me as bizarre for not including "I'm sorry" or "I apologize" even though it was very, very carefully workshopped and written.

the fic ended a couple chapters later iirc (I was a reader too at that point) but I don't know when they took it down. and it seems that in the ensuing months they took that same fic and revised it for trad publishing. my understanding is that the Samira character is still brown.

I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about this. I won't deny that they have a talent for writing nor that I enjoyed their fics before that debacle, but as a brown woman I found their handling of the situation odd and disquieting. they're a prominent figure in the fandom by way of being a prolific writer and sharing a lot about their life. however I got the sense they were more focused on the injustice of receiving anonymous hate and struggling with their mental health than on how they wrote a racist caricature of a character. it was never clear to me whether they understood that it was possible to have caused harm even as a person who has experienced trauma in their life. or that receiving anonymous hate doesn't mean that anyone who criticizes your story's racism is a troll who delights in harassing you. I won't deny it leaves a sour taste in my mouth that they're now leveraging their success in writing a brown woman in a fic for monetary gain in a broader venue.

but I'll admit I've never spoken to them privately. perhaps I'm way off the mark. I'm not the designated spokesperson for all the browns in the fandom.

[hatosyscurls]

in light of this Incident™, do you have any suggestions for how to build names for non-white characters in fiction? i'm a mayonnaise on white bread sandwich over here so maybe i can learn something

this is a fair question to which there are many answers and I'm not going to be the spokesperson for all brown people on it.

I think it's important to note that part of why this "incident" is notable is due to it being the latest iteration in a string of instances where this author has shown a disregard for racial sensitivity and/or cultural awareness. I don't think it's a crime to name your character something slightly "off" if you as an author have made a sincere effort to ensure your character with its associated cultural affiliation is a well-written and multi-dimensional character whose culture is a meaningful aspect of them. I do think it's possible to have respectful depictions of people from other cultures in your writing.

But if it's just a matter of finding a nice name for a character, and you're not comfortable navigating the resources online, then you gotta talk to some people. 🤷‍♀️

But overall, this is what I'd keep in mind:

1. You have to remember you're not going to make everyone happy. However,

2. Do your best anyway. Speak to some people even if it feels vulnerable. "Hey I'm thinking of writing a character in this way/with this cultural affiliation, these are the details I've fleshed out based on research I've done on my own, can you help me choose a name for them out of these 5 potential options or do you know someone who can?"

And go from there. Either they can help or they can't, and if they can't and they have no one else to send your way, it would be okay for you to pivot and say, "okay maybe I'll reconsider the role this character is playing in my story because I'd rather write a character respectfully and well than to shoehorn in a generic brown character amalgam because that's the source material I'm plagiarizing and I don't want to work that hard just so I can say I'm an ally".

Anyways this isn't a perfect answer and I apologize. Thanks for asking.

[hatosyscurls]

her last name is gonna be neelan???? guys we found her. the next jk r**ling is here and the black mold is winning

according to her website, yes

I wish the black mold would take me, I'm so tired

[hatosyscurls]

the concept of publishing fanfic of a tv show with racist undertones and different character names… tv show which also turned out to be self insert fanfinc with racist undertones of another show from the 90s. i say lets keep this cycle of fanfic matrioskas going until it all just canibalizes itself. i wanna see what the final form of all of this is gonna be (its gonna be a white guy just standing there)

at least we can laugh abt it

it's sort of beautiful, really. one can't deny she understood the theme of the show and carried it forward. the exploitation of brown women and brown storylines to furnish the struggle of white folk? chef's kiss, no notes.

(it's also personally funny to me that the one (1) brown girl on ER was named Neela and the trad pub, not-Samira's last name is Neelan, but that's an aside)

[hatosyscurls]

the year is 2037. theres 12 volumes of that god awful book. its gonna be adpated to a movie. the main guy is gonna be played by jacob elordi. the main girl is gonna be a taylor lautner situation where its just a tan white person. noah wyle is again broke so he agrees to play his character so he can scream at a woman again and relive his glory days. he has a terrible wig with an even worst color match. the movie makes one trillion dollars.

okay evil Cassandra, it's time to give it up

I cackled however and the Wyle bit has ended me

[hatosyscurls]

omggg to come back to the pitt (i left with supriya tbh) and hear about the fic-to-book drama like. white woman profiting off of black or brown characters? par for the course ig except. wait. omfg i think i recognize that last name ?! and i'm not even a mohabbot. never heard of or read the fic either but apparently she cut a ton and then added original material except... she did so within the same "world" of the series/fic? idk if that makes sense but it's still an interracial (desi & white) age gap resident-attending relationship set in a hospital like... i don't think an entirely new supporting cast or medical cases is going to distract from that ?? which isn't to say that no one ever can write that set up now but they even look the same in the art that she apparently posted? even stranger knowing that the pitt has had legal issues from trying to separate itself from ER. idk just a mess in a making imo esp since NW seems to hate the fandom's love for SH... please feel free to ignore this ask if you don't feel like talking about it or it might bring some drama your way, just had no idea this was happening until now since i'm not on twitter. anyway i appreciate your pitt commentary!!

yeah her Instagram posts make it seem like the characters are hardly changed, even including Samira's research interests. I don't think I care about the legal aspect of it too much; it's her publisher's problem and presumably someone on their legal team is/has had a look at it.

for me it's the lack of creativity. most published fics are AU ones where the author has created a new world for the characters to play in. this is the same goddamn world!!! no work has been done here!! honestly it's embarrassing. I'd be embarrassed but I'm not a white lady who thinks she's suffered more than anybody else.

[hatosyscurls]

guys just because she faced allegations of racism and admitted to doing racist things it doesn't mean that she shouldn't immediately get to capitalize on the very same fic that initially elicited the racism allegations

white people not benefiting off of brown women/stories would be like a bridge too far in our "stop being racist" efforts

we need to let them have their enrichment activities