It always pisses me off when fic writers only give magnus jobs like fashion designer or makeup artist or something related to design. Like there is absolutely nothing wrong with that but they just see his makeup and give jobs like that. Its canon that hes been a lawyer, he's good at chemistry, he's good at healing. He's good with so much It be stuff but they don't see him past his makeup and pisses me off. And they make alec this over successful god when it's canon that Magnus is richer....
.... There's nothing wrong with any of this being vice versa but it just shows how people like to see the white guy being more successful and giving all of magnus friends like Luke and Raphael to him.
The thing is that white people don’t realize they need to be more aware of the choices they’re making and why they’re making them when writing non white characters and interracial relationships. It means putting in a little extra time and care and sometimes a little extra research.
There’s a blog for this, actually, I need to go search for it and find it. It basically helps to get into the mind of a non white character or how and why they would feel a certain way or act a certain way. Why they would react to some situations differently. Etc. So it’s not like anyone is saying white people can’t write characters of color. It just means doing it more carefully and well thought out.
And I’m never saying this kind of shit like I’m any better. I write Magnus, I often go looking for the opinions of non-white (specifically Asian) fans to get their read on him as a character. Sometimes I still realize I’m doing something wrong. It’s a little embarrassing but you fix it and you get over it. You learn something.
So people just throwing Alec into positions of power while putting Magnus into entry level or blue collar or whatever jobs is more than a little problematic. Even if you’re writing human AUs, if you want to keep who Magnus is then part of that is being aware of his intelligence and capabilities. If you’re desperate to write struggling!designer!Magnus, okay. Then write about how his race is part of why it’s a struggle.
Fic writers, especially white fic writers writing for non white characters, just need to be more aware of why they’re writing things the way they do.