I've only just found out about these tweets and the portrayal of Piper, among other characters, in Riordan's works. I have to say, I'm really upset at Rick Riordan, I'm half-Korean, autistic, depressed, and morbidly obese, and seeing this affected me really badly. That being said, if you're ok with answering this, how can we, as fanfiction writers, portray Piper in a way that's respectful and accurate to Cherokee culture?
siyo oginalii 💕 i get a lot of questions like this and it's really hard to cover everything because piper in canon is pretty much a walking stereotype. i'm uncomfortable with divulging information about our culture but in general the best thing that people who are not tsalagi can do is to completely retcon the harmful parts of piper's character in writing, those being:
her being a kleptomaniac. do NOT write native characters as thieves. i don't know what possessed rick to think that was appropriate but it's not.
feathers in her hair. literally i don't know a single ndn who just wears feathers in their hair casually like that. i know i sure as hell don't. ESPECIALLY not eagle feathers…
describing her with eurocentric features- yes, this includes her "kaleidoscope" eyes and weird coppery hair. let characters of color have dark eyes and dark hair.
sexualization- her claiming scene is really gross and uncomfortable for me to read because the way she's described is weirdly sexual in nature. don't sexualize native women and girls, for the love of g-d.
other notes:
this is more nitpicky but i hate her cornucopia. i've always thought that was dumb, especially considering cornucopias are generally seen as a symbol of thanksgiving 🤢
j-siper is a bad ship and i will not back down from that. there are a lot of canonical issues i have with their romantic relationship. platonically, they're great together. jason is a good friend and he does right by piper and leo. but i'm so tired of seeing native girls end up with white boys in fictional media. i can smell the colonization.
don't write her as "disconnected" or w/e but also don't try to write about tsalagi culture. our culture is closed to outsiders for a reason. as far as cultural connection goes, all things considered, piper is far from disconnected. she just comes off as detached because she's being written by a white man who knows nothing about us as a people and as a culture.
don't write her or tristan as having some kind of disdain or contempt towards their native identities. i HATE how rick wrote tristan (and his relationship with piper) because it makes zero sense. i have a lot of thoughts on that and i'm willing to share them if asked but just tread lightly and get rid of the weird internalized racism that rick wove into their characters.
that's all i have to say for the moment. if anyone has any further questions, so long as they aren't inappropriate and uncomfortable, i might be able to answer them.
