Also, because I don't think I typed it nowhere, but I did make a mental note that Marisa described Amery as having dark brown skin and described Winter as having warm brown skin and like... FYM Bitch? All brown skin is warm. Brown is a warm color. And what is the difference in her mind between their skin where his is described as dark, before she absolutely describes a corrupt deviant and Winter's is warm, before she describes a beautiful delicate doll of a human?
It can be absolutely nothing. But, my brain has been put through a lot by this woman this week, so idek.
That's a good point! I think it's interesting to note how the characters skintones are referenced especially since the books were written in the early 2010s (i think Marissa said she started writing Cinder during the 2008 NaNoWriMo) and released throughout the 2010s. I remember seeing a lot of writing advice around this time warning authors away from describing characters of colour's skintones using food based adjectives like chocolate, mocha etc (which I fully agree with!!), so I wonder if this was maybe Meyers' attempt at an overcorrection in the other way? By using more of shades like brown, pale etc and then descriptors like warm, dark?
It's odd no matter what, but I do wonder her creative process 🤔
Rhjrhhrjrjjff I really woke up today and decided to talk about queer rep huh.
Alright. So mm. She’s one of my favorite authors and I love her books, but something that’s always stuck out to me is her queer rep. She’s straight, so as much as she tries (which aren’t very good tries), the rep is always going to be off.
For context, I’m an ace lesbian. I haven’t read the books in a while, so if I get anything wrong, I apologize.
The way I’m going to do this is by series/book. Some things might have specific things I want to talk about, I may go by character, idk. Be prepared for an incoherent rant.
TLC
I talked about it on the tlc unpopular opinions post, but I’m gonna say it again. Not all the couples had to be written as straight. Even if they all ended up in m/f relationships, with 9 main characters, it’s unrealistic none would be queer in some way, whether it’s sexuality or gender.
And why couldn’t it be? Honestly, the gender of either character in the couples could have been swapped and nothing would change. Why did they only recruit males for genetic modification? Why are dashing criminals always guys? Does Levana recruit only male guards? She has plenty of female Thaumaturges, so clearly she doesn’t discriminate based on gender.
Wolf and Scarlet could still find her grandmother. Cress and Thorne would survive the desert. Winter and Jacin still wouldn’t be able to be together, which honestly could add another layer to how oppressive Lunar society is, if she wanted to go that route. Which honestly, probably better she didn’t, since that’s something definitely better handled by queer authors. But my point still stands.
The only one that might be slightly changed is Kaider, and that’s only if Kai was a girl. Even then, Levana could have easily been the evil king instead of queen. Yeah, it would’ve changed how the whole Winter-Evret-Solstice situation would happen, but you’re the author, figure it out. And honestly? Levana would have been ten times more terrifying as a guy who only saw Kai as useful because they could have kids. Tyrants are terrifying, yeah, but that’s someone you meet in everyday life. Like Aimery, y’know? Idk where I’m going with that but it just seems like something that could add depth.
I talked about Cress in my original response, but I’ll go more in depth here. Cress was locked in a satellite for years. A lot of what she knows about the world is what she’s read and seen on shows, which is . . . exactly how comphet can develop. And what Cress has with Thorne definitely feels like that. We get no say on what queer rep and acceptance is like in the tlc universe, so for all we know all the netdramas have straight couples. Cress loves netdramas. She copes by pretending she’s on one. If Cress grew up watching only straight couples and didn’t even consider any other option, she would think that’s normal. That she can like men, and only men. Because if she wants to live the perfect netdrama life, she has to like men. So when she learns of Cinder and Thorne escaping, she focuses on Thorne because he’s a conventionally attractive man and she’s supposed to like him, right? She learns all about him and idolizes him and mistakes it for a crush. But she hides the Rampion because Levana is looking for Cinder. Yes, I’m saying I think Cress actually had a crush on Cinder. What about it.
What Cress knows about Thorne is what she’s read, which paints him as the perfect hero. The perfect man. Even as a criminal, he’s exactly what she thinks a man is supposed to be like, going off fictional standards she probably has from netdramas. And in the desert, they were working to keep each other alive, so it’s only natural they’d grow close. And I think Cress mistook platonic love for romantic love, because Thorne’s a man so it has to be romantic.
I’m way too invested in Cress and her sexuality, so I’ll try to wrap it up. Cress could have had an arc where she realizes she doesn’t like men. Her and Thorne are forced together for days and she realizes, yeah, this isn’t for me. Now, whether she realizes she’s a lesbian like I think she is, or she realizes she aro or ace or aroace or whatever, it would have been a nice arc, and I think she had the most potential for one.
RENEGADES
Oh god, Renegades. If I have her publishing order correct, her first series with queer rep. It was . . . not a great try. I think some characters had their sexualities confirmed in an interview or q&a or something, but not in the series, so I’ll be talking about what is confirmed in the series.
Starting with Humon (that’s the ship name right—). Look. I thought they were great. They were amazing dads, for the most part. I wasn’t too invested in them, so I don’t have many points to say, but I have a big one.
So the Council is notably, not the best people. Honestly, I feel like they were more of the villains than the Anarchists. Not to say the Anarchists were great, because they definitely weren’t. But it was a bad move to make the two queer superheroes the leaders (I know they Council didn’t have one leader, but honestly, Hugh was the leader) and then turn around and make them antagonists.
I know as a community, we love to headcanon villains and antagonists as queer, but that’s our own thing. It feels off when a straight author makes the villains queer, and none of the heroes (I’ll get to Danna and Narcissa in a moment). Especially when those characters are antagonists because they’re oppressing others. Agent N was used to punish prodigies who didn’t join the Renegades, and they treated the Anarchists horribly after their defeat. Sure, the Anarchists were awful, but they could have at least done something better than shoving them in the train tunnels to be forgotten. They didn’t even care about them enough to find out they had a child living with them.
And to make the two people in charge of that project, using their son to create Agent N, and then using it to oppress people queer, when queer people themselves have been oppressed? Bad move.
Queer villains are fine. Horrible queer people exist. But it’s not fine when they’re really the only queer characters.
Onto Danissa! Look. I love Danissa. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have problems. This time I’ll analyze each character instead of both of them together.
Starting with Danna. Honestly, she didn’t get much development. She was hardly there in Renegades, and she was hardly there in Supernova. Throughout Archenemies, and Supernova I think, she was again, more of an antagonistic force. Her actions were justified, yeah, but she was still an antagonist for Nova.
Even going away from that, she wasn’t very developed. Outside of being a problem for Nova, I honestly can’t remember anything about of her. Most of her personality is headcanons and fanon, honestly.
Narcissa was a little more developed, but even then, barely. She was just the mirror walker from the library in Renegades, I don’t think she was in Archenemies at all, and she played a major part in Supernova. I can name a few things about her personality, like how she likes reading. I don’t think she was ever really portrayed as an antagonist? But still feels weird that most of the queer characters, if not all, were villains.
Both Danna and Narcissa had their parts to play, and they honestly didn’t need to get together. The only time we see them interact is with Phobia, and even then we just get a line saying they grew closer during that experience. But we don’t actually see that development. Honestly, them getting together (which was just one throwaway line) felt like diversity for diversity points. There was no build up, both their characters were hardly developed, and they barely interacted. As with Danna, everything with their relationship is fanon.
HEARTLESS & INSTANT KARMA
I don’t have much to say on these, so I’m combining them. Starting with Heartless, I would have liked it so much more if Jest was a girl. Look. Look at me. I don’t care about your bullshit historical accuracy excuse. Queer people have always existed. Jest and Cath’s entire plot is that they can’t be together. That Cath would lose everything for loving Jest. You know who have been kicked out of families and lost everything just for loving someone? Queer people. We’ve been denied the right to love who we want and to just exist, and plots where straight couples are forbidden from being together have always rubbed me the wrong way. I know if Jest had been a girl it probably would have fallen into the bury your gays trope, and Cath becoming a tyrant would feel off, but Jest died because he and Cath had tried to be together, even if it wasn’t the direct cause of his death. Queer people die all the time just for being queer. Coming from a straight author, it would have been done poorly, yeah, I’m just tired of stories where two characters can’t be together due to social or political reasons being straight. I know that wasn’t specifically about queer rep but I’ve been thinking about it for a while.
I barely remember Instant Karma, so all I have to say is that she honestly had no excuse for not making someone explicitly queer. I can guarantee that in a modern American high school, it’s very hard to find a friend group without at least one queer person, if not impossible (obviously there are circumstances that change things, but in general). Prudence also had so many siblings? You’re telling me they’re all straight? Some of them were definitely old enough to know their sexuality. So which one is the gay cousin?
I haven’t read Gilded yet, and I know there’s stuff in there I’ll want to talk about, so I’ll reblog with a rant about that when I do.
I love Marissa Meyer’s books, there’s no questioning it.
But, I do dislike how she treated the characters’ trau//mas. (censored just in case)
For Cinder, there was hardly any evidence of what she went through, besides the limited amount we read.
For Nova, we saw a bit more of how all of that affected her, but never to the extent we should have. Her intense distrust was well-founded, but what about the other things caused by the killing of her parents? No nightmares? No intense fear of loud and sudden noises?
I haven’t read Heartless, so I can’t do anything for that.
And I haven’t even mentioned the other characters in both of these series. Cress? She might have a fear of people speaking harshly, or of sudden movements. Wolf? A fear of medical equipment, maybe. Oscar? A fear of fire, perhaps.
Now, don’t take this the wrong way. I really enjoy the books, and will keep doing things about them. I just wanted to cover this.
