(no subject)
Sometimes I wonder about my own interests.
How to explain it.
I tend to fall hard for characters of colour, esp. black men, in most fandoms I'm in.
[cut for pic spam of hot guys]
Charles Gunn on Angel
Lando Calrissian in Star Wars
Victor Henriksen on Supernatural
Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds
Hank Griffin on Grimm
Vernon Boyd on Teen Wolf
Charlie DeSalvo on Highlander
But somehow when I write fic I still mainly seem to focus on white guys. And it makes me worry, am I just loving these guys because they're hot, cause they are?
I keep telling both myself and others that I want to see more of these guys, that I want more focus on them. That they're getting underdevelopped or killed off just when they're getting most interesting. Yet it's only Viktor Henriksen and Derek Morgan that I've used as main characters in fics.
Now admittedly, I don't always write about my fave characters. Even when Buffy was actually my fave character, I rarely wrote her pov in btvs fics, because she was hard to write. And it's easy to use that same excuse for Gunn, even though he's really not that much harder to write than Xander. (esp. since in far too many fics I've read, Xander is actually given Gunn's characteristis, by the same people who also claim they can't write Gunn)
I'm not going to involve Scott McCall, whom I love, in this list, because until someone told me he's hispanic, I didn't even realize he was poc. It's the name, which is probably the reason he was given a non identifying name, but I can't pat myself on the back for preferring a poc character when I didn't even realize he was poc in the first place*eg*
And that's I think my entire issue. I like to think I genuinely love these guys because they're hot, have amazing potential, even when they're horribly underused in canon. But do I love them, or do I love the idea of them?
At times it's hard to call out my own privilige. To call out the notion that maybe I'm just fetishizing these men, instead of loving their actual personalities. And yet...
Who wouldn't love more Viktor Henriksen? There's a reason I've watched each ep with him in it ten or more times, focusing on his scenes.
I dislike it when all the CM fic I see focuses on Reid, and if Derek's in them, he's either paired with Reid, with the fic mainly focusing on Reid, or he's a silent background char. While I keep thinking that if Derek were white, he'd easily be snapped up as the fandom woobie.
When I watch Star Wars, my two fave characters are Luke and Lando, yet Luke is often either just seen as Darth Vader's son, Han's boyfriend or turned into a Gary Stu, while Lando... is little more than the snarky guy in the background.
Don't even get me started on how Gunn was turned into a supporting character for Wesley (blagh). Even though JAR is the far better actor of the two.
Or how Charlie was killed, just as he found out about immortality and that should have been a jumping on point for his character arc, instead of the end of it.
And then there's Boyd. Calm reserved Boyd, who just wanted friends who sat with him at lunch. And who now rejects any attempt at friendship, because the last time he opened up, he was betrayed and he lost the one true friend he had, Erica. And who's now overcome with anger
Or Hank who was sidelined for much of the first season of Grimm, and who in the second season had some fans actually complaining that he got more screentime and a storyline instead of white fan favorite Monroe
I like to think that shows are getting better about giving storylines to poc, and yet... both in fanon as well as canon, these characters are still underserved and are little more than supporting characters to the white protagonists.
And I think I judge fandom for that far more harshly than I do the show. Because as fans we should know better.