[glee] début: allow me to introduce

[satora_chan]

Date: 19 Jan 2010

Title: Début: Allow Me to Introduce
Fandom: Glee
Characters: Blaine, Blaine's family (OCs), Kurt, New Directions
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG-13 for growing pains, language
Spoilers (If any): up to 2x10
Warnings (If any): light homophobia. at least one cavity.
Word Count: ~8,500

Summary: Blaine’s childhood is full of

Comments

HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[satora_chan]

Writing a story that was purposefully about a character who grew up in a culture that was different from the usual mainstream American portrayal (i.e. white) was... really enlightening for me, as someone who participates in fandom. (I'm not sure if that sentence makes sense.) I struggled a lot when I wrote, because every single moment that I integrated an obvious facet of uniquely Filipino culture (vs a facet that many/all cultures share), I always had to pause and reread. Would readers be shocked from reading because of its "otherness", its unfamiliarity? Should I make it a softer transition? Or would doing so cater to their uncomfortableness, allowing them to avoid it? For example, Emily eats a piece of tsitsaron. I fretted over that. Should I just have her eat an apple, an orange? Something familiar? Because yeah, I'm focusing on the Filipino side of this Filipino-Irish family, but they're still American, so should I portray that?

What do I even mean when I say that I'm trying to find a balance re:culture-dump vs natural lived life? Why does Blaine have to have these "ethnic" characteristics/details? Can't he be like everybody else? But who is "everybody else"? When we write people from a (completely or almost) cultural-blind perspective, are we writing some sort of general American identity that all ethnicities can touch base on? Or is what we think of as a usual American teenager still just portraying mainstream white culture? Am I just thinking wanky thoughts?

Because I was an American teenager, and I was and am a POC, and, yeah, it didn't govern my life, but... even that's not really not the right way to describe it, because it is my life. I notice when I'm the only POC in a group, just like when I notice I'm the only woman. I notice when I cut my food into tiny pieces first before eating instead of cutting a single piece at a time and eating that. I notice the smells of people's houses and how Asian and Latin@ kids were put into ESL classes despite speaking English fluently and how my being good at math was treated differently. I am always noticing even when I don't consciously think I am. So it's strange to read Blaine-centric fics and see that there's... nothing like that at all most of the time. Like, often there's literal zero mention of race/ethnicity beyond "his mom, the dainty, beautiful, dark lady". No, I don't expect or want every fic to have some sort of obligatory heritage reference, but when a whole bunch of fics ignore that, yeah, we don't know what Blaine's ethnicity is in the show, but 100% white is probably not it, it's... I don't know, it's an uncomfortable trend for me to witness (and this is true for any of Glee's other POC characters, but, for me, it's very obvious with Blaine because, tbh, he can pass as fully white, and it's like... because he looks white, people treat his character as white, even when they know he's half.).

Ah, I'm not sure where this came from. I'm really sorry. I think this story just made me realize how invisible ethnicity and non-mainstream American culture is in fanfic, and it (apparently!) gets to me more than I realize. God I'm not making sense anymore :/// COMPLAIN COMPLAIN I'M CONFUSED WANKY THOUGHTS ;alksjdf;a

tl;dr Writing this story made me think a lot about the politics of what we write as fanfic writers and about how we portray POC characters, especially those whose cultural heritage we don't share.

Re: HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[ashmole]

In the spirit of camaraderie your fic really developed some of these feeling sin me too. Like I knew on an intellectual level until our discussion that I wanted him to be half Filipino and recognisably so but I was also surprised looking back at myself how easily I accept and sink into modes where that's barely recognised. (Which of course includes the canon universe as of now, though I hold out very tentative hope in the future it might surprise me). Also surprised how much I tend towards writing a 'culture blind' version of things when I write about American characters myself mostly because I'm not American and I already feel like I'm stretching trying to get that down correctly.

I had the same awarenesses as you too. They're constant...like the spoon and fork/left hand, right hand thing I mentioned for both myself and other Asian kids I've seen growing up. And at school for sure since I was in a pretty predominantly white community.

I really got a lot out of negotiating our way through together is what I'm saying. So thank you again (again :P).

Re: HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[satora_chan]

It's kind of strange to realize that writing this fic is going to make me a better writer (hopefully!) when I write longfic* (or even shortfic) about characters whose life situations I'm not at all familiar with. No one likes major parts of their identity to be invisible.

You should not feel overwhelmed! People write about unfamiliar things all the time and do so successfully; I think that the self-awareness that comes from recognizing one's own weakness in a topic is a great asset because then you're SUPER VIGILANT, and constant vigilance leads to good things! If I ever wanted to write for Torchwood or Doctor Who, I would need, like, 60 betas because I am not at all familiar with British culture XD in short: keep writing! :)

*lolsob, why do I like deluding myself into believing I have the time

Re: HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[wthis_pattys]

I think this story just made me realize how invisible ethnicity and non-mainstream American culture is in fanfic.

Yes, it really is. But, I think in bad fics, there's also no American culture.
This is partially why I don't write fic: Aside from the fact that I'm not a very good writer, there are also so many things I couldn't portay because I'm European. Our High School systems are completely different, we bring our own food to school so even a silly story like Mercedes' tater tots-fiasco would really be impossible to write. Unless you research American culture on its own (as a non-American writer), a story will always stay flat.
And that's exactly the thing that misses from most Blaines too, if you don't know about or research Filipino culture, then there's no way you're gonna portray that part of him. Then it really just stays with the beautiful dark lady-description.

BUT I think most of the time you can get away with it for Blaine, Wes and David, as long as you write canon!Dalton. Conformity and all that jazz. :D

Re: HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[satora_chan]

I don't think personal inexperience should stop you! I'm repeating what I said to Ash, but: People write about unfamiliar things all the time and do so successfully; I think that the self-awareness that comes from recognizing one's own weakness in a topic is a great asset because then you're SUPER VIGILANT of everything, and constant vigilance leads to good things! And some research is probably necessary, but betas can also be a great resource in providing feedback on whether certain points seem decidedly "off" culturally.

I know you said that you don't think you're a very good writer, but I've always thought your analysis of Glee and all it contains as being eloquent, clear, and well thought-out. I think that transferring that into story format is very doable and maybe you'll surprise yourself! and selfishly, I would just love to see your own take on things.

Conformity and all that jazz. :D

lol.

Re: HAHA THIS RESPONSE IS TOTALLY OUT THERE. I apologize for the blabber.

[wthis_pattys]

Yess, I do agree with that. As long as you're aware of it, that helps a lot. Of course I don't mean that nobody European could ever write an American fic, it's just that there's so many 'flat' fics out there that make me cringe, and I really wouldn't want to add to those. XD

Oh man, even if I tried I don't think I could express what I wanted to. The problem is that I think in colors and light and feelings, which is kind of hard to capture in words, and I always think that when I try to write a story, it's cold and detached. ha. But this is why I draw (comics) instead :D