| 9:58a |
I was working on a long, involved, meaty post about this racism thing all over my flist, but then I realized most of what I wanted to say had already been said. And been said *better*.
So what I'll do instead is say this:
Dude. Fandom. Stop telling people you can't write CoCs just because they're CoCs. You write fic about people you're not all the *time*. That's kinda the point.
So canon doesn't give them full characterization. So *what*? Canon never does for any character. Do some research on probable backstories *given your canon*, keep in mind the information you do have about voice and so forth, and when you get a bunny? Ask your beta if it works.
You're going to piss people off. I guarantee it. Someone on this wide, wide Internet will disagree with your characterization, and someone will say "you wrote this COC wrong!" But, you know, characterization debates always happen *too*. Listen to your critics. Discuss the problems they point out -- they might be wrong.
You might be wrong, too.
Even if you didn't intend to offend? You might have. Accept that right now and deal with it, then take whatever you learned and apply it to the next time you get a bunny for a CoC.
I am not of the same ethnicity as, for example, Book from Firefly or Franklin from Babylon 5.
I'm not male, either. I'm not spacefaring, I'm neither a Shepherd nor a doctor, I'm not old or middle-aged. If I can get past those details to write Book or Franklin, why on earth would the fact that they're black and I'm white be a deal-breaker?
*typity type typity on Book stories and Franklin story* |