Writing Reference - Tumblr Posts - Page 4
Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. by Yvette Siegert, from The Most Foreign Country; “I am falling”
[Text ID: “to long for you love and to face your heights / with such cheap anguish.”]
Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. by Yvette Siegert, from The Most Foreign Country; “Sky”
[Text ID: “I don’t know whether to think about the sky or you”]
What Makes an Ethnic Villain "Ethnic" or "Villainous?" How Do You Offset it?
anonymous submitted:
Hello WWC! I have a question about the antagonist of my story. She is (currently) Japanese, and I want to make sure I’m writing her in a way that doesn’t associates [sic] her being Asian with being villainous. The story is set in modern day USA, this character is effectively immortal. She was a samurai who lost loved ones due to failure in combat, and this becomes her character[sic] motivation (portrayed sympathetically to the audience). This story explores many different time periods and how women have shown valor throughout history. The age of the samurai (and the real and legendary female warriors from it) have interested me the most, which is why I want her to be from this period. The outfit she wears while fighting is based on samurai armor, and she wears modern and traditional Japanese fashion depending on the occasion. She acts pretty similar to modern day people, though more cynical and obsessed with her loss. She’s been able to adapt with the times but still highly values and cherishes her past. She is the only Asian main character, but I plan to make a supportive Japanese side character. She’s a history teacher who knows about the villain and gives the protagonists information to help them, but isn’t involved in the main plot otherwise. Are the way I’m writing this villain and the inclusion of a non-antagonist Japanese character enough to prevent a harmful reading of the story, or is there more I should do?
Why Does Your Villain Exist?
This makes me feel old because David Anders plays a villain with this kind of backstory in the series Heroes starring Masi Oka.
I think you want to think about what you mean when you say:
Villainous (In what way? To whom? To what end?)
Harmful (What tropes, narratives and implications are present?)
I’m relatively infamous in the mod circle for not caring too much about dimensions of “harm”. The concept is relative and varies widely between people and cultures. I don’t see much value in framing motivations around “What is less harmful?” I think for me, what matters more is:
“What is more true?”
“Are characteristics viewed as intrinsic to background, or the product of experiences and personal autonomy?”
“Will your portrayal resonate with a large audience?”
“What will resonate with the members of the audience who share the backgrounds your characters have?”
This post offers additional questions you could ask yourself instead of “is this okay/not okay/harmful.”
You could write a story where your antagonist is sly, sadistic, violent and cold-blooded. It may not be an interpretation that will make many Japanese from combat backgrounds feel seen or heard, but it’s not without precedent. These tropes have been weaponized against people of Japanese descent (Like Nikkei Japanese interned during World War II), but Japan also brutalized a good chunk of Asia during World War II. See Herge’s Tintin and The Blue Lotus for an example of a comic that accurately showcases the brutality of Japan’s colonization of Manchuria, but also is racist in terms of how Japanese characters are portrayed (CW: genocide, war, imperialism, racism).
You could also write a story where your character’s grief gives way to despair, and fuels their combat such that they are seen as calculating, frigid and deeply driven by revenge/ violence. This might make sense. It’s also been done to death for Japanese female warriors, though (See “Lady Snowblood” by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura here, CW: sexual assault, violence, murder and a host of other dark things you’d expect in a revenge story).
You could further write a story where your antagonist is not necessarily villainous, but the perceived harm comes from fetishizing/ exoticizing elements in how her appearance is presented or how she is sexualized, which is a common problem for Japanese female characters.
My vote always goes to the most interesting story or character. I don’t see any benefit to writing from a defensive position. This is where I'll point out that, culturally, I can't picture a Japanese character viewing immortality as anything other than a curse. Many cultures in Japan are largely defined by transience and the understanding that many things naturally decay, die, and change form.
There are a lot of ways you could conceivably cause harm, but I’d rather hear about what the point of this character is given the dilemma of their position.
What is her purpose for the plot?
How is she designed to make the reader feel?
What literary devices are relevant to her portrayal?
(Arbitrarily, you can always add more than 1 extra Japanese character. I think you might put less pressure on yourself with this character’s portrayal if you have more Japanese characters to practice with in general.)
- Marika.
When Off-Setting: Aim for Average
Seconding the above with regards to this villainess’s story and your motivations for this character, but regardless of her story I think it’s also important to look specifically at how the Japanese teacher character provides contrast.
I agree with the choice to make her a regular person and not a superhero. Otherwise, your one Asian character is aggressively Asian-themed in a stereotypical Cool Japan way (particularly if her villain suit is samurai-themed & she wears wafu clothing every so often). Adding a chill person who happens to be Japanese and doesn’t have some kind of ninja or kitsune motif will be a breath of fresh air (well, more like a sigh of relief) for Japanese readers.
A note on characterization—while our standard advice for “offset” characters is to give your offset character the opposite of the personality trait you’re trying to balance, in this case you might want to avoid opposites. You have a villainess who is a cold, tough “don’t need no man” type. Making the teacher mild-mannered, helpful, and accomodating would balance out the villainess’s traits, but you’ll end up swinging to the other side of the pendulum towards the Submissive Asian stereotype depending on execution. If avoiding stereotypes is a concern, I suggest picking something outside of that spectrum of gentleness to violence and making her really boring or really weird or really nerdy or a jock gym teacher or…something. You’re the author.
Similarly, while the villainess is very traditionally Japanese in her motifs and backstory, don’t make the teacher go aggressively in either direction—give her a nice balance of modern vs. traditional, Japanese vs. Western sensibilities as far as her looks, dress, interests, values, etc. Because at the end of the day, that’s most modern Japanese people.
Sometimes, the most difficult representation of a character of color is making a character who is really average, typical, modern, and boring.
- Rina
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
“The last time I saw you, I said good night to you. I couldn't come to the bed, so I stood in the doorway. I just stood in the dark. You didn't say anything back so I said it again. I don't know how long I stood there. Just waiting for you to say, "Good night." […] I loved you, little boy. I loved you so much.”
One of the best writing advice I have gotten in all the months I have been writing is "if you can't go anywhere from a sentence, the problem isn't in you, it's in the last sentence." and I'm mad because it works so well and barely anyone talks about it. If you're stuck at a line, go back. Backspace those last two lines and write it from another angle or take it to some other route. You're stuck because you thought up to that exact sentence and nothing after that. Well, delete that sentence, make your brain think because the dead end is gone. It has worked wonders for me for so long it's unreal
ppl use "death of the author" to mean fucking anything they want on this site. i've seen people use it to fucking defend transmisogynistic jokes in movies??? thats literally the opposite of Death of the Author. thats Death of the Text. that's just not engaging with the conversation.
God I'm a sucker for characters who are so utterly loyal to someone that they're completely unhinged. Characters who have no moral compass except their overwhelming devotion to whoever they've chosen to listen to. That's the good shit
— Maya Angelou, “Starvation” from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
why must it always be 'peppering'. why can't i salt my lover with kisses. paprika my lover with kisses. 3 tablespoons chili powder 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1/2 teaspoons oregano my lover with kisses
"I am deprived of everything...", Fyodor Tyutchev (translated by Anatoly Liberman)
Smutty One-Liners Part VI
"Feel this? It's just for you."
"Let's ruin ourselves for anyone else."
"I want to taste you so badly."
"Make me beg for it."
"Oh I can do this all night long."
"You surprise me every day."
"Let's find out how much you want it."
"Kiss me, I can't wait any longer."
"Come on, please, do it."
"Oh, you like that?"
"Hmm, you're not very patient, are you?"
"Well, let's see what happens tonight."
"Can you kiss it better?"
"Oh, you're hard to please."
"I had a very nice dream that started like this."
"You are so amazing, please never stop."
"Can you be good for me?"
"It's so hot when you talk like that."
"Stop teasing me and do it!"
"You're still holding back, just let go."
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
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they need to come up with more words like necrosis and miasma and mausoleum and cadaver and morose and decrepit and stuff like that just so metal bands can expand their vocabulary