Rep ≠ good rep. If a character of colour or an lgbtq+ character is stereotypical or harmful in any form then it shouldn’t be called representation indicating the author is doing something good. The author is only maximising the problem of stereotypes on poc and lgbtq+. Anybody could just put a diverse cast in their books but what’s the point of it harms people like them?

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on piper and feathers

this was definitely not something that i loved waking up to, but i feel obligated as a cherokee reader to break down rick's response to concerns about stereotypes in piper's character. so let's go through this point by point.

let's get one thing straight first of all. these questions and concerns are coming in majority from native readers. not some randoms on twitter. every native reader i have ever met in the heroes of olympus fanbase has had something negative to say about how piper is written, especially in regards to the cultural aspects of her character, and as a cherokee, i can easily say that their concerns are mine, because i'd be hard-pressed to find anything about piper's character that accurately portrays cherokee girls today. so let's not gloss over the fact that the readers in question are in large part native, and are otherwise people who are not native, but who have listened to our opinions on why we think piper is bad representation and are repeating what we have been trying to say for years.

second, piper is not half cherokee. she's cherokee. blood quantum is a colonial farce made to further the genocide of my people by tracking our bloodlines like dogs. being native is about more than blood, it is about culture and community. don't say she's half cherokee.

third, i was one of those kids who first read the heroes of olympus and rejoiced over piper's character. i was also 11, incredibly depressed because i had been taken away from any connection to my culture at a young age, and desperate for any kind of representation. i saw myself in piper from the unique perspective of a cherokee kid who was disconnected and struggling, just like she was. i'm not saying this is the experience of every native kid who read these books, but what i am saying is that kids don't typically view the media they're consuming with a critical eye. when i was a child, i watched the movie pocahontas, and i liked it. i thought it was good because i wasn't old enough to understand how dangerous that kind of depiction of a native woman is, or how disney had bastardized the story of matoaka. looking back on the movie now, i refuse to ever watch it again because it disgusts me. critical thinking is something you develop as you grow up.

(and just to point out, if you're trying to have a conversation about an issue in good faith, don't say "but THESE natives said they were happy with my writing and that this character is really important to them." because it feels like you're trying to absolve yourself of full accountability.)

finally, i don't care that you read a bunch of books about cherokee culture back in the day. james mooney is not our keeper. i don't even care that you read a couple books about our culture by cherokees. that's all well and good, for background information. what i care about is the fact that the thought of having a cherokee today read over your work didn't even cross your mind. yes, history is important, and having these cultural resources helps to preserve us as a people, but they don't offer any incite on the modern day life of a cherokee girl. point to me a cherokee girl who casually wears eagle feathers, which are sacred and are meant to be used in medicine or worn in ceromonies, in her hair. point to me a cherokee girl who casually wears real feathers in her hair period, or any native girl who would do so for that matter. now, i'm sure they're out there. i don't doubt it. but for one, it's not very common, at least where i'm from in the southern appalachias, and for another, there are other, more appropriate ways to go about showing piper's connection to her culture than by trying and failing to subvert a stereotype because you are a white man writing about a native girl. you can't subvert a racial stereotype as a white writer. piper is not real, but we are, and perpetuating stereotypes is harmful to us. g-d knows how many times i've come across gross fan depictions of piper, or how many white fans have clawed at my throat for telling them that they're being racist for adamantly defending these stereotypes just because it's canon. other native fans who have spoken out about the issues with piper's character in the past have been endlessly harrassed. pretending that this is a non-issue that can't be fixed isn't going to get us anywhere.

obviously, you can't just go back and rewrite the books, but can you promise you won't utilize these stereotypes in future books and adaptations? how about in future official art, if you ever commission new art? does it end with this statement, or do you go right back to ignoring to inherent racism in your depiction of native girls? let's get off the subject of feathers for a second. did you know that natives are often stereotyped as thieves? that we have one of the highest victim rates of police brutality due to the racial profiling that is rooted in stereotypes such as this? if so, why did you make piper, a brown skinned native girl, a kleptomaniac? why did she steal a car? was it necessary? did you know that eurocentric beauty standards demand light eyes and complexions from women of color, and have determined our dark eyes and complexions to be ugly? why do piper, and let's not forget hazel, have light eyes? why are the other women of color in your books, such as reyna and drew, who have dark eyes, seen as cold, or mean? did you know that 4 out of 5 native american women are affected by violence, and that our murder rates are 10 times higher than the national average? that 94% of native american women will, without question, experience sexual assault in their lifetime? why was piper grossly sexualized in her claiming? are you aware of the missing and murdered indigenous women crisis? just this week, i've seen two posts calling for oklahoma natives to be on the look out for two missing sisters, both cherokee. do you think piper is unaware of the dangers she faces as a native girl in america? that, realistically, it would explain her aversion towards femininity or even towards her own culture? do you understand the gravity of which all this implies? do you understand that the problem doesn't begin and end with feathers? do you understand why native people have an issue with how we're being represented by you in your work?

the bottom line is, listen to native people. do better.

As a muslim Iraqi American with a significant tumblr following, I feel as though I should let it be known exactly where I stand when it comes to Riordan’s statement about Samirah. I have copied and pasted it down below and my reaction to it will be written down below. This will be the first time I have read it. If you want to engage with me or tell me that I’m wrong, I expect you to be a muslim, hijabi, Iraqi American, and from Baghdad. If you are not, I suggest you sit down and keep quiet because you are not the authority on the way I should be represented.

How to Draw Native People: a Tutorial/Reference Guide

Resouces:

get drawin!!

A few people have asked about this, so here’s a few passages about Piper wearing feathers in her hair.

“For a child of Aphrodite, Piper tried hard to play down her beauty. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn-out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs. (Maybe as a joke, though Annabeth could never be sure with Piper.) Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle’s feather.” (Mark of Athena, p. 11)

“Piper leaned against the control panel. She’d done her braid with white feathers today, which looked good with her dark brown hair.” (Mark of Athena, p. 152)

“Piper studied the ridgeline. Braided in her hair was a bright blue harpy feather – a souvenir from last night’s attack.“ (Blood of Olympus, p. 13)

“Piper tugged at her blue harpy feather.” (Blood of Olympus, p. 19)

“Her gaze was fierce and commanding – as impossible to ignore as the blue harpy feather in her hair.” (Blood of Olympus, p. 33)

“Piper leaned towards the map. The blue harpy feather in her hair swung like a pendulum.” (Blood of Olympus, p. 91)

Native people, especially women, wearing random feathers braided into their hair is a racist stereotype. You could, I suppose, argue that Piper earned the harpy feather, but that isn’t for her to decide. That is something that is left up to the Elders of her tribe, not to a teenage girl. The fact that Riordan emphasized it multiple times throughout the book is even more upsetting to me.

And she definitely didn’t get receive that eagle feather properly. Unless she magically found the time to visit her tribe, meet with an Elder, explain to them why she deserves that honor without outing herself as a demigod, and go through the other proper channels, then that feather has no right being in her hair or on her person.

This isn’t some casual mistake he could’ve made. This shit is on every what-not-to-do list for writing Native characters, and if he had done even 5 seconds of research, then he would’ve never done this. Instead, he did the absolute bare minimum and turned Piper into a walking Frankenstein’s monster of stereotypes just so that the viewer would be constantly reminded that she’s ~Native American~

This is a jar full of major characters 

Actually it is a jar full of chocolate covered raisins on top of a dirty TV tray. But pretend the raisins are interesting and well rounded fictional characters with significant roles in their stories. 

We’re sharing these raisins at a party for Western Storytelling, so we get out two bowls. 

Then we start filling the bowls. And at first we only fill the one on the left. 

This doesn’t last forever though. Eventually we do start putting raisins in the bowl on the right. But for every raisin we put in the bowl on the right, we just keep adding to the bowl on the left. 

And the thing about these bowls is, they don’t ever reset. We don’t get to empty them and start over. While we might lose some raisins to lost records or the stories becoming unpopular, but we never get to just restart. So even when we start putting raisins in the bowl on the right, we’re still way behind from the bowl on the left. 

And time goes on and the bowl on the left gets raisins much faster than the bowl on the right. 

Until these are the bowls. 

Now you get to move and distribute more raisins. You can add raisins or take away raisins entirely, or you can move them from one bowl to the other. 

This is the bowl on the left. I might have changed the number of raisins from one picture to the next. Can you tell me, did I add or remove raisins? How many? Did I leave the number the same?

You can’t tell for certain, can you? Adding or removing a raisin over here doesn’t seem to make much of a change to this bowl. 

This is the bowl on the right. I might have changed the number of raisins from one picture to the next. Can you tell me, did I add or remove raisins? How many? Did I leave the number the same?

When there are so few raisins to start, any change made is really easy to spot, and makes a really significant difference. 

This is why it is bad, even despicable, to take a character who was originally a character of color and make them white. But why it can be positive to take a character who was originally white and make them a character of color.

The white characters bowl is already so full that any change in number is almost meaningless (and is bound to be undone in mere minutes anyway, with the amount of new story creation going on), while the characters of color bowl changes hugely with each addition or subtraction, and any subtraction is a major loss. 

This is also something to take in consideration when creating new characters. When you create a white character you have already, by the context of the larger culture, created a character with at least one feature that is not going to make a difference to the narratives at large. But every time you create a new character of color, you are changing something in our world. 

I mean, imagine your party guests arrive

Oh my god they are adorable!

And they see their bowls

But before you hand them out you look right into the little black girls’s eyes and take two of her seven raisins and put them in the little white girl’s bowl.

I think she’d be totally justified in crying or leaving and yelling at you. Because how could you do that to a little girl? You were already giving the white girl so much more, and her so little, why would you do that? How could you justify yourself?

But on the other hand if you took two raisins from the white girl’s bowl and moved them over to the black girl’s bowl and the white girl looked at her bowl still full to the brim and decided your moving those raisins was unfair and she stomped and cried and yelled, well then she is a spoiled and entitled brat. 

And if you are adding new raisins, it seems more important to add them to the bowl on the right. I mean, even if we added the both bowls at the same speed from now on (and we don’t) it would still take a long time before the numbers got big enough to make the difference we’ve already established insignificant. 

And that’s the difference between whitewashing POC characters and making previously white characters POC. And that’s why every time a character’s race is ambiguous and we make them white, we’ve lost an opportunity.

*goes off to eat her chocolate covered raisins, which are no longer metaphors just snacks*

FUCK YES THIS WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR SO MANY PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND

this is a really great way of explaining representation. Note that it also applies to LGBTQ, disabled, and neuro-atypical characters, as well as any other minority or oppressed group.

I don’t care how many excuses y'all come up with blackwashing does not exist

Hot take: Rick Rioridan made his name in writing diverse fiction about kids who never got written about, but people continue to say he “snuck diversity in” because kids with ADHD and Autism never fucking matter to y'all

ok unpopular opinion but when we praise rick riordan’s current use of diverse characters, especially with regards to race, i don’t think we give enough of a shoutout to the kane chronicles

i get it, the kane chronicles is like neglected step-sibling of the percy jackson and heroes of olympus fandom, magnus chase is not nearly as successful as PJO/HoO and its still more popular than the kane chronicles but can we recognize how important of an experimental time period it was for rick as an author re: characterization

if you’re one of the slew of people who have read riordan’s other works but not kane chronicles, the two protagonists, Carter and Sadie Kane are siblings of mixed race. Carter has dark skin, dark curly hair, and Egyptian features like their black father, but Sadie has light skin, blonde hair, and traditionally European features like their white mother. Riordan uses this dynamic throughout the series to bring attention to racial microaggressions and blatant anti-black sentiments that we harbor intentionally or not in the modern world.

For example, in the books, there are several times when people assume by looking that them, that Carter and Sadie aren’t related, and both siblings expression their aggravation, because Sadie has every right to her Egyptian heritage as Carter does, just as Carter has the same right to feel connected to his mother and her side of the family as Sadie does, but because they look like polar opposites, they aren’t given the same treatment.

Additionally, Carter and Sadie’s mother dies before the start of the series, and afterwards, the two are split up, as sadie is taken from her father by her maternal grandparents (so white theyre sour cream) who err on hatred for carter, their father, and their paternal uncle (black) in a very dursley-ish sort of way and its hinted to be at least partially racially based, while Carter is allowed to remain with his father. By the time Carter reunites with Sadie at the beginning of the series, he and his father have been forced to stay away from her for so long that they basically have to relearn each other all over again. Meanwhile, their grandparents lash out at Carter for no reason other than the fact that he exists. (also its been 2 years i think since i read the first book so this might be wrong, but sadie also has some misconceptions about her father’s relationship to her because she seems to feel that he left her with her grandparents on purpose because he didn’t care about her the way he cared about carter some of which i think we hear straight from the grandparents mouth. but the reader sees this from another perspective because we know it physically pained their father to be away from sadie, and any implication otherwise plays into the “absent black father narrative”)

Idk i personally think developing the constant reoccurring mention to carter and sadie being different physically is like part of what helped him get out of the box of chronically not mentioning character races that nearly all white authors get stuck in, that and there was also probably a generous push from the “grover cant be black” outcry after the first movie and you can think im crazy for saying it but the fact of the matter is that the first kane chronicles book and The Lightning Thief movie both came out in 2010

so anyway if you have read the kane chronicles pls make an effort to celebrate its diversity the way you would celebrate other books of rick riordan, like including sadie kane in your gifsets about badass WOC or drawing attention to Zia and Anubis/Walt when you talk about love interests of main protagonists (re: annabeth, piper, and alex)

thanks good talk everyone

Black Hermione.

Reblog if you agree.

Seriously though it would have been so easy to have canon gay characters in the Harry Potter series. All this stuff that JK Rowling said about not having enough time or would distract from the original trio is nonsense. Case in point:

Seamus gave a great roar of delight then ran to give Dean a lung crushing hug before pulling him down into a desperate kiss that was hungrily returned. Harry supposed ‘best friends’ was no longer an accurate description of the pair. 

or:

There were duels all over the stairs and in the Hall, Death Eaters everywhere Harry looked. He saw Alicia and Katie share a passionate kiss before they raced down the corridor to join the battle.

or maybe:

“Did I know in my heart of hearts what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. I chose to be blinded by my love for him. A choice that has haunted me ever since” 

or perhaps:

As Harry entered the great hall he walked past Lavender and Parvati who were sitting opposite the latter’s twin with their bodies pressed close together while their hands held the others in a death like grip that showed no signs of ever being let go.

or even:

“Albus Severus” Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear him, who tactfully turned to talk to Oliver and Marcus as they waved off their own three boys. 

See all I had to do was just add in a sentence or not even that and suddenly ….. wow a gay character. That wasn’t too hard now was it JK. 

Just saying but Rick Riordan blessed all of us ADHD and dyslexic kids with amazing representation in a book series written in a way that was meant to capture what it was like to grow up with ADHD and/or dyslexia and the abysmal movie spat on all of us for existing.

Seriously, stop assuming that unless a character is canonically not xy, or at least heavily implied not to be xy, they cannot possibly be anything else but white, gentile, Christian/agnostic, able-bodied, neurotypical, cis, perisex, straight and monogamous.

“But it says nowhere that they are a poc!!!” - Cool, but it also doesn’t say they aren’t. Plus, especially in short stories and the like authors intentionally leave out character descriptions if they aren’t 102% vital for the understanding of the story. Also, white-passing poc exist and aren’t any less non-white.

“But we never see them celebrating Jewish holidays!!!” - Cool, but not every Jewish person is observing, secular Jews are just as Jewish as observing ones. Not to mention that many Jewish people don’t speak openly about their background due to the fear of discrimination.

Similar points also apply to other religious minorities.

“But they don’t use a cane/hearing aids/…” - Cool, but not every disability is visible, also do you have any idea how tiny some hearing aids are these days??? It’s more than possible that the protagonist didn’t even notice them. And sadly, free health insurance isn’t a thing in every country so maybe they just don’t use them because they are expensive af.

“But they behave completely normal!!!” - Many of us were forced to undergo behavioural therapy to “unlearn” character traits and behaviour that bug neurotypicals (e.g. stimming, avoiding eye-contact,…). Besides, I only ever got my autism diagnosis as a teenager because no one really noticed, for 16 years.

“But they are only referred to with one set of pronouns/one name/don’t have xy features!!!” - Cool, but on the one hand, some, while not all of us are lucky enough to live in an accepting environment where we are almost never deadnamed/misgendered and us being trans isn’t a big deal. And especially if you went on blockers before puberty really kicked in and then went on HRT (like I did), there is often no way of telling that someone is not e.g. assigned male at birth. I have more facial hair than many of my cis friends. Also, especially nb people often don’t transition in the traditional way or at all. On the other hand, many of us stay in the closet for years, sometimes decades. Often only our closest friends know our correct names and pronouns but sometimes can’t even use them due to safety reasons.

“But they aren’t described as having breasts and a penis/ect!!!” - Intersex bodies are just as diverse as perisex bodies. Some do have breasts and a penis, but most don’t. Oftentimes you can’t tell that another person is intersex unless you have sex with them (in many cases not even then!) or if they tell you. Which many don’t do, because while it is of course 190% great to take pride in being intersex, it is deeply personal information to many. And well you know, discrimination.

“But they only show interest in people of a different gender / They have a gf/bf!!!” - Cool, but hot take: Bi, pan and ply and a-spec people exist and they aren’t less queer for being with a person of a different gender/only openly showing interest in people of a different gender. Also well, closets.

“But they only date one person!” - Cool, but just like a straight person isn’t less straight when they are single, a polya person isn’t less polya when they only date one person. Being polya doesn’t mean that you are into every single person out there and desire to be with them. Maybe they just aren’t interested in anyone but their partner atm?

Also, not to be bitter but if you don’t need to provide bulletproof evidence in order to headcanon someone as part of a majority, you don’t need to do that in order to headcanon them as part of a minority.

okay, i really need to get this off my chest.

first things first, i love samirah with my whole entire heart. she was the very first muslim character that i saw in media that wasn’t the terrorist bad guy and she meant so much to me, especially when i found out about her as a 13 years old, during a time where i was resigned to the fact i’d probably never get a cool hero like me. i cried for ten minutes when i found out we would be getting a hijabi in one of my fav book universes, and i cried again when she mentioned in that one (1) line about the islamophobia she faced. even 3 years later, she still is very dear to me and means so much to me.

but.

can we stop acting like rick created good muslim rep w/ samirah lmao. as much as i adore samirah, it’s incredibly frustrating as a brown muslim girl to see her religious background treated so insultingly in the series and have it be praised by fans. it’s very clear one you start reading mcga that rick barely did any research about muslims, and it shows. like, rick literally wrote in the fucking child marriage stereotype even though if he had actually done some research he would have known that arranged marriages aren’t a thing in islam but rather result from culture. he has characters like magnus say he got uneasy at first when he heard samirah say ‘allahu akbar’ and have alex sprout some stupid shit about how she thought samirah’s fasting for ramadan was soooo weird every couple of chapters. lmao like kids are reading this stuff and internalizing it and their view of muslims is going to be impacted by how muslim characters are treated and written in this series, i genuinely do not understand how some of you think this is making a great leap in representation or wtever when samirah’s writing is like that

like, this guy literally wrote in a child engagement and you guys praised this shit even though it’s a fucking stereotype about muslims that’s either 1) used to promote further disgust and hatred towards muslims and brown people (aka it fuels islamaphobia and racism) or 2) used to defend pedophilia. so not only did rick incorporate a harmful stereotype into his children’s series, he made it seem like a ‘but NOT ALL ___’ kind of thing when he had samirah say ‘maybe i wanted it’ when asked about her engagement.

like, holy shit. i don’t care if samirah has been in love with this dude since she was 12 or wtvr, this line was deeply uncomfortable considering that child marriages are such an extremely sensitive topic within real life brown communities. young girls around the world are suffering and forced into marriages in real life, this is stuff that so many girls live in fear of their whole lives and many MANY brown & muslim communities n cultures are coming together to actively fight this shit and. rick writing that line? doesn’t help or even respect that issue at all.

tldr; don’t praise a dude for barely meeting the bare minimum and increase your standards, samirah is not the muslim representation we deserved and rick needs to do better. samirah deserves better, muslims deserve better.

Heck yeah. We can appreciate him for trying, but we should ALWAYS encourage him to do better. Criticize constructively, and encourage better representation—that should be our goal. He’s not perfect. Magnus Chase is a great series and I love Samirah but I dearly hope Rick begins listening to the voices of the people he’s trying to represent.