Work in progress shot. One of those “I’m artistically stuck, just gonna doodle that turns into a monster” type of drawings. I’m not fond of it right now, so hoping finishing it will help.
LOOK AT ME!!! I MADE THIS- THE CURSE IS LIFTED LMAO- When in doubt- Draw your favorite characters having a duel- This was so fun to draw- Idk what too tell you HA- But yeah- Hope ya enjoy!!!
So the fandom grapevine has it that last weekend quite a lot went down in the dinluke fandom. Notably, someone said this: “If you put Luke in a dress I will kill you”.
Have some Luke Fucking Skywalker in a dress. Eldritch stars, kyber crystal, done in Autodesk Sketchbook.
Luke’s father Anakin and his mentor Obi-Wan usually wore robes. I often wondered how they managed to fight with them on. And yet, nobody seems to mind.
Let’s be clear: the issue is that for over a year Latine fans (and other non-Latine fans of color) and queer fan have been saying that these Dark!DinLuke fics are racist and homophobic, because of the way they continue to depict sexual violence perpetrated by a Latino man against a white man, while they simultaneously shoehorn a mlm relationship into heterosexist patriarchal roles.
This fandom hemorrhaged fans, readers, and creators because ~15% of all DinLuke fics (that’s just on AO3, not counting Tumblr posts, art, and Discord messages) fall into this subgenre. That’s not a space people want to continue to engage in or join.
I understand why people like dub/noncon. My issue isn’t with the existence of noncon. My issue is with the repeated pattern of Din as the aggressor and Luke as the powerless victim. If you can only imagine Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion and Jedi Knight, as the victim, and Din Djarin, random bounty hunter who gets his ass kicked daily, as the predator, you might want to ask yourself why. Because it’s pretty obviously not rooted in any canon characterization.
And frankly, these issues are not limited to Dark!DinLuke. They are perhaps the most obvious, but these subtle racist and homophobic depictions can and have make their way into any work of art or fic. This is an issue the entire fandom needs to contend with, and should have dealt with a long time ago.
People of color and queer people have been saying this for over a year about DinLuke. Because of fandom’s “live and let live” attitudes (which I am not exempt from) as well as the harassment many people have gotten from critics of DinLuke fics, the DinLuke tag across websites has become hostile and unfun. And we’re tired of it.
I would encourage everyone to watch Princess Weeke’s video about racism in fandoms, and it’s impact. I’ve seen so many people harassed for critiquing DinLuke fan depictions, harassed for asking for better tagging, and leave fandom because of persistent triggers and aggressions from the fandom. You can’t tell me this doesn’t impact real people. I’ve seen it more than once! It’s not just a matter of blocking tags and avoiding it, because I hate knowing that behind my block button it is still there.
Honestly, I don’t like Dinluke stories either where Luke is reduced to being a simpering mess and Mando is his abductor and rapist, thinly veiled as “protector”. I am female and I would be outraged at any story that portrayed a woman the way Luke is in these stories, claiming it’s meant to be romantic or erotic or both.
But please consider this and tell me if I’m wrong.
The way I see it, the interpretation of “predator” Din Djarin is based on Pedro Pascal’s role as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones, a notoriously bisexual character whom we also see in a sex scene with a blond young man in a brothel.
So I’m not sure whether we are actually talking about race stereotypes, misogyny or prejudices regarding homosexuality here. I didn’t like GoT and saw little of it but I know that the show was wildly popular.
My guess is that many fans are applying these two characters and their situation to Luke Skywalker and Din Djarin aka the Mandalorian, which are two very different persons in a very different context. I daresay many fans simply don’t know the difference, or they don’t want to see it because they like the characters of Luke and Din, also like Game of Thrones, and throw two fandoms together which haven’t much similarities in the first place.
I am annoyed too at this development, but I’m not sure if the discourse is not going off the mark. Stereotypes and clichés are a problem, yes, but some fans may simply be misinterpreting characters or mismatching fandoms because they don’t know any better. I am also a Reylo and I am frustrated at the Fifty Shades of Grey cliché I stumble upon every second Reylo fanfiction, too.
Anyone who doesn’t like these stories, please, don’t just walk away from the fandom. Provide us with better stories instead. We would be so grateful if you did.
Hi, so I need to apologize because you’ve by chance responded to an absolute who unfortunately loves ASOIAF/GoT.In fact, I’ve published a paper on it.
Anyonewho writes sexually violent Dark!Din and claims it is “Oberyn Martell” is lying to you.
Yes, Oberyn is a bisexual man who has sex with a blond male sex worker early in S4 of GoT. Yes, the sex with the blond is paid for, but it is consensual. I don’t know what about Oberyn’s bisexuality or this brief encounter with this man makes you think he is a predator, but trust me that he isnot.I’m going to assume that the implication that because he is bisexual, he is a predator, was just poor wording on your part, and move on.
Pedro Pascal has also talked about how he used a distinctly Chilean accent to perform Oberyn. Oberyn, by Pedro’s acting choices, is coded as South American, specifically Chilean. That, in combination with the canon bisexuality, I would argue makes the “It’s just Oberyn Martell!” argument worse.
Now let’s talk about the lie that Dark!Din is Oberyn.
Oberyn Martell’s entire motivation in A Storm of Sword and S4 is that he wants to kill Tywin Lannister and the Mountain ( a very large knight), because during Robert’s Rebellion about 15 years earlier, Tywin gave the Mountain the order to kill Elia Martell’s (Oberyn’s sister) children, and then rape her, and then murder her.
So, sure, a violent revenge quest, but one not out of line with the logic of the universe. What matters, per our discussion, is that his entire motivation is to get revenge for the rape of his sister, her murder, and the murder of her children. That is not a man who would ever abuse, kidnap, control, or rape someone else. He literally has a line “We do not hurt little girls in Dorne.” We only see him engage in consensual sex with his paramore and sex workers (who he treats well and pays).
Dorne isn’t even a patriarchy. If a woman is next in line for the title, she gets the title; it does not pass to a brother.
There are plenty of characters in GoTwho commit acts of sexual violence. Oberyn Martell isn’t one of them. He does commit some acts of violence (most of them in an actual trial by combat), but GoTtakes place in an exceptionally violent world. He actually goes against Westerosi norms by not committing acts of rape, respecting women, and only being violent in specific, motivated moments.
I know it’s kind of silly to expect people who have already thrown Din’s character out the window to respect Oberyn Martell’s character as well, but I guess …. I wish they’d stop lying about what they were doing, you know? I wish they’d stop claiming it was Oberyn when that’s so clearly not true. You wanna write OOC noncon go ahead, why drag George RR Martin into this?
The audiobook for A Storm of Swords is free online, or you can get it from your library. There’s also S4 of GoT that anyone can pirate or watch on HBO Max, if anyone wants to actually brush up on the material.
Hi, thank you for the explanations. As I said, I didn’t like GoT so I’m not an expert.
I would like to clarify that no one lied to me. I myself had the impressionthat the Dinluke cliché rapist / predator and victim / subdued softie came from some fans mixing up the two fandoms. Oberyn is a prince and the young blond man at the brothel is a paid servant, which is where the interpretation some fans make may come from.
As I wrote, many fans try to shoehorn the Fifty Shades of Grey narrative into the Reylo fandom by hook or by crook, which is also very frustrating. In these stories the guy is often a billionaire and the girl an orphan striving to make ends meet; probably because in the trilogy, Ben Solo is a princess’ son and Rey a scavenger.
The “violence equals real passion / real love” was in both cases certainly not what the authors wanted to tell, but many fans unfortunately interpret it as that. Some people seem to have a distorted idea of love, sexuality and partnership, where one part is weak and the other is both “protecting” and violent, but the “weaker” part is turned on by this. It’s an unhealthy dynamic and ought not to be something to dream and sigh over, but you meet it everywhere, unfortunately.
My point is that I don’t think racism or clichés about gay men play such a large role as affronted Dinluke fans interpret it. The submissive / abusive trope is very common in heterosexual, non-interracial ships, too. I don’t know where so many people get these awful ideas from, but they ought to be addressed too, not just “racism” or tropes like “gay men are sissies who like abusive guys”.
A power dynamic in a couple, any kind of couple, where one part is subdued and the other has all control is not erotic or romantic at all; who believes that is immature at best; and they will meet huge difficulties in their own love lives, provided it isn’t already the case.
Which is why I am asking the fandom to write more and better stories where this cliché does not appear, instead of withdrawing and leaving the field to sick fantasies. Unfortunately anyone can write fanfiction, anyone can read it, any many readers’ ideas of love and partnership are formed by them.
I don’t want to deny the race or homosexuality problems in the fandom, but as I said, I believe it’s a wider problem that probably includes most, if not all fandoms. We need better fanfiction and discussions about equality and respect in partnerships. The root to the problem is some people’s obsessive fascination with violence and the belief that it’s an inseparable part of real passion.
The disrespect of Pedro Pascal’s Chilenian origins and of the representation of gay men may be a problem, yes, but as I said: I don’t think it’s the main one.
Let’s be clear: the issue is that for over a year Latine fans (and other non-Latine fans of color) and queer fan have been saying that these Dark!DinLuke fics are racist and homophobic, because of the way they continue to depict sexual violence perpetrated by a Latino man against a white man, while they simultaneously shoehorn a mlm relationship into heterosexist patriarchal roles.
This fandom hemorrhaged fans, readers, and creators because ~15% of all DinLuke fics (that’s just on AO3, not counting Tumblr posts, art, and Discord messages) fall into this subgenre. That’s not a space people want to continue to engage in or join.
I understand why people like dub/noncon. My issue isn’t with the existence of noncon. My issue is with the repeated pattern of Din as the aggressor and Luke as the powerless victim. If you can only imagine Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion and Jedi Knight, as the victim, and Din Djarin, random bounty hunter who gets his ass kicked daily, as the predator, you might want to ask yourself why. Because it’s pretty obviously not rooted in any canon characterization.
And frankly, these issues are not limited to Dark!DinLuke. They are perhaps the most obvious, but these subtle racist and homophobic depictions can and have make their way into any work of art or fic. This is an issue the entire fandom needs to contend with, and should have dealt with a long time ago.
People of color and queer people have been saying this for over a year about DinLuke. Because of fandom’s “live and let live” attitudes (which I am not exempt from) as well as the harassment many people have gotten from critics of DinLuke fics, the DinLuke tag across websites has become hostile and unfun. And we’re tired of it.
I would encourage everyone to watch Princess Weeke’s video about racism in fandoms, and it’s impact. I’ve seen so many people harassed for critiquing DinLuke fan depictions, harassed for asking for better tagging, and leave fandom because of persistent triggers and aggressions from the fandom. You can’t tell me this doesn’t impact real people. I’ve seen it more than once! It’s not just a matter of blocking tags and avoiding it, because I hate knowing that behind my block button it is still there.
Honestly, I don’t like Dinluke stories either where Luke is reduced to being a simpering mess and Mando is his abductor and rapist, thinly veiled as “protector”. I am female and I would be outraged at any story that portrayed a woman the way Luke is in these stories, claiming it’s meant to be romantic or erotic or both.
But please consider this and tell me if I’m wrong.
The way I see it, the interpretation of “predator” Din Djarin is based on Pedro Pascal’s role as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones, a notoriously bisexual character whom we also see in a sex scene with a blond young man in a brothel.
So I’m not sure whether we are actually talking about race stereotypes, misogyny or prejudices regarding homosexuality here. I didn’t like GoT and saw little of it but I know that the show was wildly popular.
My guess is that many fans are applying these two characters and their situation to Luke Skywalker and Din Djarin aka the Mandalorian, which are two very different persons in a very different context. I daresay many fans simply don’t know the difference, or they don’t want to see it because they like the characters of Luke and Din, also like Game of Thrones, and throw two fandoms together which haven’t much similarities in the first place.
I am annoyed too at this development, but I’m not sure if the discourse is not going off the mark. Stereotypes and clichés are a problem, yes, but some fans may simply be misinterpreting characters or mismatching fandoms because they don’t know any better. I am also a Reylo and I am frustrated at the Fifty Shades of Grey cliché I stumble upon every second Reylo fanfiction, too.
Anyone who doesn’t like these stories, please, don’t just walk away from the fandom. Provide us with better stories instead. We would be so grateful if you did.
