#very well said
literally who CARES if straight cis men are wearing skirts for ‘clout’!!! I want to live in a world where being gnc is desirable to them rather than one where they make bigoted jokes about it. it’s GOOD that people with the privilege to do so are normalising gender non conformity and i dont give a shit if they have deliberate political intentions or if they’re just having fun you guys are all so annoying
we could be using the tiktok boys to kickstart a movement around men wearing skirts that would benefit gnc and trans people but you guys want ideological purity before u want results
When I was in middle school, way back in 1994, we had An Incident. A few popular boys dared each other to wear skirts to school on Monday. To, in their own words, “See what it was like to wear skirts, lol. Why shouldn’t we?”. It wasn’t anything fancy, they just pulled some long hippie skirts over their jeans in the bathroom and giggled their way to class.
I want to go back a bit here. It was 1994. There were no out gay people anywhere near our school. Certainly no trans people. A few celebrities on TV, sure, but mostly in jokes. And not everyone had access to MTV or cable. The internet didn’t exist for us. Only a few kids had ever even heard of Rocky Horror Picture Show, which would be my first brush with gender fuckery that came close to positive rep in the media. Our city and state had a measure on the ballot almost every year since the mid eighties attempting to criminalize even mentioning the word gay. AIDs was still a looming specter over everything. It was dangerous to be seen as gay or gender nonconforming.
So these boys. They weren’t trying to make a statement. They weren’t even making a gay joke. They just thought it wold be silly to wear skirts. They wanted to see what it felt like. They were experimenting. The teachers flipped out. The boys wear marched into the principle’s office, their parents called, they were sent home for the day, a school announcement was made about inappropriate clothing and being lewd in school. Again, long loose skirts over pants. “Skirts aren’t for you. It’s wrong for boys to wear skirts. Stay in your straight boy box”. In response we, the students, responded with “Fuck the police!”.
2 Days later about 2/3 of boys showed up in skirts, jewelry, and makeup. No girls wore skirts, makeup, or jewelry. Some girls drew mustaches and wore suits. It began as just a anti-authoritarian response to what we saw as a ridiculous over reaction to boys in skirts, but the more we thought about it the more upset we got. Why couldn’t they wear skirts any time they wanted??? Why shouldn’t they paint their nails??? What if they did it all the time??? Yeah maybe some of them did like other boys, so what??? Maybe some of the girls in school never wanted to wear skirts or makeup, didn’t like their boobs, and/or didn’t like boys??? MAYBE IT WAS ALL BULLSHIT
In about a week a large number of us had become queer advocates without even knowing what that was. And in the face of that many kids, the school didn’t know what to do. Send us all home? We had several days of no free periods allowed, no recess time, lunch was for eating and quiet contemplation. Parents were called and warnings mailed that school dress codes were being updated. Unfortunately for school policy enough parents also thought that enforcing the gender binary was ridiculous that meetings had to be held. And some of the wealthier parents rolled up with lawyers ready to argue that Timmy had every right to wear a long skirt, and you couldn’t suspend Alice because she’d buzzed her hair on Thursday and started wearing mens suit pants and jackets. So it was dropped mostly. Skirts couldn’t be above the knee, no spaghetti straps, no drawing on your face - regardless of gender. But the air had changed.
Most kids went back to wearing whatever they had before. But, several boys continued painting their nails, grew out their hair, and occasionally wore skirts. Several girls chopped their hair off and wore “boys” clothing. One person, and this was literally unheard of, asked their friends to stop calling them Bridgett and call them Brandon. And they did. I lost track of most of the students, this town isn’t that small, but I know some of them came out as queer later in life. I can’t say that incident was a turning point for them, but it was for me.
It started as boys being silly. But at least 2 of those initial boys ended up wearing skirts and makeup regularly after that well into high school, and not as a joke. If they’d been shouted down? If other kids hadn’t said, “You know what? Good for you!” I hope they still would have been able to come out, but it probably wouldn’t have been as easy.
And yes, it did start as a joke. But the response is what matters here. It wasn’t treated as a joke. It was met with anger. Then acceptance. And it made a positive difference.
So, I see people upset that “straight cis” people aren’t wearing clothes correctly and… Y'all. I just see another instance of some kids playing with ideas and experimenting, pushing the boundaries. And being met with anger. And told to get back in their gender appropriate box.
“Well well well what if they mean it as a joke???” Tell them they look good and should wear skirts more often, if they want to. Tell them that yellow isn’t their color, but they’d look great in green. Tell them that if they get thigh chaffing to try bike shorts underneath. If you can’t handle that, don’t say anything. Block them and move on. If they’re assholes, block them and move on. But don’t tell them they can’t wear clothing because they haven’t labeled themselves correctly.
You can’t say you support queer rights and gender nonconformity and then get pissy when people don’t wear pants/skirts in narrow ways you like.
Stop trying to validate yourself by pushing down other people.
(I’m using pronouns for people that were used when I last knew them, since I have no way of knowing if they’ve changed)
EDIT: I do know this situation is specific. It wouldn’t have happened the same at some of the other schools in town. Families trended more liberal, and the popular kids were mostly wealthier. So, we all had adults saying, “gays aren’t evil but also not encouraged, but you can’t say you don’t encourage them”. The parental support was mostly of a “don’t tell my kid what to do” liberal posturing. Very few of the parents actually supported their kid being queer at the time. Brandon changing their name was a secret. We, the students radicalized ourselves on accident, but no one actually came out until years later. Our supporting each other to wear whatever we wanted, joke or not, was influential in coming out though. (my parents basically asked if I wanted to buy a suit to wear to school, also did I want to form a picket line. I did not, but appreciated the idea. Mom told one of the boys he looked very pretty when he wore a dress to graduation. Which was another Incident, and also very funny because they couldn’t punish him at all by then)
Rick Riordan’s response to the racism and hatred directed at Leah after she was cast as Annabeth:
“Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase”
“This post is specifically for those who have a problem with the casting of Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase. It’s a shame such posts need to be written, but they do. First, let me be clear I am speaking here only for myself. These thoughts are mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect or represent the opinions of any part of Disney, the TV show, the production team, or the Jeffries family.
The response to the casting of Leah has been overwhelmingly positive and joyous, as it should be. Leah brings so much energy and enthusiasm to this role, so much of Annabeth’s strength. She will be a role model for new generations of girls who will see in her the kind hero they want to be.
If you have a problem with this casting, however, take it up with me. You have no one else to blame. Whatever else you take from this post, we should be able to agree that bullying and harassing a child online is inexcusably wrong. As strong as Leah is, as much as we have discussed the potential for this kind of reaction and the intense pressure this role will bring, the negative comments she has received online are out of line. They need to stop. Now.
I was quite clear a year ago, when we announced our first open casting, that we would be following Disney’s company policy on nondiscrimination: We are committed to diverse, inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers, without regard to disability, gender, race and ethnicity, age, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis prohibited by law. We did that. The casting process was long, intense, massive and exhaustive.
I have been clear, as the author, that I was looking for the best actors to inhabit and bring to life the personalities of these characters, and that physical appearance was secondary for me. We did that. We took a year to do this process thoroughly and find the best of the best. This trio is the best. Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase.
Some of you have apparently felt offended or exasperated when your objections are called out online as racist. “But I am not racist,” you say. “It is not racist to want an actor who is accurate to the book’s description of the character!”
Let’s examine that statement.
You are upset/disappointed/frustrated/angry because a Black actor has been cast to play a character who was described as white in the books. “She doesn’t look the way I always imagined.”
You either are not aware, or have dismissed, Leah’s years of hard work honing her craft, her talent, her tenacity, her focus, her screen presence. You refuse to believe her selection could have been based on merit. Without having seen her play the part, you have pre-judged her (pre + judge = prejudice) and decided she must have been hired simply to fill a quota or tick a diversity box. And by the way, these criticisms have come from across the political spectrum, right and left.
You have decided that I couldn’t possibly mean what I have always said: That the true nature of the character lies in their personality. You feel I must have been coerced, brainwashed, bribed, threatened, whatever, or I as a white male author never would have chosen a Black actor for the part of this canonically white girl.
You refuse to believe me, the guy who wrote the books and created these characters, when I say that these actors are perfect for the roles because of the talent they bring and the way they used their auditions to expand, improve and electrify the lines they were given. Once you see Leah as Annabeth, she will become exactly the way you imagine Annabeth, assuming you give her that chance, but you refuse to credit that this may be true.
You are judging her appropriateness for this role solely and exclusively on how she looks. She is a Black girl playing someone who was described in the books as white.
Friends, that is racism.
And before you resort to the old kneejerk reaction — “I am not racist!” — let’s examine that statement too.
If I may quote from an excellent recent article in the Boston Globe about Dr. Khama Ennis, who created a program on implicit bias for the Massachusetts Board of Registration for Medicine in Boston: “To say a person doesn’t have bias is to say that person isn’t human. It’s how we navigate the world … based on what we’re taught and our own personal histories.”
Racism/colorism isn’t something we have or don’t have. I have it. You have it. We all do. And not just white people like me. All people. It’s either something we recognize and try to work on, or it’s something we deny. Saying “I am not racist!” is simply declaring that you deny your own biases and refuse to work on them.
The core message of Percy Jackson has always been that difference is strength. There is power in plurality. The things that distinguish us from one another are often our marks of individual greatness. You should never judge someone by how well they fit your preconceived notions. That neurodivergent kid who has failed out of six schools, for instance, may well be the son of Poseidon. Anyone can be a hero.
If you don’t get that, if you’re still upset about the casting of this marvelous trio, then it doesn’t matter how many times you have read the books. You didn’t learn anything from them.
Watch the show or don’t. That’s your call. But this will be an adaptation that I am proud of, and which fully honors the spirit of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, taking the bedtime story I told my son twenty years ago to make him feel better about being neurodivergent, and improving on it so that kids all over the world can continue to see themselves as heroes at Camp Half-Blood.”
(x)
PLEASE STOP
Requests are closed until I do a call out post.
Request days depend on my mood and I don’t know when the next one is. One might come up next week, one might not come again months from now, or I might stop doing them all together. I never know until I feel like it
On those days, I limit the drawings to about 10 or so because I have limited energy. I get more than that in my ask box, so several unlucky souls will not get the drawing they requested.
If you’re drawing didn’t get done, too bad. Suck it up
However,spamming me multiple times for several days at a time is a 100% guarantee that I will not do it
I don’t have ANY obligation to answer every message I get in my inbox or DMs. So if you don’t hear from me, I am purposefully ignoring it. Am I an asshole for that? Maybe? I really don’t care.
With the exception of commissions, I’m not paid to do this. My presence as a fan artist is something I do for fun. I have a job that requires me to travel a lot, bills to pay, a cat to feed and a big move coming up, those are my obligations. Not this blog, not any fan projects or art that I do for it and definitely not any unpaid art any of you want me to do for you.
Sorry, not sorry.
This is the last thing I’m going to say.
It is possible to hold space for genuine hurt and discomfort, and to set both individual and Tumblr fandom community boundaries for that, while also simultaneously holding space for uncensored fanfic and not ascribing morality to other people based on the fiction they consume.
It is possible to care about fandom and engage with it while also not being online 24/7, choosing to prioritize your real life over social media, and checking in with fandom at your own pace.
It is possible to feel sincere and heartfelt apologywhile also being open to a reality-check about not conflating anonymous internet activity about fictional characters with real life.
And it is possible to feel comfortable in who I am IRL, in the genuine dialogues I’ve had with BIPOC and Jewish readers and friends (both in fandom and IRL), and in the sincerity of what I’vesaid in light of all of those dialogues, while also knowing that because of the “side” I was grouped with from the start of all this, nothing I could say or do would ever satisfy those who would rather there be a rift than a bridge, and that anything I said or did would be found to be “wrong” in some way by the people/anons who want to find it so.
I am not here to deny accountability for hurt feelings—I fully took accountability for that and I still do. I am also not here to ascribe morality based on fiction. Some people write dark fiction to work through trauma. Some people read it for the same reason. Some people have very clear separations between fiction and reality for topics that for others hit too close to home. It’s not for me to judge. What is for me to do is to be more mindful of both the what and the why behind the discomfort of those topics so that I can make a more educated and conscientious decision about the fiction I put into fandom spaces and the way I share fiction (both mine and others’) in those same spaces going forward.
So good to see such an empathetic, thought-through, and level headed response to everything that has happened. To be able to sincerely apologize for any harm caused, even unintentionally, and still maintain integrity and strength of conviction while doing so is very admirable and something we should all strive for
Let’s work towards creating this a safe space for everyone around us!
Rick Riordan’s response to the racism and hatred directed at Leah after she was cast as Annabeth:
“Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase”
“This post is specifically for those who have a problem with the casting of Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase. It’s a shame such posts need to be written, but they do. First, let me be clear I am speaking here only for myself. These thoughts are mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect or represent the opinions of any part of Disney, the TV show, the production team, or the Jeffries family.
The response to the casting of Leah has been overwhelmingly positive and joyous, as it should be. Leah brings so much energy and enthusiasm to this role, so much of Annabeth’s strength. She will be a role model for new generations of girls who will see in her the kind hero they want to be.
If you have a problem with this casting, however, take it up with me. You have no one else to blame. Whatever else you take from this post, we should be able to agree that bullying and harassing a child online is inexcusably wrong. As strong as Leah is, as much as we have discussed the potential for this kind of reaction and the intense pressure this role will bring, the negative comments she has received online are out of line. They need to stop. Now.
I was quite clear a year ago, when we announced our first open casting, that we would be following Disney’s company policy on nondiscrimination: We are committed to diverse, inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers, without regard to disability, gender, race and ethnicity, age, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis prohibited by law. We did that. The casting process was long, intense, massive and exhaustive.
I have been clear, as the author, that I was looking for the best actors to inhabit and bring to life the personalities of these characters, and that physical appearance was secondary for me. We did that. We took a year to do this process thoroughly and find the best of the best. This trio is the best. Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase.
Some of you have apparently felt offended or exasperated when your objections are called out online as racist. “But I am not racist,” you say. “It is not racist to want an actor who is accurate to the book’s description of the character!”
Let’s examine that statement.
You are upset/disappointed/frustrated/angry because a Black actor has been cast to play a character who was described as white in the books. “She doesn’t look the way I always imagined.”
You either are not aware, or have dismissed, Leah’s years of hard work honing her craft, her talent, her tenacity, her focus, her screen presence. You refuse to believe her selection could have been based on merit. Without having seen her play the part, you have pre-judged her (pre + judge = prejudice) and decided she must have been hired simply to fill a quota or tick a diversity box. And by the way, these criticisms have come from across the political spectrum, right and left.
You have decided that I couldn’t possibly mean what I have always said: That the true nature of the character lies in their personality. You feel I must have been coerced, brainwashed, bribed, threatened, whatever, or I as a white male author never would have chosen a Black actor for the part of this canonically white girl.
You refuse to believe me, the guy who wrote the books and created these characters, when I say that these actors are perfect for the roles because of the talent they bring and the way they used their auditions to expand, improve and electrify the lines they were given. Once you see Leah as Annabeth, she will become exactly the way you imagine Annabeth, assuming you give her that chance, but you refuse to credit that this may be true.
You are judging her appropriateness for this role solely and exclusively on how she looks. She is a Black girl playing someone who was described in the books as white.
Friends, that is racism.
And before you resort to the old kneejerk reaction — “I am not racist!” — let’s examine that statement too.
If I may quote from an excellent recent article in the Boston Globe about Dr. Khama Ennis, who created a program on implicit bias for the Massachusetts Board of Registration for Medicine in Boston: “To say a person doesn’t have bias is to say that person isn’t human. It’s how we navigate the world … based on what we’re taught and our own personal histories.”
Racism/colorism isn’t something we have or don’t have. I have it. You have it. We all do. And not just white people like me. All people. It’s either something we recognize and try to work on, or it’s something we deny. Saying “I am not racist!” is simply declaring that you deny your own biases and refuse to work on them.
The core message of Percy Jackson has always been that difference is strength. There is power in plurality. The things that distinguish us from one another are often our marks of individual greatness. You should never judge someone by how well they fit your preconceived notions. That neurodivergent kid who has failed out of six schools, for instance, may well be the son of Poseidon. Anyone can be a hero.
If you don’t get that, if you’re still upset about the casting of this marvelous trio, then it doesn’t matter how many times you have read the books. You didn’t learn anything from them.
Watch the show or don’t. That’s your call. But this will be an adaptation that I am proud of, and which fully honors the spirit of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, taking the bedtime story I told my son twenty years ago to make him feel better about being neurodivergent, and improving on it so that kids all over the world can continue to see themselves as heroes at Camp Half-Blood.”
(x)
I’ve always liked this gent. Here it becomes much plainer why I’ve liked him so much.
