Carnelian Corax

And I’m not saying that he’s a bad guy! But his cowardice was real! And compelling! And it’s not admirable! He had opportunities to do It for the Right reasons and he didn’t take them!

Obsessed with Stratt killing the coward that was Ryland Grace and a new man being born. He awoke with no memories of what he’d once known and loved. The pieces of his life he still has are what Stratt gave him!! A curated memory of Ryland Grace. What he knows about himself comes from the clues she left him!!!

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

Race absolutely matters. Racism absolutely exists. But different racial groups are stereotyped in different ways, and those stereotypes can produce completely different social expectations.

For example, I’ve seen people criticize Rachel and Jacob for joking about Hudson being unintelligent because he’s a person of color. If Hudson were Black, I would understand that criticism more, because there is a long history of anti-Black stereotypes portraying Black people as unintelligent. But Hudson is Asian. Asian men are stereotyped in almost the opposite way. They’re often assumed to be intelligent, studious, and academically successful. The stereotype is still racist, but it’s a different stereotype. It doesn’t suddenly become an anti-Asian stereotype just because we’ve replaced “Asian” with the broader category of “POC.”

The same thing happens constantly in fanfiction with Shane.

A lot of writers portray Shane as being afraid to fight because he knows he’ll be judged more harshly than white players. I understand where that idea is coming from, but as a black person I’ve never found it particularly convincing.

If Shane were black, that analysis would make more sense to me. Black men are often stereotyped as aggressive, which means behavior that is considered acceptable from white athletes is often interpreted differently when black ones do it.

But asian men occupy a very different place in the racial imagination. They’re frequently stereotyped as passive, non-threatening, weak, nerdy, emasculated, etc. If racial stereotypes were influencing Shane’s approach to hockey, I could just as easily imagine the opposite dynamic: feeling pressure to prove he’s aggressive enough to belong. Maybe he’s fighting TOO much.

But that doesn’t make sense for Shane. He’s the league’s golden boy. He’s polite, media-friendly, and heavily inspired by Sidney Crosby. He’s a superstar. Fighting is often delegated to players lower on the depth chart whose role is specifically to provide physicality. Star players generally aren’t expected to be enforcers. Teams usually want their elite talent scoring goals, not sitting in the penalty box after dropping the gloves.

So Shane not fighting much doesn’t strike me as evidence of racial pressure. It strikes me as evidence that he’s Shane Hollander.

Crosby is a useful comparison here. For years, people mocked him for not being physical enough (and for talking to the refs too much). They questioned his toughness and masculinity. They called him “Crybaby Crosby” or “Cindy Crosby.” Fans edited photos of him in dresses or makeup. The criticism wasn’t really about hockey. The joke was that he wasn’t a “real man.”

And that’s a white player.

Imagine how much worse those conversations could become if the player in question were Asian.

That’s the kind of racial dynamic I could actually see affecting Shane, not him worrying about people thinking he’s too aggressive, but people questioning whether he’s aggressive ENOUGH.

There’s a good chance that if Shane fought exactly like many white players, he probably still wouldn’t be viewed as tough enough. Meanwhile, if a Black player fought exactly like those same white players, he might be interpreted as more aggressive.

People often criticize Rachel for not doing much racial analysis in the books. But sometimes fandom fills that gap with racial analysis that feels disconnected from both hockey culture and the specific stereotypes that affect different racial groups.

Not every POC experience is interchangeable.

A stereotype that affects Black athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Asian athletes. A stereotype that affects Latino athletes is not automatically a stereotype that affects Indigenous athletes.

If we’re going to talk about race- and we should- we have to talk about the actual racial dynamics at play, not just substitute “person of color” for a more specific analysis.

I have a daily wordcount that I make myself hit. right now, it's 2k a day, but when I have less of a workload I find 1k more realistic and manageable.

as for the struggling: first, you have to let yourself write like crap. is the sentence bad? are you talking all stupid? who cares, it's better than nothing, and now you have something you can come back to once your first draft is complete. that last bit is important. don't beautify your writing until you have something roughly complete, otherwise you'll get stuck tweaking the same three sentences for a year.

and secondly: you might be struggling because something about what you think you need to write isn't flowing. maybe you're not interested enough, make you don't know enough, maybe it isn't working, whatever. so instead, find something you do want to write about, and fill that daily word count. this might mean writing the climax of your story before the beginning, or writing several long descriptions of the antagonist's living quarters instead of anything that moves the plot along. that's great! even if you eventually have to throw it out because it doesn't fit anywhere, it's still great! and the more you write, the stronger your muscle memory will get, and the easier it will be.