Aromantic Avatar Fan

Grace, right next to her, confused: wait, you had a wife?

but rocky and grace put the whole diplomacy thing in jeopardy by being too best buddy with it. like they're both really low level members of the mission. some engineer necessary for ship maintenance, and an obligatory molecular biologist they brought along in case they found more alien cells out in space. and these two guys like, somehow keep ending up hanging out essentially "at the back of the classroom." consistently left out of the actually important negotiations, and well, they're bored!

grace steals some laptops and starts jury-rigging his own personal translator for rocky, despite the fact that the official translation software is way quicker to learn and much more nuanced. rocky starts learning english, simplifies his eridian, and immediately starts mocking grace for needing the software. they start blabbing to each other about all the weird quirks of their respective cultures and advanced science their planets can do. the whole time they are ribbing each other about culture stuff. grace eats in front of rocky. rocky forces grace to sleep in a corridor somewhere so he can keep watch.

then stratt and the eridian leader find out and it's like

stratt: you. you've been meeting in private with a member of the eridian deligation?

grace: ... yyyes.

stratt: and you shared with them classified scientific documents?

grace: i... maybe gave him. a laptop. he's so smart! what was i supposed to do?

stratt: HIM? you've assigned male pronouns to a genderless species?

grace: he said he likes to match!

stratt: do you even know the name of this eridian?!

grace: i call him rocky :)

stratt: 😰

then on rocky's side of things it's like

eridian leader: sorry did you say you called the human after one of its digestive noises?

rocky: yeah :)

eridian leader: and. you've been telling it about how to make xenonite. one of our most vital trading resources.

rocky: yes yes, grace is very ignorant about basic chemistry 🙄

eridian leader: right. and you watch it sleep. despite the fact that all the human beings we have spoken to have described this as a cultural violation?

rocky: well he didn't like it at first but he came around!!

anyway both sides of the delegation are sweating profusely (metaphorically speaking) until they see rocky and grace in action and are like ohh! they're both freaks. we are not to blame for this. these two are just really bad at navigating cultural norms.

i meant 2 years

Well, there's always more room for another horse in here! Please, come in and enjoy some of this delicious timothy <3

Monster Theory - Really great anthology to start with, especially the first reading, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's famous "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)" which is a personal favorite

The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts - A general SF/F journal, but there are definitely a lot of great monster theory and gothic horror readings sprinkled throughout. Consider taking a look at Veronica Hollinger's "The Vampire and/as Alien," the special issue on Dracula, and Faye J. Ringel's "Genetic Experimentation: Mad Scientists and the Beast," among others

Werewolf Histories edited by Willem Blécourt - Phenomenal anthology on werewolf scholarship, especially if you're interested in the connections between werewolves and witchcraft and/or witch trials in Early Modern Europe

Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters by Jack Halberstam - Of interest to those who are interested in the connection between the gothic and gender (among other topics). Halberstam has written extensively on both

The Journal of Dracula Studies - Exactly what it sounds like.

Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural - Another journal, which focuses on the connections between witchcraft and occultism, monsters, demonology, and the like.

Susan Stryker's "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix" - An absolutely landmark piece of writing on Frankenstein and the transgender (and in particular the transfeminine) experience; one of my favorite pieces of academic writing of all time.

Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology - Another solid monster theory anthology

Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene - A really, really good anthology about the ecological gothic that I cannot recommend enough. As a known werewolf guy I especially like the piece "Wolf, or Homo homini lupus" by Carla Freccero

The Vampire Lectures by Lawrence Rickels - So many vampires

Monster Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader - Another anthology, I in particular recommend Rosalind Sibielski's "Gendering the Monster Within: Biological Essentialism, Sexual Difference, and Changing Symbolic Functions of the Monster in Popular Werewolf Texts" in this one.

"The Trans Legacy of Frankenstein" by Jolene Zigarovich - Definitely a good read if you enjoyed the Stryker piece earlier; it's a more general survey of the idea but might give you some ideas for further reading

TransGothic in Literature and Culture - A whole anthology of works on transgender identity and the gothic!

Twenty-First Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion - Not to be confused with the other similarly named anthology earlier, this one is on various modern perspectives on the gothic.

"Christians and Jews in the Twelfth Century Werewolf Renaissance" by David A. Shyovitz - Stand-alone article but really really interesting

Wonders and the Order of Nature: 1150-1750 by Lorraine Daston & Katherine Park - Incredible volume that gets into several different subjects surrounding the fantastical in the medieval and early modern eras, monsters among them. The same authors have written some other fantastic work, such as "Unnatural Conceptions: The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France and England" and I honestly would recommend any of their work.

Monster Anthropology: Ethnographic Explorations of Transforming Social Worlds Through Monsters - A more anthropology focused volume, I particularly like Rozanna Lilley's "Drawing in the Margins: My Son's Arsenal of Monsters—(Autistic) Imagination and the Cultural Capital of Childhood"

Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations - Another anthology, this time with a historical perspective

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this post is inspired in part by this one by @cheshirepirouette and sponsored in part by convos w @asteriis and @indouscurse here’s to y’all!! this post also goes out to my brothers, who are pale as hell for reasons unbeknownst to all of us (this is a joke).

like any good headcanon, this started as a joke because i thought to myself: Ryland sounds like the type of name that somebody’s Black child would have and only use on church sundays. nobody actually has ever called him that in his whole entire life, except maybe his mama SOMETIMES and that’s why he doesn’t remember it right away. i feel like every Black person knows somebody who is called literally anything except their god given name. people call him lil r, lil grace, gracie, ry, ryry, riri, RG, lando, mr. grace, dr. grace, but nobody calls him Ryland, which is part of why he Can’t Remember for so long.

so of course i went back to the source material to see if he ever actually mentioned being white anywhere and unfortunately it is very much at the beginning of the book. so THEN i started to think about how i could get around that while remaining at least largely canon compliant (as a little treat for myself). what i came up with is what i have affectionately dubbed my “litebrite baby” headcanon.

the bond of being stratt’s left and right hands… hanging out with each other. developing a friendship. perhaps, for the first time, grace feels a sense of brotherhood. a sense of community. because carl gets it, doesn’t he? this situation they’re in? we’re in this together, man. right?

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.

Your perspectives matter. Your representation matters. You are not bothersome for demanding equal treatment in fandom. It is not your responsibility to make fandom more welcoming and inclusive to you. It is not your sole responsibility to create all of the Black-centered content. You are not "ruining" anyone's fun for demanding better for yourself, and anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves. Any fandom worth being a part of should have no room for racism in it.

Black people in fandom, you are wanted. You are needed. You are loved and appreciated. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.