SHUT UP, JCINK!

yeah, of course! i don’t mind answering. the truth is pretty simple. burnbook is a textbook predator. i’m not making this assertion to be inflammatory. in the beginning, i generally understood their assertion that the blog would stop existing if people stopped submitting. 

then, things shifted.

“burnie” became a colloquial address. familiarity is often the first “in” among predators. then, they established rules. predators want you to witness their exertion of control or power. burnbook always asserts that this is a “hobby,” and they have a normal life: partner, family, full-time job. aka they’re maintaining a double life. 

Unpopular opinion: I hate the “no race/ethnicity bending or whitewashing” rule. Let’s be honest - this is white folks all up in Black, Brown, Asian, Native, and everyone else’s business who doesn’t pass the paper bag test.

Sites toss around “racebending,” “whitewashing,” and “ethnicity bending” like they’re interchangeable, but they’re not. At all. Race, a construct invented by white people solely to justify discrimination, is not the same as ethnicity, which is cultural, complex, and often violently erased. This rule treats both like a blood quantum checklist straight out of a eugenics manual. It reeks of racial purity politics dressed up as “inclusivity.”

And it disproportionately targets nonwhite face claims.

White face claims? They get the full creative range. Sabrina Carpenter goes from Southern belle to Manhattan princess. But has anyone ever written her as Ashkenazi Jewish, the ethnicity she allegedly has? Of course not. Because Sabrina clearly doesn’t identify as Jewish, and whiteness never gets interrogated like that.

Then there’s the alternative: the virtue signaler (almost always a white woman) who personally Googles every face claim’s background to catalog every drop of heritage in the “ethnicity” field of your application. I can’t wait for the day a celebrity drops their 23&Me results and finds out they’ve got Neanderthal DNA. We gonna include extinct ethnicities too? More importantly, aside from filling out the field in the application, that’s usually the extent of their cultural connection.

Meanwhile, you’ll have an American Black family where Idris Elba (Sierra Leonean/Ghanaian, born in London) is cast as the father to Zendaya (Nigerian, German, Scottish, Icelandic, Macedonian), whose nationality is (Black) American, and suddenly - it’s dead silence. I’m using this example to highlight the hypocrisy; not to critique that specific casting, especially since the writers who bother to create Black families are, more often than not, nonwhite writers themselves.

And then there’s the bizarre trend this rule has created: the giant “blended/adopted kids” family. Not that y’all ever write a single word about the complexity of adoption, especially transracial adoption. For context, South Korea established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine ~200,000 European and American adoptions between 1950-90s and discovered systemic human rights abuses. Today, many Korean adoptees use the word "stolen" to describe their experiences. But sure, let’s vibe with your favorite K-pop or idol face claims named Moonshine, Thor, Cherry, Starling, Ruin, Winter, Fennel, Honey, Fox adopted by a sweet white couple. And don't forget their one white sister, played by everyone’s favorite racist Sydney Sweeney, named Rachel. Sounds very respectful and totally legit.

This rule isn’t about addressing whitewashing; it’s about preserving white comfort by avoiding uncomfortable conversations regarding race and ethnicity. Again: concepts your people created. This rule also implies everyone is forever linked to every strand of their DNA, when the reality is much messier. Google for five minutes and you’ll understand why most Eastern Europeans don’t identify as “German,” or why people of color rarely claim their “English, Scottish, French, Portuguese” ancestry. Those aren’t proud lineages; they’re colonial and imperialist scars.

Let me be clear: I’m not defending whitewashing. Erasure of marginalized characters is a real and ongoing issue. But this rule hasn’t led to more characters of color. It’s just made things harder for the people who were already writing them. Unless you’re writing Zoe Kravitz or Zendaya, y’all don’t even see our characters.

Face claims were always meant to be pictorial representations of original characters. If your character is just a 1:1 match of their face claim’s identity, is your character even original? Or are you projecting a parasocial crush onto a celebrity, who doesn't know you exist (likely never will) and whose actions you manipulate in fiction that they probably wouldn't approve of. You really think Christina Nadin wants to be portrayed as a cam girl with a daddy kink 100x? Or Madelyn Cline to be fucking Glen Powell as incestous siblings? Be so fucking for real right now.

Maybe the answer is simple: keep the “no whitewashing” rule. Let the rest go. Trust that if someone genuinely wants to write a nonwhite character, they’ll do the research and treat it with care. Because let’s be real: people are going to use their favorite face claims regardless. All this rule does is allow white characters to be whimsy, quirky, and unexamined, and reinforce that nonwhite characters (which implies nonwhite people in real life) are not those adjectives.

And look - we’re not a monolith. I’m sure some fellow nonwhite folks (the only opinions that matter here, tbh) will disagree with me. That’s fine. I still love and respect you. You’re allowed to curate your writing circle however you want. My issue is with the generalization, and how it burdens us disproportionately and gives the oppressor the loudest voice in the room.

Because here’s the truth: do you know what nonwhite people do notoriously well? We mind our motherfucking business. Maybe y’all should start doing the same. Because whatever this messy, bureaucratic rule was supposed to prevent, all it’s done is shift the burden onto us.