#vietnamese representation

And let said proper badass Vietnamese representation be from a likable character

Just give me a sign

PLEASE

Don’t make me do all the hard work as an unprofessional writer

Teresa may be in there since we got America but maybe not. Midge maybe. Nikki, and Summer, probably not.

Everyine who must be in the movie and would absolutely be if i fancasted the movie

Teresa

Nikki or Christie

Kira - Vietnamese rep

Lea - Macanese rep

Midge

Becky - wheelchair rep

Miko - Native Hawaiian rep

9/10 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TWs: Homophobia, a character being outed, fleeing war, death, cannibalism

(TWs are ranked in order of severity, please take them seriously!)

Full disclosure: I cried.

And not in a cute, oh there’s a single tear running down my face, way. I’m talking full on “ugly crying in a bathroom stall after a break up” crying. And it’s not even a very sad book! It just hit really hard for me (and at this point you’re free to skip to the actual review this is just an over share) because I had just come out as lesbian to my grandma the previous night - not intentionally, but I had been told by relatives that she already knew because I’d tried before, so I mentioned it in passing and ended up having to come out all over again. I cried a lot that night, and she said it was fine but she wouldn’t look at me.

My grandma is Catholic, and similar to Tiến Phong, the main character, I grew up religious and going to Christian preschool and high school. The book deals with themes of homophobia as Tiến struggles to come out to his parents, but because of the language barrier he’s not sure how. Being a child of immigrants means wanting to do your best by your parents - I’ve always been afraid of disappointing them, and coming out felt like that. I could relate a lot to Tiến and his fears, and I’m gonna stress again to take those trigger warnings seriously.

So yeah, I cried, but at the end of the book I felt more whole than I’d felt coming into it. It’s a love letter to queer BIPOC, especially those of us who are first gen, and it was definitely what I needed at that moment.

I don’t actually read a lot of graphic novels, but The Magic Fish has convinced me to start.

So on to representation 🌈

I loved the representation in this book, and I couldn’t understand why until I read the author’s note at the end. Trung Le Nguyen originally started off trying to write a “very small story”. He talks about how with immigrant stories, they’re written as if everything in the story is supposed to orbit around that one aspect - it eclipses everything else. He also writes that readers will often intellectualize the immigrant experience, and how they often “start and end with an exodus” seldom acknowledging ‘the before’ and ‘the after’ as more than that. Trung Le Nguyen said he wanted to decenter the gravity of marginalization and focus on one of the little pieces in its orbit - and that’s where it hit for me.

In my hands I finally had a story about immigration from Asia, and the queer Asian diaspora, and it wasn’t centered around our pain. It wasn’t created to be!

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s important to talk about the immigrant struggle, but in the process the stories of immigrants and their families sometimes get reduced into archetypes - I was tired of looking for representation only to end up reading more about our pain and I wanted to read about our joy for once. This is the book.

Tiến’s story isn’t all about his struggle as a first generation American or even about coming out, it’s about the stories that connect him with his family, it’s about languages and how they can mix together in beautiful ways, it’s about friends and accepting each other.

What I liked:

I think stories were a great metaphor in this book.

Tiến reads his mother traditional Western fairytales as a way of bonding and helping her learn English, and some of them are similar to traditional Vietnamese fairytales that she remembers from her own childhood. In this way, a story becomes something that can transplant across continents and change shape to its new environment, and that’s a beautiful thing.

In TMF, stories become a metaphor for immigration. Tiến’s relationship to his culture and his experiences of community will be different from his parents, and his parents will have a different experience as immigrants than their own siblings back in Vietnam. They still find ways to connect, despite having different experiences and ways of communication. It made me realize that I can still communicate with my family that doesn’t speak English, we just have a different way of talking unique to us. And it’s not always verbal. Sometimes it’s just spending time together.

Also, the art was AMAZING. Some of the panels were drawn traditionally, others digitally, but the detail is gorgeous. I feel bad for the artist’s wrist after all that stippling (a drawing technique where you add texture by making many many tiny dots). The amount of research and effort put into the outfits and dresses alone is insane. To produce an entire graphic novel like that, writing and drawing every scene, is a huge undertaking!! I’ll show one of the panels (no spoilers) below:

Isn’t this BEAUTIFUL? 😍😍

I loved how the artist blended traditional clothes with the stories depending on who reads them.

Side note: (minor spoilers?)another thing I loved was how this book approached queerness, and how falling for someone who doesn’t like you back doesn’t have to end your relationship with them. sometimes that’s just how sexuality goes!

So true Sebastian 😭

Why I couldn’t give it a 10:

Honestly, this came really close to being a ten. The main factors against it were just:

1. I’m not used to reading graphic novels, and I wanted to slow down and look at each page but also get on with the story? There was a lot happening at once, so it was slightly overwhelming.

2. It was a little hard for me to get into at the beginning because the wording was a little vague and I couldn’t tell where the story was going. I think in hindsight it’s because the story isn’t being told linearly, like in Western storytelling, but in a more slice-of-life way, where you’re seeing a lot of different stories and the whole picture is slowly revealed.

Again, these were mainly personal things that I struggled with, but I know some experienced comic readers who had no problems and thoroughly enjoyed TMF!

Edit: I just looked it up and realized that TMF is semi-autobiographical so now I feel bad for criticizing it 😂

I Sincerely Recommend to Fans of:

• Fairytales (very specific ik)

• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

• Anything gay (this is for LGBTQ+ ppl - straight ppl who like reading gay stories, you are seen and suspected)

Finally, this isn’t from the actual story but it was in the author’s note (always read the author’s note and acknowledgements people!!) and it was so beautiful I just had to share.

The detail, the colors, the dress itself is gorgeous. I’m absolutely in love. Officially going to read more comic books from here on out!

^The vibe TMF gives me

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but to crave all the other things he's making her feel. Soon, their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...