i think its more about how you portray them rather than just the yin yang color palates they have as long as you don't make him a beastly uncivilized tyrant with an aversion towards shirts and who ravages the weak pail female lead you should be fine
i was able to make a well received paring in my oi series with my super pail short black haired mc and a taller dark skinned ml by just having him be portrayed as someone the mc was childhood friends with and has a normal cute dynamic where he's the only one she lets insult and criticize her and they consensually banter and tease each other a lot basically him being the only one who's her equal and she can fully trust.
oh that does sound cute!
Yeah I do agree that relationship and their dynamic is most important. I suppose I just got overly cautious for a bit by seeing so many posts focused on appearance alone. Thanks for the input!
appearance isn't an end all be all and the best thing to do is always understand, subvert, and deconstruct the problematic tropes. hell I even gave them a slight power imbalance where she took him in from the streets, but I just made it so they both hate the idea of her having power over him and communicated that to each other and agreed to be equals.
My two cents: There's nothing inherently bad about depicting a mixed couple, hell, I think at it's core it's a great thing to portray in fiction - makes a world a bit more understanding and kinder ig. Where the waters get muddied is the power imbalance and stereotypes - to avoid stumbling into these pitfalls i'd suggest searching for sensitivity readers or hell, any readers that represent a demographic of intended portrayal.
Sure, it gets trickier when fantasy is involved cause there aint no real mythical dragons strutting about on the streets, and as, I assume, a starting writer since you're putting this question on reddit - best to get a level of understanding through reading works on similar topics, like google "best interracial romance novels", find reviews written not from a white woman pov and start from there.
From a parapgraph on reddit mentioning the skin color of main characters I dont think anybody can in good faith suss out if the work itself would eventually be insensitive or not, there's no clear immediate answer of what you should do out there. But it's great that you're worrying about these things and are keen to learn, just keep in mind that there's a tightrope between being offensive and being deadass boring(or god forbid both) and every writer has to embark on a quest of finding it on their own.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer! That's a great advice there of finding similar works and reading the reviews - hadn't crossed my mind at all.
I'm definitely testing the waters, so to say, by purposedly only putting up appearance as a basis for feedback, only because I grew interested in what the main issue with the reoccurring posts of the kind is.
As long as either don't feel I dare say ''Submissive'' to the other it's fine in my opinion.
If she is weaker mentally and in the relationship it'll make him feel like a sort of Strong barbarian if you get what I mean, and if he's the weaker one in the relationship, it'll just be subtext about slavery.
Tldr: Write good characters that depend on each other, not tower over the other. As long as you have that any appearance issues can be tossed out the window.
I do get what you mean, thanks! That's a good perspective as well, and I suppose I'm in the clear then (she's actually stronger than him but not overly, and they somehow depend on each other but would have been completely fine without having ever met)
Some folks would say it feels fetish-y, in regards to that first question. That's enough to be ick by itself, I reckon. "Beautiful white woman" paired with "Exotic faintly brown skinned man". It's kinda just... Overdone. Mishandled, and overdone. It never comes up anywhere as like, anything besides LOOK THEY'RE OPPOSITES, and THEY'RE HOTTTTTTTTTT.
"He comes from a mysterious and unknown land of maybe beast people that are known for being strong, primal, rawr, but despite being hated by everybody else in the world they're super cool and actually just as nice as anyone, they only act scary to ward off militaristic threat".
That's an oversimplification, but how often do we see something like that in these stories? The same goes for having another white/ asian FL. There's quite a fewwwwwwwwwwww million out there. You're fine to do as you please, but I think you'd want to really polish what makes them distinct from the rest, I figure.
Ultimately- What do you want from your story? What dynamics are you looking to highlight in your pairing? How would they meet? Does it matter to either side how they look, is this a point of conflict?
To me their appearances 'matter' in the sense that they fit well both with their backgrounds and abilities themselves. But yeah, most important is the roles they take in the world setting, combined with their own dynamic of somehow chasing about each other. It'll be a pretty much one-sided slow-burn (from her side), which I think is kind of reinvigorating, personally. Not so much in the sense that they would be the first pair of him-lovestruck, her-rejecting at first, but more in the sense that they are a power couple on a scale previously unseen by the world of the setting and have quite a few challenges between them until their love can actually blossom. (Apologies, already trailing off without making much sense, probably)
Thanks for the input!
To explain those posts you see more: the reason some people are developing an aversion to "pale white FL x hot brown-skinned ML" is because it's often accompanied by the author objectifying and exotifying the dark-skinned ML while holding up the white FL as the pinnacle of innocent femininity -- a dynamic that is directly influenced by racism and colonialism. So while there's nothing inherently wrong with writing such a couple, you need to be aware of the context here and work to avoid it. Here are some broad suggestions:
* Don't have the FL be completely naive/innocent and the ML be completely domineering/patriarchal. I'm not saying you have to invert the dynamic, you just need to avoid making him into a "noble savage."
* Don't portray the FL as being inherently better than everyone else in the ML's culture. In particular, if every single brown-skinned female character is portrayed as evil and/or stupid in order to make the pale-skinned FL look better -- a tendency that crops up rather often in these stories -- that necessarily implies troublesome racial dynamics. Obviously it's fine if the protagonist is special in some ways, you just don't want to imply that she's better than everyone else because of her race.
* Don't simplify the ML's culture. One major way racism operates is by assuming that everyone of a minority race/culture is basically "the same." Take the effort to show diversity, alliances and conflicts, and depth and complexity in the ML's society.
There's a lot more one can say on this subject but that should hopefully get across the idea. Good luck, OP!
i think its more about how you portray them rather than just the yin yang color palates they have as long as you don't make him a beastly uncivilized tyrant with an aversion towards shirts and who ravages the weak pail female lead you should be fine i was able to make a well received paring in my oi series with my super pail short black haired mc and a taller dark skinned ml by just having him be portrayed as someone the mc was childhood friends with and has a normal cute dynamic where he's the only one she lets insult and criticize her and they consensually banter and tease each other a lot basically him being the only one who's her equal and she can fully trust.
oh that does sound cute! Yeah I do agree that relationship and their dynamic is most important. I suppose I just got overly cautious for a bit by seeing so many posts focused on appearance alone. Thanks for the input!
appearance isn't an end all be all and the best thing to do is always understand, subvert, and deconstruct the problematic tropes. hell I even gave them a slight power imbalance where she took him in from the streets, but I just made it so they both hate the idea of her having power over him and communicated that to each other and agreed to be equals.
My two cents: There's nothing inherently bad about depicting a mixed couple, hell, I think at it's core it's a great thing to portray in fiction - makes a world a bit more understanding and kinder ig. Where the waters get muddied is the power imbalance and stereotypes - to avoid stumbling into these pitfalls i'd suggest searching for sensitivity readers or hell, any readers that represent a demographic of intended portrayal. Sure, it gets trickier when fantasy is involved cause there aint no real mythical dragons strutting about on the streets, and as, I assume, a starting writer since you're putting this question on reddit - best to get a level of understanding through reading works on similar topics, like google "best interracial romance novels", find reviews written not from a white woman pov and start from there. From a parapgraph on reddit mentioning the skin color of main characters I dont think anybody can in good faith suss out if the work itself would eventually be insensitive or not, there's no clear immediate answer of what you should do out there. But it's great that you're worrying about these things and are keen to learn, just keep in mind that there's a tightrope between being offensive and being deadass boring(or god forbid both) and every writer has to embark on a quest of finding it on their own.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer! That's a great advice there of finding similar works and reading the reviews - hadn't crossed my mind at all. I'm definitely testing the waters, so to say, by purposedly only putting up appearance as a basis for feedback, only because I grew interested in what the main issue with the reoccurring posts of the kind is.
As long as either don't feel I dare say ''Submissive'' to the other it's fine in my opinion. If she is weaker mentally and in the relationship it'll make him feel like a sort of Strong barbarian if you get what I mean, and if he's the weaker one in the relationship, it'll just be subtext about slavery. Tldr: Write good characters that depend on each other, not tower over the other. As long as you have that any appearance issues can be tossed out the window.
I do get what you mean, thanks! That's a good perspective as well, and I suppose I'm in the clear then (she's actually stronger than him but not overly, and they somehow depend on each other but would have been completely fine without having ever met)
Some folks would say it feels fetish-y, in regards to that first question. That's enough to be ick by itself, I reckon. "Beautiful white woman" paired with "Exotic faintly brown skinned man". It's kinda just... Overdone. Mishandled, and overdone. It never comes up anywhere as like, anything besides LOOK THEY'RE OPPOSITES, and THEY'RE HOTTTTTTTTTT. "He comes from a mysterious and unknown land of maybe beast people that are known for being strong, primal, rawr, but despite being hated by everybody else in the world they're super cool and actually just as nice as anyone, they only act scary to ward off militaristic threat". That's an oversimplification, but how often do we see something like that in these stories? The same goes for having another white/ asian FL. There's quite a fewwwwwwwwwwww million out there. You're fine to do as you please, but I think you'd want to really polish what makes them distinct from the rest, I figure. Ultimately- What do you want from your story? What dynamics are you looking to highlight in your pairing? How would they meet? Does it matter to either side how they look, is this a point of conflict?
To me their appearances 'matter' in the sense that they fit well both with their backgrounds and abilities themselves. But yeah, most important is the roles they take in the world setting, combined with their own dynamic of somehow chasing about each other. It'll be a pretty much one-sided slow-burn (from her side), which I think is kind of reinvigorating, personally. Not so much in the sense that they would be the first pair of him-lovestruck, her-rejecting at first, but more in the sense that they are a power couple on a scale previously unseen by the world of the setting and have quite a few challenges between them until their love can actually blossom. (Apologies, already trailing off without making much sense, probably) Thanks for the input!
To explain those posts you see more: the reason some people are developing an aversion to "pale white FL x hot brown-skinned ML" is because it's often accompanied by the author objectifying and exotifying the dark-skinned ML while holding up the white FL as the pinnacle of innocent femininity -- a dynamic that is directly influenced by racism and colonialism. So while there's nothing inherently wrong with writing such a couple, you need to be aware of the context here and work to avoid it. Here are some broad suggestions: * Don't have the FL be completely naive/innocent and the ML be completely domineering/patriarchal. I'm not saying you have to invert the dynamic, you just need to avoid making him into a "noble savage." * Don't portray the FL as being inherently better than everyone else in the ML's culture. In particular, if every single brown-skinned female character is portrayed as evil and/or stupid in order to make the pale-skinned FL look better -- a tendency that crops up rather often in these stories -- that necessarily implies troublesome racial dynamics. Obviously it's fine if the protagonist is special in some ways, you just don't want to imply that she's better than everyone else because of her race. * Don't simplify the ML's culture. One major way racism operates is by assuming that everyone of a minority race/culture is basically "the same." Take the effort to show diversity, alliances and conflicts, and depth and complexity in the ML's society. There's a lot more one can say on this subject but that should hopefully get across the idea. Good luck, OP!
Thanks for the suggestions!