artprocrastinates:

blackcrowling:

artattemptswriting:

artprocrastinates:

spookyghafas:

this recurring trend of writing fae societies and making them all lilywhite cishets is soooo stupid bc these are beings who are wayy smarter than humans and also fucking immortal. there is absolutely no reason why they should follow/enforce arbitrary human concepts n norms (i.e.: gender, sexuality, fucking time) because they would’ve learned that none of this matters nor is it beneficial to their society!!! also genetic variation exists!!! unless you can give me a legitimate reason as to why having darker skin would actually be detrimental to fae, you should be writing brown fae!!!!

Ah, the old trend of whitewashed, human-gendered fae. *cracks knuckles* These are the stories I grew up on, and I love nothing more than telling people exactly why fae should always be written as diversified as possible, based on lore-fact.

For starters, it’s important to understand that “fae” is an umbrella term, talking about a whole range of peoples and beings whose mythological roots were understood to lie in Northern Ireland, Ireland, England and the associated British Isles. At the time, these countries were inhabited by a collection of tribes who shared beliefs, but also held many of their own that thrived independently. So, the root lore is composed of three main “groups” of fae:
Daoine Sídhe

(Irish),
Daoine Sìth

(Scottish, similar to the Irish, but only in very tenuous ways) and Twylleth Teg

(Welsh)- and, to add to the complexity, each of these are divided up into their own categories of peoples.

But what does this have to do with diverse fae societies in modern writing? As OP said, genetic variation is a thing, which is a perfectly okay way to look at the fae, but I would like to expand on the basic idea a little more. Here goes:

The Fae of old British Isles lore were beings that belonged to the ethereal realm, quite firmly. In Ireland, the mythology of the
Daoine Sídhe can be traced back to an old race of dieties; this means that they are definitely as far away from humans as you can get. However, during the Victorian era there was a rush of popularity for the flower fairy, which overlapped with the revival of the Pixie from Cornwall (which does not fall under the fae umbrella at all) and stories of the Alfr from Sweden. The result was a whole new, very mangled, idea of fairies wherein the fairies were humanoid, tiny and also elvish (the pointed ears). Just to make this all that much more confusing, artists and writers started to apply romantic ideals of monarchy to these new faries, resulting in the creation of courts (Seelie/Unseelie). Victorians being Victorians, and having such a love of their powerful, white monarchy, they were not about to make these fairies people of colour.

So then, coming back to the modern YA fae: the idea has become fixed that the fae are white, humanoid, tiny people. Even when a writer does draw on the base mythology, they still view the fae through the modern lense. This is problematic for two main reasons:

1. Fae, simply put, are not human at all. If you’re going to write fae, they ought to be written as existing outside of human concepts and conventions, as they were perceived by the tribes in Wales, Ireland and Scotland.  There is a common understanding connecting these three branches of the mythology that the way we see fae, when they appear humanoid at all, is the way in which our mortal brains can comprehend them based on our understanding of human physiology. Which brings me neatly onto the second point:
2. Our standards of the average human have changed, which means that when the Fae appear as humanoid (which only a few of them do, within the various mythological branches) they are far more likely to appear as PoC.

And to finish, some notes on the Fae, sexuality and gender:

You can’t apply sexuality and gender the fae, at all, ever. Even if they do appear humanoid, they’re not going to have the hallmarks that we would associate with biological sex. If anything, the Fae are a race of nonbinary or agender peoples and beings, although even saying that is dicy.

To summarize:

If you’re not writing the Fae as diverse beings existing outside of all human concepts, then you’re not really writing Fae at all.

Moving this to the right account, and adding something I could have said but didn’t think of in the moment:

The influence of the Victorian Flower fairy on the sexuality of the Fae

Bearing in mind that the peoples of pre-Christian Britain were very liberal in their views on marriage, sex and relationships, this ought to be reflected in the fae; however, the Victorians were never going to allow that. The result was that the modern pixie-esque fairies had to be categorised into male and female, and either have monogamous, heterosexual relationships or none at all. In order to remove the fairies further from the fae, they were also infantalised quite heavily, creating the image of the childish, playful fairy.

The fae were tricksters by nature, true, but they were also wise beings with knowledge beyond that of mortal grasp. Therefore, the Fae written into fantasy novels ought to reflect this. Rather than trying to apply human morality to the fae, or writing them as immoral for their diversity, try this: respect the mythology and that they are a libertine and forwards race who have their own standards and are probably more diverse and accepting than humanity could ever be.

And now I’ll shut up on the subject.

this is amazing and great but I do have a slight problem with “you can’t apply sexuality and gender to the fae, at all, ever.” given that there are specific fae who’s hallmark traits ARE things like gender or some idea of sexuality. The most well known being the banshee, appearing as a woman to keen (a thing done by women, not men) as a warning of death or an ill omen. There was also the leanan sídhe who appears as a beautiful muse like creature to talented people and causes them shorter lives as the price, while the story differs as to exactly how this price is extracted most stories contain a distinctly sexual element. Or the Gancanagh also a sexually charged fae “the love talker” known for its seduction skills.

@blackcrowling thank you for this!

I meant the whole “never applicable to Fae, ever” thing more in the sense that you can’t apply sexuality and gender to the fae-kind in a blanket fashion, as some authors do, but this is a very good point.

I knew about banshees but not leanan sídhe and the Gancanagh; that’s really interesting. So it seems a better stance to take is that aside from the specific beings whose lore is based in their femininity or powers of seduction (not necessarily always female, from what I understand. Often fae whose powers lay in seduction would appear in a form that the human finds most appealing) the fae-kind are mostly without of human gender?