Thread by @seananmcguire

I want to talk about representation for a second. Specifically:

* Something can be good representation without being stated by the creator (queer-coding can be both positive and negative).
* Interpretation counts
* The creator should not get credit for anything outside the text

A few people have told me they read Dodger, in MIDDLEGAME, as asexual. This is a valid interpretation of her character! If you read the book and feel like she's great ace rep, that's wonderful! Take her with you when you go!

But that doesn't mean I should get a gold star for writing an ace character, because she doesn't own that identity. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't, either way, I didn't put it on the page.

(Obviously, this is only about fictional characters. Real people's identities are valid and true whether or not they feel like explaining them to anyone.)

Especially when you're reading older material, written when homosexuality was criminalized, positive queer characters can be hard to come by, but some characters were very clearly written that way.

This is what I mean when I say queer-coding can be a good thing. Obviously, every Disney villain ever being written as evil and gay is not awesome. But a hero who reads like you'd meet him Friday night at the Castro could have been an attempt to dodge social mores.

Interpretation matters. When I was a little girl, I read Megan (from My Little Pony) as a lesbian, desperately in love with Firefly (her talking, sentient Pegasus companion). I still view her that way today.

I doubt that was the intent of her creators. But it's what they showed me, and it's what I saw, and it's what I will always see. I get to interpret her however I like, without their input.

And that whole "if you have to Word of God it, it doesn't count" thing cuts both ways. We never saw Megan with a human boy. If her creators see this thread and go "um, no, Megan was straight," well. It's not in the text.

No heterosexual gold star for you!

Word of God can be both good and bad. Good because sometimes it clears up authorial intent in a positive way, bad because it's a great way for someone to claim they included a level of diversity that wasn't there. All the credit, none of the lost sales!

Now, we need more openly stated, on-the-page representation, for all kinds of people. But it's not on the creator to Word of God something that seemed a little vague. We still get to read things however we like.