Where To Start?

I suppose with walking you through some decisions I made related to this blog. Let’s start with something you can see, something you can easily consider, before vanishing down the rabbit holes of my mind.

Why a black cat?

I have three cats.

All three are siblings. All three are gorgeous, wonderful creatures who bring me joy every day.

So why did I pick Salmiakki (Sal) for my branding?

Well, I had that picture of her playing with a pencil, which was a great fit for a writing blog. But that’s not why I picked her.

And she has a delightfully regal, refined air about her. But that’s not why I picked her.

And she likes to hang out in my room while I sit at my desk, loftily supervising from her comfy hammock. But that’s not why I picked her.

The reason for choosing Sal is that a tabby cat is first and foremost seen as a cat. Whereas if I include a black cat in a story, people assume that choice must be meaningful. In the zeitgeist of my culture a black cat is not a cat who happens to be black, but a literary symbol which happens to be cat shaped.

If I put a cat in my story and decide to make it black because, well, that’s a colour which cats can be, I run the risk of accusations like “misleading the reader”. Because despite people knowing that black cats exist, and are simply cats, and even if they think nothing of it on seeing a black cat irl… the decision to include a black cat in a fictional work requires justification.

That’s othering in a nutshell.

If I put an autistic character in a story their autism must be relevant.

If I put a queer character in a story their queerness must be relevant.

If I put a nonbinary character in a story their gender must be relevant.

If I put a psychopathic character in a story their personality disorder must be relevant (and portrayed negatively).

People like me are only allowed in fiction when we function as devices. Whether we function as a character, and can fill a given slot just as well as any other character would, is irrelevant.

If I write a story where a character with cerebral palsy is just vibing, it’s seen as perfectly reasonable to ask “so why did you give them cerebral palsy?”. Yet nobody points to a character with glasses and demands to know why I didn’t have an entire scene dedicated to expositing why they wear glasses, and how severely they need glasses, and what happens when they don’t have their glasses. In fact people would find such a scene silly.

(If you have classic Scooby-Doo memes in your head, me too!)

There is a long list of societal defaults, rarely spelled out yet concretely present. Any choice to use a default setting is treated as if it’s not a choice at all (and in many cases it’s not a deliberate choice). Any choice to deviate from those settings is treated as significant. Any existence which happens to fall outside those settings, with no choosing involved, is treated as problematic.

Whereas Jasper and Griselda are allowed to exist as unique complex entities, Sal was born into a world that plastered her with baggage. She was never going to be “just” a cat.

So, if you saw a black cat and immediately your brain filled in a ton of symbolism and assumptions, know that was the point. Not the symbolism and assumptions themselves, but the fact that you’ve been trained to make them.

Just be aware.