Very often these conversations about mythic mashups and authenticity get mired in basically people trying to feel out rules for how to do it themselves.

"What makes Wakanda/Tolkien/Example okay but this or that other setting appropriative & problematic... so I can do it good?" https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1147945710115069957

I wrote this post partly in response to that impulse, the one to critique appropriative mashups purely on the axis of authenticity and accuracy (among many other things) http://link.medium.com/ia1RptT9QV 

And there is no perfect shield. No "what if it were lederhosen?" comparison that can save you (if it's a different culture/story/time/object then the context is different and the power dynamics are different, etc).

There are no perfect rules or blueprint that you can follow that will mean your work will do no harm. It is difficult to admit this.

Returning to the creation of these mythic worlds: it's no coincidence that national myths arose in times of nationalism and creation of national identity, no coincidence in who and how this imagery gets evoked and invoked. It can unite and divide, inspire and obliterate.

There's a lot of love for fictional worlds and cultures for their own sake, because they're cool. Creating languages and imagining landscapes because it's fundamentally fun. And I agree? It's why I was drawn to this all. But this shit isn't and cannot be apolitical.

If you create a world inspired by Viking and Celtic myth, populate it full of pale skinned blond haired people and then set of some dark "elves" who live in the south as their enemy... that has unavoidable meaning?

It's not so much I'm telling you to not play with other people's toys, that only they are allowed to or whatever. For me it's that these stories have a fundamental power. And I would very much like you to use it with care.

And I'm trying to keep this light and general, not turn it into some sort of grandiose speech. But One China Policy affects a lot of people. Part of that involves projecting this multiethnic, harmoniously "multicultural but not too multicultural" image of China.

So I'm ambivalent, deeply so, about a mythic mashup of China. What (and who) gets to be part of the aesthetic? What gets left out?

And I'm frustrated because I know this may all be too much for one story to juggle. I intimidate myself out of writing every day like this.

Bear in mind I'm also the person who wrote a rambling critique of how Hogwarts' four founders map onto the constituent parts of the UK and how the founding of Hogwarts projects a certain mythic De Jure identity to the islands back predating any form of political unity IRL.

It's undoubtedly out of date as I wrote it an million years ago and I probably regret it already, but here's a link: https://medium.com/@nettlefish/harry-potter-and-the-spectre-of-british-identity-c12779f56f9a

My point is yes I am someone who probably overreads this. I know. But the words Mythic Tolkien-esque mashup cannot be your get out of jail free card. Especially when Tolkien did have a clear agenda. He wanted to dream up a mythology that he felt had been largely lost to time.

So yeah, there's that.

Also if you're a young diaspora PoC author wanting to write some mashup, I love you, put that research down, you are enough, just write it. You're allowed to make shit up. I'm sorry if my navel gazing is giving you doubt.

PS: I think there's an impulse for a certain sort of worldbuilding nerd (I count myself among them) to want to build big and vast and everything. I think that's where the trap is because we are drawing not from small stories or folklore but NATIONAL MYTHS, the King Arthurs.