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Here is a capybara train passing through your feed

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maruhanamogu on ig

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They vibin’

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source

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I love that the death animations seem random each time like sometimes the imposter’s chest opens up n eats u and sometimes they just snap your neck. sometimes its a knife or a gun. like imagine if the xenomorph in alien was sneaking around and eating ppl but he also had a glock. that would be sick as fuck i think

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HENRY GOLDING Attitude — Dennis Leupold (2020)

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I saw an online tutorial about how to make masks from old clothes, so I cut up this old pair of shorts! I had to hand sew it, and it came out too small, but it's not bad for a first try! What do you think?

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I don't wanna ask you to teach me, but I would like your personal thoughts on white writers who do not want to continually churn out white protags in their stories. Without whitewashing POC experiences, how would a white writer go about writing a POC protagonist accurately? I couldn't think of any examples in media where it'd been done well and thoughtfully.

first off it would be “protagonist of color” not “poc protagonist”, and “experiences of POC”/“POC’s experiences” (i also used to make this mistake so no judgement lol words r hard to keep track of)

second off i think that uh its good to keep in mind that with ur protagonists u are allowed to go into different levels of depth with their backgrounds + heritages without always having that be the focal point of ur protags’ story-- not every protag of color needs to have a story specifically abt racism, or prejudice, or something incredibly intertwined with aspects of the culture they are from. (also sometimes it’s not applicable bc the story’s setting takes place somewhere other than earth). however, there is a baseline level of knowledge and understanding that you have a responsibility to reach when you’re writing them.

i’d sum it up as research your character’s culture, mark out how their lives are impacted by said culture, and listen to the voices of actual poc from the culture you are depicting. preferably, have one of the voices on your writing team.

the kinds of experiences poc go through are incredibly variable. it is impossible to portray a nuanced, sensitive portrayal of a poc without specificity. if your character’s only identifiably ‘ethnic’ trait is slightly tan skin, then you haven’t done enough. simple identifiers like ‘asian’, ‘hispanic’, ‘native american’, ‘black’ arent enough, at least, when that’s literally all the thought you’ve put into it. there are different kinds of asian people. there are different kinds of indigenous people who aren’t necessarily american. the motivation behind making a character who looks like a poc is lost if you are not willing to put in the work to make them believable as a poc. if they’re written from a white perspective, it may as well be a white character who happens to look otherwise.

also, just because your character doesn’t have to deal with racism directly in the narrative doesn’t mean that they’re exempt from the effects of racism in general. every person of color is affected by racism invariably. it is irresponsible to act otherwise. now, as a white person trying to write a character of color, you have to acknowledge that 1. you have no way of truly identifying the kind of trauma that entails for us (no, not even if you are part of [x minority group separate from race]; you are given privilege over members of that group who are poc), and 2. in order to portray a character of color sensitively, you have to take that trauma into account anyway.

this doesn’t mean you have to write about the effects of racism, it means you have to be always careful about what you write and say. it means you have to be aware of the implications of making all your dark-skinned characters animalistic and violent, it means you need to know why making jokes about a Black character “sowing in the fields” originates from deeply insidious racial stereotypes dating back to jim crow, it means you have to truly examine the implications of your villains and how their role in the story lines up with the role colonialism and imperialism has played in real life. you need to make yourself aware of common stereotypes of the culture you are trying to portray lest you accidentally lean into them. research.

but white authors cringe back so easily from writing characters of color even though it’s clearly not impossible, so to demonstrate that it can be done, i actually have an example of a truly well-written protagonist of color from a story i’m rlly fond of. it’s called “the less than epic adventures of tj and amal” (link to read here, it’s complete webcomic, but it’s nsfw if you’re sensitive to that) and one of the main characters is an indian gay man named amal chakravarthy.

the author, ek weaver, is white, so this could easily have gone badly. but the thing is amal is written like an actual human being who, uhh. goes through arcs? and has a personality? he’s allowed to be sad. he’s allowed to be funny. we get to know his music taste. we follow his story dealing with the aftermath of coming out to his parents from his perspective and how his relationship with the other main character, tj, develops. the comic acts as a character study for him that allows us to empathize and become invested in him as a person.

but, the comic doesn’t just leave his ethnicity to an identifiably dark skin tone and a name. it doesn’t discount amal’s experiences as a poc when he’s talking abt being gay, which.... dude... i STILL DONT GET MUCH OF THAT in recent lgbt works, most of which r abt white men (lmao)!

when amal goes to visit his sister sangeeta for her graduation, they actually speak telugu.

it goes a step further too-- the author easily could have sidestepped any mention of discrimination or racism because the story honestly isn’t about that, but a later scene in a diner portrays it. miraculously, it doesn’t come across as ham-handed, exploitative, or vouyeristic, because the way it’s written doesn’t revel in its character’s pain. it’s reserved, realistic, and upsettingly accurate.

i’ve literally had stuff like this said to me in public <3

amal’s backstory also could have been pretty shitty (it’s a stereotype of asian parents to be conservative, homophobic, abusive keepers to their children) but it manages not to be. this part of amal’s story is not treated as set dressing. the strained and complex bonds with his family (his sisters included, not just his parents) are an essential part of amal’s arc. he simply wouldn’t be a good character without it. thus, they are given a nuanced, sensitive portrayal.

and even though amal’s parents don’t appear that often in the story, they aren’t one-note caricatures who hate their son for no reason; they’re just as flawed and human as everyone else in the story.

ultimately that’s the key -- acknowledging our humanity. ek weaver writes amal and his family like human beings because they are humans. when white people try to write people of color, in their rush to commodify our pain into something digestible for a white audience, they forget to write us as people first and foremost.

now, obviously i don’t have a spotlight into what the creative process of ek’s writing here; i think it’s obvious they did a lot of research and were careful with how these elements were handled. amal has always been a super important character to me as representation; this story has been super important to me in general because it shows you can do it. you can fucking write a protagonist of color if you try. if you put in the work and responsibility it’s completely possible, which is a sentiment so many white creatives seem unconvinced of. here’s my proof to you guys. stop being so paralyzed by your indecision and the fear of being perceived as racist that you prevent yourself from growing as a writer and poc from seeing characters like them.

support creators of color by all means, but to leave all the work to us-- placing the responsibility on us when we have such a comparatively small voice in mainstream media, while simultaneously dodging your own responsibility to write characters of color respectably-- is an alienating and tiring sentiment. change comes from action, not just “taking our words into consideration”-- you have to fucking do something too. you’re a writer, so write. write with the same nuance and thought you put into any other part of writing. it has always been possible.

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Spider-Cat in Spider-Man: Miles Morales

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Swordtember by Faith Schaffer