#I for sure understand wanting more darker skinned characters as rep

[unmotivatedwrit3r]

PSA that people need to stop spelling Damian’s name “Damien,” especially if you’re up in arms about him being whitewashed

Now I will say that I’m not fluent by any means in Arabic, but I have begun studying it to bring myself closer to my culture, and am thus now very familiar with the alphabet. And by learning the alphabet, I have learned that there is no “eh” sound in it, much less a vowel that directly translates to “e” when anglicized. The vowels in the Arabic alphabet are primarily “a,” “o/u,” and “i,” so it needs to be spelled Damian to be an accurate translation

In Arabic, it’s spelt داميان

That is to say: the letters d, aa, m, ii, aa, n

Hence, Damian

I would also like to ask that people please don’t equate being pale with whitewashing. I’m as Arab as Damian is but my family is on the paler side (edit: even with strong olive undertones and other ‘traditional’ features). And we’re still Arab

[melaningifs]

So I’m asian and honestly I find your blog kinda offensive. Most of your post are of originally asian characters but you racebent them so they aren’t anymore. It feels kinda hypocritical that you say whitewashing is bad because it takes away representation from POC but then you turn around and take away asian rep. Before you say “blasains exist” it doesn’t matter you still chose to look at a POC and say “hmm they’re not POC enough so let’s darken their skin” it’s really hurtful that this happens it makes me (and definitely others) feel like we’re not allowed to have rep without someone saying that “it’s not good POC rep because they’re basically white” (which is not true). Just let me ask you how would you feel if I took a canonically black character and made them chinese. Would you be mad? Because according to your logic you shouldn’t because they’re both POC.

What makes them Asian characters to you? Because they’re made in Asia? A lot of the characters I do don’t have disclosed races or exist in a fantasy land where that probably doesn’t exist

Does having dark skin make them any less Asian? They don’t even have to be mixed or blasian some asians just don’t have pale skin, melanin is just a thing people, news flash 

The way you phrase this comes off as you thinking having darker skin is an insult to asians

“It feels kinda hypocritical that you say whitewashing is bad because it takes away representation” I really hope you’re not implying that my edits are at all equivalent to whitewashing… do you genuinely believe there is a shortage of pale skinned Asian anime characters in anime? (Asian’s is in italics cause they might not even have a race) If your answer is no than I really think you’d be able to understand the difference of my edits to whitewashing

If you wanted to make a black character Chinese you’d first have to dig to find that black character in the first place so out of the tons of characters out there you choose to convert the black one would be really strange of you especially considering they’re usually side characters, have significantly less screen time to their counterparts, and the show their in might not even be well known, all the series with my favourite black representation, none of them are mainstream, compared to bigger anime like naruto, death note, sailor moon, dragon ball, pretty popular anime that anyone that’s been in the anime community long enough wouldve heard atleast one of these names, sailor moon? No black/dark skin characters and if there was there’s probably a reason why I wouldn’t even know if they existed, hmmm lack of screen time or importance in the series in comparison to their pale counterparts perhaps? What about death note? none existent. Naruto? There’s fuu but she’s barely known about, for reason I’ve listed above and dragon ball is straight up racist caricatures, you could say that it’s just the anime that I’ve decided to use an example but it really does apply to all the most popular, and sure there’s anime out there with black protagonists but you really have to purposefully look for them to find them. 

“ Before you say “blasains exist” it doesn’t matter you still chose to look at a POC and say “hmm they’re not POC enough so let’s darken their skin” “ what?????????? What prompted you to think I ever thought “they’re not POC enough”? What I’m getting from this is that you don’t at all understand why I make these edits, it’s literally in my bio but I’ll spell it out for you I geuss, it’s so that black/darker skinned people can feel seen in the characters and anime that they love, so I have no idea where you got the idea of “making them more poc” even came from 

I have asians followers that don’t feel offended by my edits or upset by adding melanin to characters so maybe there’s a memo you’re missing

I actually have a resource that debunks everything you’ve said in a lot fewer words because I reallyyyy didn’t feel like re-explaining this but I feel like there are just a lot of things you misunderstand which lead you to jump to strange conclusions so I hope this clears things up for you, here’s the resource anyways tho

This resource and more linked in my rentry

[sporkkles-irl]

this isn't meant to come off as hostile and im sorry if it does, but why do you make rui and nene so much darker than in canon? i understand when black artists do it because it's blasian rep that we severely need in asian media but since ur white i don't rly see the point? i do wish the prsk characters had more than one collective skin tone dont get me wrong!! i'm not trying to police what skin tones you give characters i just want ur thought process! thank u!

personally i find it a little limiting artistically when something i like lacks diversity in skintones, so drawing everyone with the exact same pale skintone they have in canon would seem kinda boring/look bad to me.

plus, i really like the hc that rui and nene are blasian, and want to portray that hc accurately. those designs in particular are actually inspired by some other artists in the community who's urls are slipping my mind rn but if i find ill srb and link here >_<

bottom line it's more fun to me to draw a diverse cast than a non-diverse one, i hope that's alright. i also do try and put thought into who i do this to to try and avoid harmful stereotypes as best i can and im not claiming that my interpretation is better than anyone else's or whatever, i just find it more fun to draw basically sjdjfjdj

i understand if it makes people uncomfortable bc i am white, and im of course willing to stop drawing those characters that way. i just like those hcs and those interpretations and wanna make sure they get shown accurately in my art.

[purns-art]

hi could you explain why zoya being white (passing) is problematic? i know that its bad that it reinforce the idea that white is the standard of beauty but i never saw her describe as dark in the books and wanted to understand why its different than beautiful white characters. sorry for my ignorance on this

Sure!

So basically, if you look at the artwork that Leigh commissioned, she clearly isn’t white passing. We were lead to believe that her skin was darker because of the OFFICIAL artwork. Brown girls often are subject to ridicule. For example the line Zoya said about people making fun of the hair on her arms really resonated with me. Not to mention, asians don’t have much rep, especially in fantasy. It felt good for me to see a brown character that was so badass and ruthless, that went against every stereotype of a brown woman, play such a big part in some of my favorite books. And, throughout all the books, Zoya is referred to being extremely beautiful, which is felt so empowering to me, because I’ve struggled with self image when I was younger. Zoya being white-passing reinforces the idea that white-ness is the ideal beauty standard. And as someone who has seen ads for skin lightening creams and has to deal with blatant colorism, I’m just sick of it, and wanted to see more poc characters. In King of Scars, it felt like Leigh was doing everything not to address her skin tone, and just threw in a few words about her having a Suli father. I understand that as a white author, Leigh cannot portray a poc experience as accurately as a poc author, but it felt like a real slap in the face to see one of my favorite series fall into this trope. Hope this clears up some things! 

:) 

[apollodankaciyorum]

if its okay can i ask you a question about turkey/people from turkey, its the term 'racializated' used there? its something uhm that is taked into consideration there? let me explain you, im from argentina, my mom is a black brazilian women and my dad just like i dont know 70% of my class is what people from usa for example call 'brown' latinos, like dilan for example of skam es, i and many poc people call those people instead of 'brown', 'racializated' many of them feel and me included tbh+ 1/

+feel the term is not really correct or many friends feel uncomfortable with it so they rated 'racializated', im not sure if you speak spanish there is this person @/haluami they is a indigenous person who wrote very good texts about this topic there is one about racializated people, and basically society put you down because of your skin color, traits, and / or ethnicity, so i can't help but wonder if thats the case of yousef, but im not turkish so i understand concepts change+ 2/

+depends on the country, culture, etc i understand all of that, so i have a lot of doubts because i dont want to break the privacy of course of the actor of yousef but i wonder if the character 'take' stuff about him or if they are statments in the show itself, i dont know, the poc term itself have some stuff people agree or not, its all a very complicated situation i still believe the show treatment to non-white males is bad i dont know but i will hear and see others opinion the 'white washing'

...

well first of all, I want to say that I’m not an expert on these issues, but I also think that I can answer your questions to some extent, at least I will try my best. and I hope I don’t offend anyone, please call me out if I do so (that’s for my fellow citizens of turkey) so here I go: (sorry it turned out to be so long)

1- I haven’t heard the term “racialization” before, so I looked it up and I realized that I know what that is, just I wasn't familiar with its name. From what I get, it means ascribing stereotypes on people about their races. So if that’s what you mean, then sure, we have this in turkey unfortunately. but i’m not an expert on sociology and other sciences regarding this topic, so any other Turkish person could heard this term, just not me.

2- Turkey is an ethnically rich country, I don't know if you know the historical developments but this is the shortest way to address this, we have a lot of different cultures here, but not as much as the times before the WW1. Nowadays, there are Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian, a small amount of Rum (orthodox christians whose descendants are from the Byzantine Empire), Laz (similarly their descendants are from the Pontus Rum Empire which was located in the northern region of Turkey, but they are mostly Turkish nationalist muslims rn) people and other small communities of different cultures. well I'm rambling lol :))))

3-well some of these people accept these “racialized” prejudices when they are not offensive (from what I get at least) for example some of Laz people accept that most of the Laz people have some familiar facial features or some Kurdish people joke about how their uncle/aunt is younger than them due to their family structure etc. but mostly this racialization occurs in an offensive way like calling Kurdish people terrorists (bc of PKK, a Kurdish (terrorist) military group -- this is a way too controversial topic, so I won’t be mentioning this again, I don’t want to talk about this, sorry) or denying Armenian Genocide (again, this is a controversial topic too and interestingly recent although this issue regards the events during and after WW1) so to answer your question, yes there is racialization in turkey.

4- about yousef: well I watched sana season on February 2019 so I can’t remember all the details about him being from Turkey. I just remember he went to Turkey at the end of the season and I kinda remember that he wasn’t a muslim although his family practiced Islam, but I’m not so sure so I’ll just assume I remember correctly. 

5- Yousef isn’t a man of color. there are darker skinned Turkish people for sure but having a lighter skinned Turkish actor to play a Turkish character is NOT white washing. because there are lighter skinned Turkish people too. I don’t really know what comes to mind when you (I mean non-Turkish people) think about a Turkish person, but from my perspective, I can’t really draw an average Turkish person for you. there are caucasian looking Turkish people, there are mongloid looking Turkish people, heck there are afro-Turkish people too. So, yep Yousef is not white-washed. He’s not even white. AND I certainly call that he’s too white to be considered as moc. but I’m not an expert, just an ordinary Turkish woman. 

6- Most recently, Turkish youth tend to leave practicing Islam and instead become atheist or deist or agnostic. I can guess why, though I’m not sure if I should say it but you can search it from google, pretty sure you can find the answer :) So, Yousef being an atheist/not Muslim is a really good rep for Turkish youth bc I’m sure that most people assume Turkish people are %99.9 faithful muslims.

7- However, I can assure you that Yousef does not reflect any racialization happening in Turkey. I wouldn’t want a Norwegian internet show talking about these issues too, but I would really like if Druck (German SKAM) dwelled upon these issues since there is a big Turkish community (I’m talking about a near million in number, maybe more) and there are huge issues of/regarding Turkish people that could be reflected in national tv, and I would like to see a more politically active/woke Turkish character (in a Jonas sense) in Druck (because since 2012-2013, the amounts of politically active youth is increasing more than ever, bc what’s happening rn in Turkey -again, you can just take a look in Turkish news- ) but assuming from the appearance of Ismail Inci (new gen Druck character) this is not the case, one can only hope for deeper (by deep, I mean not just this goofy guy who only talks about kebab or girls or Turkish/German rap) Turkish characters though :(

8- I don’t know much about the actor but he sounded fluent in Norwegian so I can assume that 1) he was born in Norway or 2) they moved to Norway when he was younger. and from that, I can guess that he’s not familiar to racialization as much as a Turkish person living in Turkey and that could be the huge reason why Julie and the crew didn’t give Yousef a chance to dwell upon these. 

9- and I know I told you this, but if someone else tries to read this whole thing, Yousef is not the Turkish version of the name, it’s Yusuf (both u’s are read staccato) and I don’t know why his name is Yousef instead of Yusuf.  

wow, I didn’t expect this to be a giant, but I hope I answered your questions. and I’m not a Spanish speaker (although I want to learn but my only source is Duolingo bc I'm broke) I won’t be able to follow your blog recommendation. I’m really sorry for taking this long and writing this long. Thanks for seeking knowledge about us though, it’s not something I usually encounter with and it felt validating and good. So thank you too! Have a nice day (or night? it’s nighttime here)

[itsclydebitches]

So this racial coding, what do we do with them? Disregard them as much as we can? Mix and match? Break sterotypes and avoid hurtful implications, obviously, but... I'm not sure how to go about this racial coding. Avoid like the plague? Somehow use it in a positive way. I'm sorry for my ignorance; I wish to learn and be better. I don't want to hurt any of readers so what can I do?

What’s first important to remember is that coding of all sorts happens in fiction naturally (as said, we’re obviously basing things off of real experiences in one way or another) and it’s not always harmful. The harmful stuff just gets the most attention and makes for the easiest examples. You can also get plenty of stories in the vein of, “Hey! This awesome fantasy group is clearly based off of [insert culture here]. Nice” and everyone moves on with some happy coded rep. 

For the less nice stuff, yeah, be critical of your own work whenever you can. The other day I was working on a fic, was toying with various characteristics for this character, thought about making them Deaf, and had an immediate response of, “No. That wouldn’t work for their job.” Then I paused. Wait. Why do I assume they couldn’t do this job? Or at the very least, why am I assuming that the job would be significantly harder for them? Am I basing this off of something legitimate, or just the pervasive stereotypes I’ve been immersed in my whole life regarding what a Deaf person presumably can and cannot do? I eventually realized it was the latter, but I was only able to stop and re-evaluate my assumptions at all because I’ve had three years of ASL lessons and cultural studies. Just enough immersion for a little BS light to come on in my brain. As you say—yay learning! So yeah, sometimes (often after you’ve learned to be Aware Of The Thing) you can think through your reasoning and your choices. Why do I think this disabled person couldn’t be the hero? Why am I inclined to give these antagonists a darker skin color? Why did I make the math nerd the only Chinese kid in the group? All of which isn’t to say such combinations can NEVER happen, but now I’m aware that it will probably send a particular message. Am I willing to stand by that? Or, how might I adapt the story to allow for this combination without the negative side-effects? Example: you’re not saying something about the entirety of Chinese people by making this kid the math nerd if you include a bunch of other Chinese people in your story. Oh look, human variety. 

A lot of times though—most of the time even—we’re not aware of these kinds of influences. Either because we haven’t been taught to be critical of that thinking; the thinking is still too ingrained; the stereotypes are far more subtle than the above examples and thus harder to understand, let alone spot; there’s too much going on to analyze each and every choice we make (if you’re crafting a whole world chances are you’re gonna make at least some decisions without a big song and dance debate). Regardless of why the potentially problematic coding got in there, chances are it is there somewhere—writers are human. We’re gonna fuck up in a variety of ways—which is why listening becomes important. For all types of representation. Listen when minority groups, different cultures, just people who are different from you in any way say, “Hey. This Thing? It was a bit not good…” The good writers aren’t the ones who get everything perfect the first time around (again: human) but the ones who work to improve. Be the John Green, not the JK Rowling. The one who goes, “Oh. A huge portion of my readership finds this manic pixie dream girl trope both offensive and outdated? Okay. I’ll address that in future books.” Not the one going, “Oh. My appropriation of your culture done without good research is highly offensive to you? Yeah, I’m gonna just ignore all this…” 

And we acknowledge that none of these issues have easy answers attached to them. What one person finds offensive another might not even blink at (and both are from the same demographic). You might try to undermine a stereotype—Jaune is gonna be the useless character instead of the hero—and find that you haven’t totally succeeded (see: previous metas on Jaune’s continued trope-ness). And even if you do succeed there will always, ALWAYS be debate. You will never produce a text that pleases everyone. Or it it seems that way at first glance? Give it ten years. Let your readership grow up, the world evolve, and see if everyone still thinks your story is perfect (again: Harry Potter). For every fifty people cheering that we finally got a woman-led Marvel movie, there’s at least twenty-five screaming about how everything is too PC nowadays; the feminists are taking over. The question is, will you use the support of the twenty-five to justify a potentially horrible position? 

Ultimately it comes down to each individual author deciding for themselves what’s important. Continue educating yourself (for! your! whole! life! it never ends! hell yeah asking questions on tumblr!!), do your research, and then be open to people suggesting that you’ve made a misstep. It’s then up to you to decide whether you think they were right in their assessment of the work and, if so, what you’ll do about it moving forward. 

[kimabutch]

i honestly don’t know what would or would not make beau a butch at this point. actually, i don’t know. is it a hard fact, or a matter of opinion? if beau were to say “i’m butch” on the show, would it be a confirmation, or would it be marisha getting it wrong? does butch rep require the character to verbally confirm? is keg butch? i don’t know how yasha would ID. i’m just a baby bi and very confused

Please do not reblog this post. I’m not here to strike up a debate, just to answer someone’s question. I’m not taking further questions on this matter. 

Hey anon. I appreciate you asking these questions and your confusion — I’ve been in your position before. However, you also have to know that what you’re asking has been the subject of intense political debate, both in the wider community and among butches ourselves. Entire books have been written to answer these subjects, and I have not read a fraction of them. I’m going to try to answer your questions because I know it’s confusing, but please understand that these are just the opinions of a relatively young butch who doesn’t have all the answers. I’m speaking here out of a little bit of historical research, but mostly my own experiences with other butches. Please forgive me if I don’t speak to your experiences, or if you disagree with me — this is not meant as absolute fact.

So, what makes someone a butch? I would say that it’s somewhere between “opinion” and “fact.” There are traits that mark you as butch, and I can often “identify” butches walking down the street — especially when they clearly recognize me. At the same time, if someone tells me that they don’t identify as butch, I will completely respect that and will never refer to them as such. However, I wouldn’t feel bad about assuming, in the same way that if someone who I knew to be a woman told me she was exclusively attracted to women, I wouldn’t be wrong for assuming that she’s a lesbian — but also would respect her if she told me she didn’t identify as such. 

It gets even more complicated with fictional characters, especially those played/written by people who aren’t butches. In general, it doesn’t require verbal confirmation to be butch rep, but I honestly don’t know what I’d do if a character that I didn’t consider butch were to identify as such in fiction. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. 

The traits that indicate butchness are again, super controversial but also difficult to explain, because in my experience, butches have our own particular ways of presenting that are rooted in butch history, but which may also vary depending on region and culture. In general — and again, this is very debatable — I might say that butches feel most comfortable presenting in a masculine fashion and/or in a way that is culturally or typically associated with men, but which usually diverges slightly from men or takes on a unique butch flavour, because we’re not men. I say “feel most comfortable presenting” because there are butches out there who are not in a safe enough place to present in the way that they’d like to. I’ll also note that “presentation” doesn’t just include clothing or hair, but also things like physical stance and place within the larger community. A lot of these things are also done unconsciously — I didn’t realize how many traits I shared with other butches until I actually began connecting with them. 

I understand that this is also very vague, so I’ll give you an example. Butches almost always feel most comfortable in shirts from the men’s section. However, we have a tendency towards certain types of men’s shirts. I’ve noticed that a lot of us really love button downs, especially over t-shirts: this is both a cultural tradition and a bit of typical butch pragmatism: if men’s shirts “gape” over breasts (as is a problem for many, though not all butches), then the t-shirt will stop skin from showing. In terms of t-shirts, a lot of butches gravitate towards thicker fabric and/or darker colours, sometimes without realizing, because those have the ability to de-emphasize curves, which many butches don’t want to show off if we have them. These aren’t “rules” by any means — a lot of butches don’t do these things — but I just wanted to point out these trends in the community to explain my point, that butches have styles associated with men, but with specific butch tendencies. 

Also going to answer @goblinbuckets‘s question here, about “andro lesbian,” which is a term with many synonyms depending on what circles you’re part of. I’d say it’s a lesbian who takes on aspects of masculinity and femininity, although again, it’s a specific “look” within the community. It’s often sporty and/or streetwear. It could be men’s clothing, but tailored in a more feminine style. Undercuts and shorter hair, but in styles not typically associated with men. A desire to wear makeup (which I’d say most butches don’t want to wear), but, like Beau, it’s a day old and they’ve gotten into a fight while wearing it. Wearing menswear casually, but when you dress up, you’d be happy in something more typically feminine. I’d put Ruby Rose in that category, and also Hayley Kiyoko in “Feelings.” It’s not in any way “less than” butches, or a step down or anything — it’s a very different, specific style, and I’m not sure I’ve done it justice here. 

So. Getting back to CR. Keg presents in a manner typically associated with butches. Different people will tell you different things about bi women identifying as butch (there are bi women and lesbians on both sides of the “debate”) but a) I don’t have my mind absolutely made up on it one way or another and b) I don’t want to get into any fights about this — it’s a very personal subject matter for a lot of people, and also rooted in a history that I haven’t fully researched. I don’t feel qualified to talk about it at all, and I’d ask people to respect that. I don’t really think Yasha falls into any categories I can think of, but definitely not butch. 

Anyways… sorry if I’ve made things more confusing or made you scared to get into a subject that’s a little controversial. I hope it helped just a bit. 

To reiterate: please do not reblog this post. I’m not here to strike up a debate, just to answer someone’s question. I’m not taking further questions on this matter.