#I can’t even give them the understanding bc I’m a gentile. I don’t know the issues like they do. I can’t even say the prayers right

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

One of the older women I sometimes sit with at the synagogue this morning apparently has ten relatives who are apparently missing. The rabbi said she thinks they might be hostages. Her mother died a month ago. The other woman I sit with always stands for the mourners Kaddish, and when I saw them last they were holding hands

[kuroopaisen]

hi! i saw your post about the fascism in aot and i’m jewish and although i don’t watch or read it, i will say that i’ve heard it is extremely antisemitic, and i don’t know all the details (i definitely dont watch it specifically because of it being antisemitic but i know people who are jewish who do watch the show) but what information i’ve got about the antisemitic aspects is that,, the titans (?) are supposed to represent jews who can only... regain their humanity by ... eating people (? correct me if i’m wrong on that premise) but that’s... really really antisemitic, thinking of jews as anything but just another person (reptilian, alien, or in this case, titian) is a super antisemitic trope that’s ... really popular in several forms of media also the germanic/nazi imagery also tends to be antisemitic, again i’m not entirely sure about the details just bcs i refuse to watch a show that paints jews as monsters, but yeah i just... wanted to let you know (also here’s a twitter thread about it!)

first things first, as a gentile i don’t feel like i’m in any place to say something is or isn’t antisemetic! but hhh a good way to sum up my ‘ideological’ assessment of aot is “is isayama a nazi? probably not. is isayama an anti-pacifistic nationalist? not unlikely!” and that’s the reason i said in my earlier post that it’s impossible to say he is or is not the latter until the ending, if that makes sense? also, it’s highly concerning if he is a pro-war nationalist, given the horrific crimes against humanity committed by the imperial japanese army. 

saying he’s not a nazi doesn’t mean he’s not antisemetic; even if the antisemetic aspects aren’t intentional propaganda, they’re still harmful (and a common issue with deconstruction is that... well, sometimes it’s so faithful to what it’s deconstructing that the people being criticized end up adopting it -- such as american history x). also, apparently that germanic aesthetic is really popular in japan? sort of like how some people in america identify as francophiles. which... is concerning? 

i think a big issue with aot is that the eldians are sort of... a combination of jews and japanese people? isayama obviously draws heavily from holocaust imagery, but a lot of the... themes and the text itself seems more in line with japan? and by that, i mean specifically the war-mongering past (when grisha’s father explains eldian history to him which is very much centred on conquest and empire, and grisha retort “but me and my sister didn’t do any of that!” which echoes certain nationalistic sentiments in japan) holocaust imagery is more ‘window dressing’; an aesthetic i don’t think he had any right to co-opt, given that he isn’t jewish himself. also, conflating the discrimination against the jews in twentieth century europe with the reparations demanded of japan once the empire fell is... not just tactless, but definitely damaging? 

ooo okay so with the ‘regaining humanity��� thing... the short form is that there are nine ‘special titans’ who can change between human form and titan form. if a ‘pure titan’ eats someone who currently ‘has’ one of those nine titans, then they technically gain that ability to change back and forth. otherwise, eldians can’t turn into titans at will; it’s something forced upon them by injections given by either the rulers of the previous eldian empire or the marleyans. 

oh also death of the author means i may be interpreting aot all wrong. not that ‘word of god’ would give isayama reprieve for the pernicious aspects of his work, but that’s an important point to remember. furthermore, i completely understand and respect people who avoid it because of how he uses a jewish allegory -- and nobody should admonish them for taking that stand. 

[searchforthescars]

I actually dare you so hard to write an IT fic bc that shit was made for Siken

Sorry for sleeping on this so long anon - I’ve been in Editing Hell w my own manuscript but I needed to shake the cobwebs off today so dashed this off real quick

AU in which Richie comes out and gets to become the chaotic bisexual we all know he is and also the losers figure it out too I guess? idk I don’t actually know what else this is so just,,,,enjoy, I guess? 

CW for internalized bi/homophobia. Poem snippets from You are Jeff and A Primer for the Small Weird Loves.

The boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwaterbecause he is trying to kill you,and you deserve it, you do, and you know this,and you are ready to die in this swimming poolbecause you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this meansyour life is over anyway.You're in eighth grade. You know these things.

You’re used to this panic by now. It doesn’t even faze you...much.

When you feel it next, it’s during the last swim of the year. It’s September, the day before school starts, and the water is cold enough to make Stan and Bill’s fair skin erupt in red splotches, and for your own to goosepimple up in an almost painful way.

Eddie is piggybacking you, legs wrapped around your waist, heels digging into your hips, stomach or wherever else he can grip to keep his balance. Eddie’s wearing those terrycloth red shorts he practically lived in all summer. His mom said he was outgrowing them, so Eddie retired him to the bin in his closet you know are reserved for clothes that are okay to get dirty.

“Richie, hold me up!” Eddie complains, scrabbling for purchase on your bony shoulders. You’ve shot up a good five inches in the past couple months, and no one hates it more than Eddie.

You hooks your arms around Eddie’s, and your heart drops at how close your hands are to Eddie’s thighs, those stupid red shorts riding way too far up for your liking. You can’t keep your eyes away from the contrast between Eddie’s tanned skin and your own sickly-pale color.

You lift your eyes when Bill coughs. You two lock eyes across the quarry. Bill’s clear blue ones are narrowed slightly, his head tilted. You okay? You can’t read minds, but he’s been reading Bill’s face for years.

You nod and let Eddie go with a splash, crowing when the smaller boy shrieks. Eddie springs upright and hauls you back and down by the shoulders, grappling you down to his knees and pushing your shoulders down, down, down until you’re underwater-

And your eyes are open, so he sees it all: the flat planes of your best friend’s stomach, his dexterous fingers and above it all, both in sight and importance, the eager brown of his wide eyes, his messy hair and gleeful smile.

You think, wildly, that you should probably just die now, accidentally, so Bowers and his friends wouldn’t even have a chance. A boy who loves boys in Derry is as good as dead, and you even more so if your friends, your only protection, ever found out. Would they forgive you this? Would they-

Your panic is interrupted when Eddie pulls you up by the arm. “You were just floating down there!” His voice is panicked. You wrap your arm around his shoulder and he sags into you. “I thought- I’m sorry, Rich, I-”

“I’m all good, Eds.” Eddie snorts at the nickname. “Just waiting for you to get enough of attempting to murder me.”

“Shut up, Richie.” His lips curl up. You wish you could touch them. Your thumb burns as if you already have. You duck underwater and swim away, fast, letting out the rest of your inhaled air in a long, low scream.

If It can hear you, you hope It knows there was never any danger of you being brave.

-----

You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to dolong division,and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unlesshe keeps his mouth shut, which is what youdidn't do,because you are weak and hollow and it doesn't matter anymore.

“What would you do if you liked someone you shouldn’t?”

Your feet skid on the grass, kicking some of it up as you stop your bike and look back to stare at Stan. “What? You found yourself a Gentile girl or something?”

Stan rolls his eyes, shoving messy curls out of his face. Bill noted once that both of your hair, while similar in texture, matched your personalities. Stan’s, while wildly curly, is tightly-coiled and forced into orderliness. Your dark strands are hopeless, a wild mess of waves and curls that no one can ever hope to tame.

“No, Richie.” He’s the same serious kid he was at fifteen than he was as a kid. You’re a little more serious now, too. High school does that to a guy, you suppose, and if you have a prayer of getting into UCLA and getting the hell out of Derry, taking school seriously had to be a priority. You’re not a fan of the seriousness bleeding into the rest of your life, but oh well.

“Then what?”

Stan looks around the Barrens furtively, as if someone’s listening. You roll your eyes. “Come on, Staniel.”

“Not here.” He sets off for the clubhouse, walking his bike when he can’t ride it. You two don’t speak again until you’re underground, the hatch closed. “I mean...what if you like someone everyone would hate you for liking?”

“Stan.” You kick off your shoes and settle into the hammock. “I don’t think your dad is going to care-”

“I think I like boys.”

Stan says it in a rush. His eyes are huge, owlish and afraid. Your heart sinks to the pit of my stomach and sits there.

Even Stanley is braver than you, whispers that voice in your head that sounds like that fucking psycho clown.

“Oh.”

Stan’s shoulders slump. “Is that all you have to say?”

You sit upright in the hammock. Shove your glasses up your nose. “I don’t... It doesn’t matter to me. You’re still my friend.”

Stan’s whole body relaxes, as if his strings have been cut. “Are you sure?”

“Am I- Stan. Come on. It’s going to take more than- Wait!” You lean forward. “Is it Mike? Please say it’s Mike, Eddie’s going to owe me so much money if its-”

“Fine! Yes, Trashmouth, it’s Mike! Happy?”

You whoop, falling back and swinging back and forth. “You’ve made me a rich man, Staniel!”

Stan flips you the bird. You flip him one back. Then, because you’re trying to not be a total asshole, you sit up again. “Thanks. For telling me, I mean.”

Stan gives you a small smile. “Thanks for not hating me.”

Your voice trembles when you speak again and you won’t, won’t, won’t think about why. “I don’t think any of the Losers could ever hate you.”

“Why are we hating someone?” Eddie asks, climbing carefully down the ladder. You obediently slide over when all five-foot-nine of him settles into the hammock beside you.

“We’re not,” Stan says. You smile at him over Eddie’s head.

“Oh. I thought someone was bullying Bill again.” Eddie takes off your glasses.

“HEY!”

“They’re poking my face and I want to nap,” Eddie says imperiously. You hold still as Eddie makes himself comfortable, forehead against your temple and chin on your shoulder. There’s a burning knot coiling low in your stomach. It’s nauseating. It’s thrilling. You never want to feel it again.

But you will. You’ll feel it tonight when you climb in Eddie’s window. You’ll feel it tomorrow when you walk to school with him and he pops open the first button of his shirt to reveal a small strip of collarbone and skin. You’ll feel it the next day and the next and then next. You might even die from it someday.

Could you ever do what Stan did? Throw out such a deep, dark secret into the world and hope it didn’t throw it back at you with enough force to bruise? Could you be that brave?

No. You’re not brave. You never have been. 

You time your breathing with Eddie’s. When you inhale, you breathe in coward. When you exhale, you breathe out secrets.

-----

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired.

“Richie?”

Eddie’s not looking at you. His head is leaning against the window of your car and he’s staring out at the dark night ahead of you. It’s summer in Derry, a dry heat and too-quiet nights to keep you company on the drive out to the Hanlon farm, where tents and a movie night await.

“Yeah?”

“I... I need to tell you something.”

Something about his tone strikes you. You pull over and put the car in park. “What’s wrong, Eds?”

He looks over at you, lips parted. His breath comes short. You think about reaching for the inhaler you started keeping in the glove compartment when you started driving. He hasn’t needed it in years, but you hang onto it anyway. Just in case. “I...”

He can’t say whatever it is. You wait. His eyes are impossibly wide, his shoulders heaving with his breaths. There’s color high in his cheeks. You wish, vaguely, like you do every time, that you could kiss him there. Or better, that you could shut off that urge entirely. That would be better.

“Eds.” Your voice is weirdly soft. You don’t even know if Eddie can hear you. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll love you no matter what.”

How many times have you told him you love him? He’s your brother, your best friend, your confidant. Of course you love him. Why wouldn’t you?

Not like that, though, you know it’s not like that, and it makes you dirty and wrong and terrible and-

“I- I love you.”

“I know.” You frown. “I love you too.”

You figure out what he meant a split second too late. His eyebrows knit together, and you understand, and you feel like you’re going to die, or maybe throw up all over this car because “oh. Oh. OH.”

“Forget it.” Eddie sounds miserable. He curls in on himself. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t be sorry.” You unbuckle your seatbelt. Lean forward to touch his cheek. It fits so well in your hand. “Eds. Thank you for telling me.”

Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it. “Bill,” he says instead, pointing out your window. “Behind you.”

Bill is leaning against your car, balancing on Silver. “Are you c-coming or not?” he asks through the glass.

Your heart in your throat, you answer. “Yeah. We’re coming.”

Eddie bolts from the car as soon as you park, rounding the back of the farmhouse in search of Mike and Stan. Bill is waiting for you when you get up to the porch. 

“He t-told you.” is all Bill says, but you know he knows.

“Yeah.”

“P-please tell me you weren’t Trashmouth about i-it.”

“Bill, please. Have a little faith.”

Bill sees through your bravado. You know he does. He’s been like your brother since you were born. “Did y-you tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

You’re going to throw up. If Bill knows...If he knows, then you don’t know what you’re going to do. Run, probably. Run so far away your secrets can never catch you.

“Rich.” Bill steps down so you’re eye to eye. He’s not taller than you anymore, but he’s still your Bill. Your leader. Your brother. The almost-man you would follow anywhere. “You’re in love with him. Aren’t you?”

You hate everything about this. The tears in your eyes. The tremor in your hands. The fear that chokes you. The urge to run run run. 

But you nod, because you’ll be damned if you don’t try to live up to every ounce of bravery you always tried to instill into Eddie.

Bill smiles. Soft. Fond. “I l-love you, R-Richie.”

He pulls you into a hug. You don’t notice you’re crying until you pull away and his jacket is stained with your tears. “Sorry.”

Bill brushes his fingers through your hair. “D-Don’t b-be s-sorry. Be h-honest with E-Eds.”

As If on cue, Eddie rockets around the side of the house, shouting something incoherant. He bolts past you and Bill, then pauses at the doorway.

“You’re crying, Rich.”

You shake your head. Push up your glasses to wipe your face. He’s even pretty like this, blurred into soft browns and tans, pink and red. “I’m okay, Eds. I’ll tell you later.”

Eddie disappears inside. Bill follows him and, despite the catharsis of crying into your best friend’s jacket, you go around to the back of the barn and puke your guts out.

-----

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.

“Do you hate me?”

You stare at Eddie as if he’s lost his mind. It’s so dark you can’t see him without turning on the car’s dim overhead light. “Wh- Why would I hate you, Eds?”

“Because I’m gay.”

“The- What? No! I meant it, I love you no matter what.”

“Oh.” He sounds so small. You hate it. Eddie Kaspbrak should not ever be small.

You pull over again. The stars glitter above you. Eddie looks up at them and smiles a soft peaceful smile you’re used to wishing you could kiss. “Eddie.”

He hears you breathe his name and looks over. “Yeah, Rich?”

“I...” Fuck. “I love you too.”

The roles are reversed. “I know, you just said-  Oh.”

Nothing feels real in this moment. Your body is shaking. Your hands are cold and your face is warm. You want to run. Want to take it back. Apologize maybe, because you’ve ruined everything and a boy who loves his best friend is a dead boy, and It was right, this is why you would go missing or die alone, because you’re wrong and disgusting and-

Eddie kisses your cheek.

“Thank God,” Eddie whispers. “I love you so much, Rich, I thought I was the only one who-”

“Beep beep, Kaspbrak,” you say, leaning forward to kiss him properly, dry lips against soft ones, both of you shaking from fear and relief and probably a little bit of want. 

When you pull away, he’s smiling so wide his cheeks might burst. You pinch one between your fingers. “Cute, cute, cute!”

“Shut up, Richie.” He folds up the center console and rests his head on your shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

You sigh. “I was scared.”

Your cheeks light up like a firework when he presses a kiss to your arm through your shirt. “Me too.”

You look down at him, his delicate hand knotted in the front of your shirt, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks. Something in your heart settles into place, clicking like a lock.

“I love you,” you say again, just because you can. Your heart soars and carries you both home.

[softshelltaakos]

what’s up everybody! it’s time for part 2 of my taz graphic novel review.

part one covered (most of) my beef with the writing and storytelling choices. this part is gonna cover character designs!!! you should know going into this that my opinions are not positive. this post is also a lot less analytical in tone than part 1, because art is not my forte.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things. if you feel the need to message me about how i am overreacting, specifically to green taako, or about how i should just calm down and ignore it, or about how it’s sad that i’m getting so worked up instead of just enjoying the show, i’ve heard it and i don’t care. you will not be taken seriously. save yourself the energy.

there are spoilers for the graphic novel under the cut.

alright. i’m getting the elephant in the room out of the way first because it’s the most important thing to address, and once it’s out of my system i’ll feel better goofing on the rest of the designs. as i mentioned in the disclaimer: Green Taako Is Bad.

[ID: a panel focusing on taako. he’s skinny and minty green with chin-length light blonde hair and a big, pointy nose.]

now, a lot of people have made posts about this before, and i’m not saying anything new about it by any means. i’m also not the most equipped person to talk about why green taako is bad, because i’m a white gentile (i’ve heard conflicting opinions on whether or not green taako is antisemitic, but it feels remiss not to mention that there’s been discussion) and therefore not part of any groups affected by this whole debacle, but in short: when pressed for more diversity, specifically in taako’s case as a pretty large chunk of his arc involves literally inventing a mexican cultural food (fun note: that’s never mentioned in this book,) carey pietsch decided he should be green and the mcelroys were down with it. this is not an issue that cropped up when this design was released; it was something that there was already a ton of discourse surrounding, and it should never have gotten concepts drawn, let alone made it to publish.

this article by natt cuesta has been linked before on the subject, and i think it’s a good, concise explanation of why green taako is bad as well as why aracial characters in general are bad. this is a racist design.

now that we’ve gotten those ethical ramifications out of the way... i’m sorry, but it’s an ugly design, lmao. he looks like a palette-swapped version of pearl from steven universe with less character. the ONLY thing about this design that i like is the prominent lower lashes, if only because they’re the only thing that keeps him from looking entirely generic. because, like, y’all, when has anything about taako been generic?

[ID: a panel focusing on magnus. he’s a muscular fair-skinned man with auburn hair, a bushy beard, and a scar over his left eye.]

generic is a word that’s going to come up a lot over the course of this review, because i genuinely can’t think of a more apt descriptor for pietsch’s designs. it feels like she went with the lowest common denominator of every character’s design, a synthesis of all of the most popular (and most boring) ones, except in instances where that would lend any personality to a character’s design. magnus fits what brief description we’re given in the podcast: auburn hair. beard. big. and i guess that’s all you need?

i understand that by appealing to the most common and basic designs for these characters you’re inviting a lot less ire than you might by going with something more individual, so i get the motivation behind it -- or i would, if her designs hadn’t always been about this dull. but it’s bizarre to me that in a story as unique as the balance campaign, we ended up with the most basic ass Fantasy Hero lookin’ dude in the world as one of our protagonists.

i just really don’t have a lot to say about this. i’m just bored by it.

[ID: a panel of merle. he has medium-dark skin with a smooth white bun and beard.]

merle is simultaneously the design i like most out of the boys and the one that throws me the most, because i feel like he’s the most out on a limb one. which... oof. most merle designs i see give him a floral motif (i guess he has a few petals in his hair, maybe?) and big coke-bottle glasses, and i miss those things with this design, but at least it doesn’t totally feel like pietsch threw every merle she could get her hands on into a blender and poured it out on a page, although honestly, that might have been more satisfying. people do some really fun shit with their merle designs, but again, he’s. generic.

as the cuesta article mentions, with how much of an issue it was to get any of the boys to be poc in the first place and in conjunction with minty up there, this design also feels like tokenism -- an appeasement rather than an honest attempt at diversity or god forbid because the artist actually headcanons merle as a person of color. personally, i wish that she’d gone a step beyond re-coloring his skin and idk given him a natural hairstyle or something. he still feels very much like a recolor to me rather than a character who was designed as a person of color from the beginning.

i feel like he looks more like a cleric than he looks like a merle, which i feel like is pretty contradictory to who merle is.

[ID: a cutaway showing griffin, a white man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt.]

i’ve said before that it feels a little odd to talk about her design of a real person, so i’ll keep this brief, but... you know how every drawing of a basic white dude looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how that one arthur character looks a little bit like griffin mcelroy? you know how everyone is constantly messaging mysillycomics about how her avatar looks like griffin mcelroy?

how did carey pietsch manage to actively attempt to draw griffin mcelroy and miss the mark? it boggles the mind. he doesn’t not look like griffin, i guess, but he doesn’t look like griffin, either. i don’t know, man

[ID: a generic gerblin. he has yellowy-green skin, slight tusks or fangs, and weird, nubby little horn-type things.]

i hate these gerblins. they are ugly. next

[ID: two images of klaarg/g’nash. he’s a bugbear with brown fur and yellow eyes as well as a mouth full of pointy teeth. in the first image he looks pissed off; in the second he’s starry-eyed and delighted.]

klaarg is probably my favorite design in the book, and that’s just because he looks like a cute dog for most of the time he’s on the page. he’s fluffy and i love klaarg anyway, so like. did not take a lot to reach this mark. especially considering how i feel about most of the other designs lmfao

i do definitely think he keeps up the trend of looking generic, though.

[ID: an image of barry bluejeans. he looks like tom arnold, kind of; he’s square-jawed and white with thick-rimmed glasses. he also has a light brown mullet.]

i hate this. i hate the mullet. i’m sorry, y’all, i really, truly, cannot stand the mullet. i don’t feel like barry has mullet energy. i feel like it’s too powerful a move for him. it wouldn’t be a good move, mind you, but it would be a big one. i don’t know y’all it’s just bad

[ID: an image of killian. she’s a green-skinned orc woman with prominent eyelashes, eyebrows, and tusks, and straight brown hair.]

i can’t have been the only one who was hoping for a badass, visibly muscular, maybe even butch killian design, right? that wasn’t just me being a big old lesbian, that’s a pretty common theme of killian designs? i guess kudos for going out on a limb again, but then, like, take the kudos back for going out on the most boring limb possible again. i could hang with the face if her hair wasn’t so boring, but it’s... it’s so boring

[ID: an image of magic brian. he’s a drow with long white hair and an oblong face and oddly shaped nose.]

for how many of her designs are syntheses of popular ones, i..... don’t understand how this happened. i don’t understand how whimiscal and flamboyant magic brian who’s often drawn as taako-but-a-goth-dark-elf ended up looking like this. he looks like he used to play football and got his nose busted up and peaked in fantasy high school. he looks like the first quarter of a monster factory video where the thing’s just ugly but doesn’t have a personality or any endearing traits yet. he didn’t have to be the goth twink we all know he is but what.......... is this

[ID: an image of gundren rockseeker/bogard. he’s a light-skinned dwarf with dark long hair and a matching beard.]

..........listen i know they’re cousins and distant cousins at that but all of merle’s cousins are light-skinned and, like, not to say that that can’t happen but having them be anywhere near merle’s skin tone would’ve been such an easy way to help bolster the obviously inaccurate idea that this is a work concerned with diverse character designs, or rather to help ppl claim it was being bolstered, and yet

[ID: avi, a fair-skinned man with long dark hair kept up in a ponytail and slight scruff on his face.]

i feel like maybe avi is intended to be east asian so i think at this point that brings the count up to a whole two characters of color. we’re almost done with the book. cool. he’s cute, i guess, but guess what word i’m about to say again (it’s generic)

[ID: a panel of several unnamed cameo characters. from right to left: carey fangbattle, a light blue dragonborn; brad bradson, a green orc man with a long brown ponytail; and presumably lucas miller, a tan human with glasses and dark hair.]

ok. deep breaths.

first off, there’s another panel w these three as well as boyland, who looks fine, but i didn’t grab that one bc it’s harder to make out detail. carey is cute. brad is fine.

i assume the third guy is lucas miller because i’m not entirely sure who else he would be, and... oof! as you may know i can’t stand lucas miller, which has nothing to do with his necromancy or nerdiness and everything to do with the various human rights violations he commits in the small time he’s got focus as well as the fact that he’s got a theoretical redemption arc that’s not actually an arc so much as us being told he’s better now. lucas is an entitled jackass who repeatedly uses other people’s bodies and minds without their consent, from the obvious offense of using the bugbears as brainwashed chore-doers (read: slaves) to the less-oft discussed dragging of noelle and others out of the astral plane into robot bodies, again to do his chores for him. because of this, it has always sat very uncomfortably with me when people make lucas a poc, because everything about him screams Shitty White Nerd Boy to me. it sits extra uncomfortably coming from carey pietsch, given how white all of her other designs are.

it’s a little hard to tell because i took all these pics with my phone camera in my room’s lighting so they’re not super high fidelity or anything, but pietsch’s lucas is noticeably darker than any other character we’ve seen so far save merle. maybe he’s just a white guy with a tan, but all the same, it strikes me as incredibly skeevy to have one of so few characters of color be this fucking guy.

[ID: johann, a black man with an oblong face and textured dark hair.]

johann’s design is fine, although this is a similar face shape to that brian from earlier and i just. i don’t. understand it. it’s not especially interesting, but hey, at least he’s not another generic white guy.

that being said, as i mentioned in part 1 of this review, johann’s role is severely cut in this -- he’s reduced to three panels, when in the show itself he’s the one who escorts the boys to the voidfish’s chamber and inoculates them. as i mentioned in that post i understand that they shifted it some to give lucretia a more prominent entrance, but as i also mentioned in that post, they should have compensated for that. three panels.

johann is not a character with a great deal of screentime as it is, but he’s a character with a major impact. he is the reason story and song happens. his song serves as a direct foil to john’s nihilistic conversion of his own home plane into the hunger. the fact that he’s been reduced to three panels with little to no characterization at this point, especially in conjunction with the fact that he’s one of very few poc, makes me really, really uncomfortable. avi is in more panels in this book than johann is, and while i love avi and as i said i am parsing him as an asian dude, he’s also still light-skinned enough and the style is nondescript enough that there are definitely people who will parse him as white, and also, avi’s role in the story is not as big as johann’s.

it doesn’t sit right with me.

[ID: an image of davenport, a fair-skinned man with a big red mustache and slicked back red hair.]

ginger davenport with a big mustache. groundbreaking.

[ID: an image of lucretia, a slender black woman with short white hair dressed in blue layers.]

and finally, lucretia. now, i’m biased, and it’s hard for me to see a lucretia design i don’t like. i also think that this is, compared to a lot of the others at least, one of the more interesting designs in the book, at least as far as her clothes go. it’s not a long robe that would be hard to move in, and i appreciate that -- it strikes me as a pretty practical outfit while also being ornamental and wizard-y. and she’s pretty, and she’s not whitewashed, and that’s all great. i like her earrings.

all that being said, i feel like it’s not enough. luc’s hair continues a theme with merle’s and johann’s (as well as the preview we’ve seen of angus,) which is that it strikes me as very low-effort on pietsch’s part. it’s short and it’s definitely not straight, but it doesn’t feel to me like it had as much thought put into it as, say, minty green taako’s hair. we could’ve had a lucretia with a big beautiful afro, or long box braids, or so many other natural hairstyles; we got this. it’s not bad, but i do think it’s disappointing. without going looking for it and without being a person who reads a great deal about character design, i’ve seen a fair amount of discussion from black women (artists, writers, and none of the above) about the portrayal of black women as it pertains to their hair. they’re never designed to be as feminine as their white counterparts. their hair is never treated with the same amount of detail or respect as their white counterparts. it’s short, maybe curly if you’re lucky.

i’m gonna circle back quickly to killian’s hair. it’s long and smooth and kept down, despite the fact that killian is an action-oriented women and might not want it to be in her face all the time -- it could have at least been braided or in a bun. it could’ve been short! and that would’ve made sense. and i don’t mean to say that lucretia couldn’t have short hair, but she’s a very elegant woman whose dress is described as intricate. she wears business regalia. she could have any number of hairstyles, from something elaborate to something simple but more out-of-the-box than this, but she doesn’t. i found this on a quick hunt through my ref tag -- it’s a tutorial for drawing black folks with just a small selection of interesting things you can do with afrotextured hair. these resources aren’t hard to find! and i’m doing this for fun -- carey pietsch is a professional artist who was paid for these designs. if she’d put in more than the bare minimum effort, we could’ve had some really interesting shit going on, but she didn’t.

and that’s the core of the issue here. i truly do not feel like pietsch put the same amount of care into the designs for the few characters of color we see as she did into the white ones, and that’s upsetting and emblematic of a larger problem in the work: neither pietsch nor the mcelroys put in very much care at all for the fans of color who spoke up and asked for representation.i know i said i was getting taako out of the way first so the majority of the post could be goof-heavy, but goddamn, y’all, it’s hard to goof about when it’s so blatantly shitty. pietsch’s designs are boring at best and racist at worst, not to mention conspicuously lacking in anyone who is not skinny, muscular, or a dwarf. people have praised this thing so uncritically, including people whose opinions i generally really respect, as if the fact that the mcelroys signing off on green taako made it above reproach.

it didn’t, by the way. there’s no such thing as an unproblematic fav, because everybody fucks something up now and then, but even then, this is a pretty egregious fuck-up! and it was willful!

i’m not saying y’all need to burn your copies of the gn or stop listening to the mcelroys entirely or anything of the sort -- you may remember the disclaimer at the top of the post where i say i really, really love them, and more specifically, i really love taz: balance. but i am BEGGING YOU to think critically about their work. good, good boys can do bad, bad things. white people can produce work that’s racist even if they’re gay women. it’s not mean to critique the boys and it’s not homophobic (or god forbid reverse racist, which is still not a real thing) to critique carey.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ the real kicker of this whole thing for me is that there’s a small fanart gallery in the back of the book. most of them aren’t labeled with the artist’s handles, just their names, but there are some truly beautiful pieces featuring diverse designs -- galacticjonah and milkychai both have beautiful latino taakos featured! galacticjonah’s is fat, too! but even after the backlash against green taako, even aside from that being the design that people are going to accept as canonical, there are pieces in the gallery of green taako, as if doubling down on it was the right move.

and by the way, yeah, i’ve read griffin’s apology. but i thought we all learned in kindergarten that an apology doesn’t count if you don’t act on it.