#I think that's all the prominent characters here

[dukeoftheblackstar]

@twisted-cyberflare Discuss! ♥

Sauce.

There's a bunch of foolishness on this post, but if you'd focus on masks and tusks, this may be a helpful tidbit.

Looting.

I would assume you can take the most logical reason as to why it would be looted into account — some person selling it for a buck, a possible connoisseur whose expertise is trade, someone who might have recognized it (considering at the time Order 66 happened, Plo was accused of very unsavory things so I would assume the publication of his face and prominent feature is out there for people to notice — not to mention how Kel Dors are common to the Jedi Order, giving some form of value to it)

I would also consider the possibility that it indeed could not be Plo's, but for it to be displayed in the same assembly as notable items, it greatly leans towards a very significantly known figure in the Order.

If we were to take in account that this belonged to another Kel Dor in the same clan, there's so many questions to weave from it.

Because I'm a whore for anything Plo Koon content, I'll throw this in for the haha-heehee's maybe: 21:36 "Twins don't run in my family"

If it was merely a non-Jedi or even a "minor" character Kel Dor belonging to the same clan, I need more convincing that it was someone else's.

In terms of the mask surviving..

Please note that Plo Koon and Kel Dors in general have the ability to manipulate molecules and make use oft heir surrounding to their advantage. It would make sense to make their masks adaptable to certain situations including exposure to space or anything that (if my research and stock knowledge is wrong) that lacks the component of oxygen.

As it is a respirator and Dorin being the only type of gas Kel Dors can breathe, some form of durability would be set in place if they would make constant adjustment and maintenance to it.

I would also like to think there's value in Dorin material considering how ridiculously dangerous it is to get to Dorin.

Sauce.

If we're following Star Wars logic here and perhaps all things Sci-Fi, there's certain material native to their origin that would be extremely valuable in the market — think Beskar.

I would also like to point out that Kel Dor culture Technology and Sciences is hella wild because they have to adapt. Not to mention they have insane foresight and the Baran Do Sage teaching/journey that allows them a glimpse of certain futuristic events that would clearly come in handy to the development of their planet.

That said, masks would be a priority to sustain a shit amount of durability. With Kel Dors being recruited by business and maybe even in politics because of said skill, there definitely IS value in a non-Jedi Kel Dor mask.. Let alone that one hot Kel Dor Jedi, Plo Koon.

Welp. Thems my thoughts.

I’m finally having a moment to myself and I started watching the new season of Andor!

and just wanted to say

cruel.

Oh my god. If I had any tears left I’d cry. they really be reminding of order 66 in every way they can think of.

[ssjkamui-digitalphoenixug]

A rather short analysis. I already briefly touched on that symbolism. Anthy is heavily associated with the colors of scarlet/red and purple.

Sailor moon also most prominently uses these colors for their villainesses. In final fantasy 7, there is a villainess named Scarlet and in marvel, there is Wanda maximoff which is called the scarlet witch and who sometimes acts very morally dubious. And many Disney villainesses wear scarlet and purple. One example here is maleficent.

But what is the significance of these 2 colours? This refers to a certain woman mentioned in the book of revelations in the Bible.

Here the relevant verses:

Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5 The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

That is the reference behind these colors. And you see, this woman is associated with the "beast". In sailor moon, these types of women were always connected to a monster character like queen metallia, Wiseman, Pharaoh 90 etc.

The connection with Babylon in that verse is partly rooted in the fact that Babylon sounds like Babalon and Babalon is an ancient sumerian word for whore/prostitute.

And according to several Roman authors and Julius Evola, Babylon heavily supported prostitution and basically was big on occult prostitution and sex trafficking. In a way, Jeffrey Epstein continued Babylonian practices. That is another reason why Babylon is called "the mother of all whores"

The following is my personal theory, but I think it's likely that the extremely rigid Sexual morality of Islam was basically an answer to Babylons practices.

Aleister Crowley turned the whole thing on its head and turned Babalon into a love godess and said "babalon is the biggest prostitute because she loves all humans and rejects none". (You need to know that Crowley liked to provoke Christians but at the same time he was often astonishingly close to Christian ideas.)

In thelema, babalon is used in a similar way to rhe Hindu idea of shakti and has some parallels to the Virgin Mary as well. If you do potentially dangerous spiritual practices, you can ask for babalons divine protection before.

Rocket Scientist Jack Parsons (who was important for the foundation of Nasa) tried an occult ritual to invoke Babalon on earth. This ritual was basically a threesome between him, Marjorie Cameron and scientology founder L Ron Hubbard.

Interestingly, that ritual happened close to Rosswell new Mexico, a short time before the roswell incident occurred. And crowley warned that if Parsons would do something wrong in his ritual, this could result in something "extraterrestrial" getting drawn to earth. Crowleys British successor Kenneth Grant thought that this is what probably happened and the roswell ufo crash was caused by a sex accident by one of Nasas "founders"😅 no joke.

(So, remember kids, always use condoms. Or some nasty results can happen. For example HIV, chlamydia, alien invasions😂)

Parsons was politically between New left and libertarianism and thought the hippies and the Sexual revolution were signs of babalons rise to power.

[tgirlschlatt]

presentation, sexuality and being the right kind of man

a cschlatt gender manifesto . is a go (2.7k LMFAO)

to break my transfeminine reading of schlatt down into parts is deceptively easy. to me it just feels like the right answer to a math equation that people miss or get wrong entirely. it's simply what computes. so there's this guy who needs to perform masculinity as hard and as painfully as he can, and the failure to do so properly due to things that are innately "wrong" with him are part of what strikes him dead. well. it seems obvious to me. maybe all these things that make him a "bad" "man"... if embraced could make her a happier, healthier woman.

where does this preoccupation with manhood start, where does it end? for a character like cschlatt it can't seem to end at all- everything about his arc betrays a fixation with presenting as powerful, strong, untouchable, masculine. A Man. this is something that shields him, protects his perceived weaknesses and vulnerabilities. if he's a Proper Man, he can't be targeted.

the thing is, he's a target from day one. he shows up to the endorsements drunk, disheveled and volatile. immediately the tone around him shifts. tommy minecraft-punches him onstage while people respond in varying levels of disbelief and amusement. the second he starts to say things wilbur doesn't want him to, these things are used as reasons to disregard what he's saying, get him off the stage, shuffle him somewhere they don't have to look or think about him.

i think there's a lot to unpack there already but i'll try to keep it brief (lol). point blank schlatt is not a stupid character, he's not vapid or meaningless, and neither is the character who worked with him to bring him on the server deliberately to sabotage others (cdream.) he's doing his part here. he's disrupting the election process and bringing a spotlight on himself as the most prominent, visible distraction from pog v swag. and then utilizing the sway that has to get in with quackity as a coalition. it's kind of cracked, and it works! it's a smart plan! he uses what he has and ultimately wins at something that wilbur can't lower himself to counter properly (if he had just treated q as an equal his own bid for coalition could have worked out, lmao)

i'm saying this to establish: schlatt is intelligent. he's good at what he does. he's an intimidating force and a cackling wildcard altogether. so why show up to this, and other public events similar to it, drunk? just for fun? he's deeply paranoid and held up by how others see him. and they always respond to him appearing this way by making fun of it, calling him crazy, etc. a character fixated on standing wouldn't do this for no reason. but then, i've talked about this here as well.

so. he self-medicates disability. to him, appearing visibly drunk in ways that still undermine him is preferable than the alternative of appearing visibly ill. and he enforces this in other ways too- the protein shakes and fixation on working out. it's established in the spy's diary that he has muscle atrophy, a statement reinforced by the fact that schlatt rarely, if ever, runs and struggles with swimming much at all.

he combats this in deeply unhealthy ways. straining his body constantly over and over while, by all appearances, mostly subsiding off of the numerous protein shakes he references. hell, i'll be a bitch here and just point out bluntly that eating disorders & body dysmorphia are common with disability... and also transsexuality.

i think schlatt has a deeply inherent, all-present discomfort with himself, with his body, and how he performs. these things can be read into his relationship with sexuality, also. cschlatt is, of course, the same character from the smplive series. and i find the difference in humor re: liking men to be... fascinating?

much of the bit in smplive is surrounding the homophobic homosexual. the guy who flirts and comes onto men and then retreats aggressively by saying he's not gay, not interested, that others are more gay. he has a tendency to be extremely flighty and reactive, only to return sometime later with an open flirtation or pass.

something interesting takes place in this time period too: wilbur calls schlatt "pretty princess" at the very least during water rising and probably in other occasions. this is something schlatt is vocally against in much the same he is about any earnest indication of sexuality. however, it's not something he entirely cuts off. those challenge videos are filled with crazy amounts of homoeroticism, sorry. i do think we must acknowledge the gay flirtation here. wilbur talks about making schlatt come ok its not my fault. take it up with 2019 mcyt not me!!

the point im getting to though is that by the time he's landed in the dsmp, he's... surprisingly better? on stage he can frankly say that wilbur stole his heart and then get into a political gay sex coalition w/ quackity within the same day. and while i think he still issues with internalized homophobia that likely do directly effect his relationship with q... this is a guy who CAN work through things and improve on them.

hell, quackity can call him a pretty princess all he wants! he calls him all sorts of gooey, sappy things. things that would be hard to imagine the smplive version of this character sitting still and tolerating- let alone willingly accepting them and giving them out in return. schlatt can be a babygirl, and so can quackity and he's.. startlingly normal there! gosh, could his comfort with liking men increasing also be tied to his comfort with feminine terms increasing? i wonder what that could mean. here. in my transgender essay.

to stay in the weeds of the schlackity relationship here: one of the first things they do together is participate in jokey wedding ceremonies with others. i do frankly think these shouldn't be taken too seriously with the comedic tone staying strong throughout but i do think they're, along with a lot of comedy scenes in dsmp, good indicators of characterization. an example here of quackity getting upset about various romantic ditchings and chasing them down, even though these aren't actual weddings in any sense, make it clear romance is a driving force for him that he does want and take seriously.

and in his joke-wedding with quackity, schlatt wants to be the one walked down the aisle. hm? he even uses a voice changer to pitch up his voice, and gets snappy when they take too long. huh... and even though he insisted upon these things he freezes at the last second and flees the premises without saying a word. even though.. he does want a romantic relationship with quackity, and they stay in one afterward?

well. that could mean anything. especially since they do another bit about weddings where quackity finds it meaningful and important and schlatt keeps almost-maybe agreeing until he doesn't acknowledge him and just addresses a ghost twitch chat instead. uhmm. now you see. why would someone be attached to the idea of being a bride but flinch away from actually doing it and have to turn it into a joke. in the same way they have to turn everything about themselves into a joke, or irony or... 😬

this is also where i want to make a note that schlatt. seems to have no desire to be transphobic to others. tubbo's excuse when he gets caught sneaking out is that he's pregnant and that tommy is his gynecologist. this is decidedly uncis-like behavior. and schlatt just says ok..??? and, much later on, even while broken up and with no motivation to fake niceties in regards to these things, quackity claims schlatt to have knocked him up and schlatt's response is essentially just huh, don't remember that but ok.

and in regards to the comment about fundys man-ness on nov16... this is specifically in reference to the fact that they've had a specific conversation where schlatt asks fundy "man-to-man" not to betray him. so when he finds out he did.. 🤷. ya know. it's not to disparage fundy's identity as a man, it's that he broke an oath as a man. it is in fact a key distinction.

i'm saying this to emphasize the relation he has to specifically internalized bigotries and how he responds to others. he's not immune to it though and i would say the majority of his crasser, harsher behavior & jokes & ridiculing is centered around the manifestation of toxic masculinity. but he's also not immune to how his canonical marginalization gets him similar treatment. i would say it's hard to impossible to get a scene with cschlatt that doesn't have one character or another behaving in ableist ways to him LMAO, from mocking his drunkenness & general disparaging around addiction and assuming anything he has has to be drugs, to calling him old (everyone knows you can only have physical disabilities & illness if you're old) or directly insane/senile.

and that's part of how it interfaces for me. schlatt is not a character who gets support- from practically day one he acknowledges the fact that he has a target on his back. and frankly, yes, i do think it's exacerbated by how he's innately seen as lesser, crazy, and out of control due to being an addict. which is something that is deliberately fed into by dream playing both sides- he gives schlatt the crossbow to fire on people in the elections, is the one who got him back on the server in the first place even, and then immediately turns around and says he's untrustworthy and crazy and soooo bad actually to get in with pogtopia, only to then cut a deal with him again when he's most desperate.

any character who may think otherwise is directly punished for doing so. part of why tubbo was put on the stage for the festival is due to wilbur's reaction to tubbo saying schlatt's policies aren't that bad- it's not even that crazy of a statement! and wilbur reacts extremely poorly, calling him a pushover yes-man and pressuring him to agree to give the code-phrase to blow it all up.

similarly, but more extremely, quackity suffers a lot of degrading for having been in a relationship with schlatt. one of the first things he hears from tommy upon wanting to join pogtopia is that they won't trust him there, that they talk behind his back, that he's called his bitch. and wilbur is genuinely very, very harsh about it too! it's not even something that stops after a while either, he still gets pointed jabs about it well into new l'manberg.

and these are people just in relation to schlatt. how could it feel to be schlatt in these circumstances? everyone around you hates your guts, wants you gone, and is willing to do much of anything to accomplish it. of course he starts cracking under the strain and paranoia it causes- each subsequent betrayal only making it worse and driving him farther into manic, destructive behavior.

social support is integral for any type of marginalization. there is a gaping void of it in schlatt's life partly due to his own actions & crumbling relationships and partly due to how manburg was being set up to fail from the very start. the lack of any sort of safety, protection or understanding, the way he thinks he has to violently push people away before they get the chance to stab him in the back... well! Idk! i think there are very obvious ties to how he is, the types of people most vulnerable to how rejection can kill a person- disability into addiction into sexuality into gender. i think it's extremely tied together! even statistically, let alone just with how schlatt is as a character onscreen.

and i think this rejection, this isolation, the impact of quite literally dying alone in a corner while everybody holds weapons to your face and don't help you while your body fails... it's all something schlatt feels keenly. fuck, dude, when the glattbur thing happens practically all he says is that he hates it there and wants to stay dead. and at that point, why the hell wouldn't he! but isn't there just something about it. i'm dead that's what i want. duuuude.

we don't particularly know how schlatt's limbo manifested in its own right past this heavy death wish but what we do know about schlatt's ghost is, like, fucking insane vis a vis this whole thing. so after the horror of feeling his body give out, and everything that might entail, and the unfiltered betrayal & hatred of everyone around him, and everything that might entail... his ghost is one that can't go into sunlight?

being seen in the light of day burns him. being overly exposed burns him. he died because he could not wholly be seen as he was and now that he's dead he's stuck in a cave where no one alive knows to look for him and any move he might make outside of it is hindered by the inability to be in the sun. Which Could Mean Nothing.

it's not even just a cave, either. he keeps up this fractured, desperate grab of masculinity even in death because he turns it into a gym. and not even normally there either because he has to spread out images of hypermasculine, cartoonish expies of bodybuilders. to the point of (jokingly) calling one of them an image of his fatherrrrr

and the thing that gets him out of it? it's him sending a letter to quackity, reaching out to a person he loved and still trusts in spite of it all. and that person going to him. a gesture of trust and a request for help that actually gets answered and given, however much both parties have to coat it in whatever type of way they have to. this person also being the man he could love most fully, the one who could call him babygirl and would still come back for him even through the hurt in their relationship. Dude. Or Not-Dude.

repression is a key component to how schlatt operates. he can't admit to how sick he is, how genuinely he loves men, how open he is to being hurt. a guy who performs this much to get through his days... it's hard to see where any of that performance stops! his body, his attraction, his whole being- it's all wrapped up in one giant ball of hurt and shame. things that he thinks can't be looked at closely in the light. and the thing about it is, to me, for a compelling narrative he can't be right about any of it. he can't just be a hypermasculine man who only likes dudes sometimes, he can't be at peak performance forever with no impact from disability, illness and addiction. he is who he is, stripped bare. and those things aren't what condemned him, it's how he refused to accept them, refused to allow others to accept him. his rejection of himself and the rejection of others shouldn't be the end all be all. the ideas he has about "proper" men, about "proper" ways of being- they have to be dismantled.

what is schlatt like when he's earnestly, genuinely happy at this point? i don't think we know that. i don't think it's something we've been able to see on screen. everything he did, all those shields he put up- made him miserable. they killed him, point blank. nothing he did, nothing about the way he operated, did him well. everything he attempted to deny, to shove down, to misconstrue... are things core to him that he couldn't accept.

the ability to love wholly and truly. the ability to seek help. the ability to want support. the ability to let go of a self-image that runs your body into the ground. the ability to not be masculine. the ability to not be a man at all. THAT'S what it would take to save her. that's what it took to save a lot of people. transition is change is salvation is love is joy is growth is change is forever.

[dewwshi]

princess of mithral hall

[farawaydoe]

"Imagine the last scene of Asteroid Blues. It’s common understanding for us that this episode is a reference to Desperado and it is, with all the evocation of Mexico strewn throughout it and the bounty heads modelled after the protagonists in the film, but there is another very popular film which the ending reminds me of. The last scene where Katerina and Asimov are riddled with bullets is very similar to the last scenes of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Incidentally, a flock of birds flies away as the protagonists are about to meet their end in B & C. I know the doves in the scene where Julia is shot are a John Woo connection but I do wonder if the ending of Asteroid Blues is an ode to the end of Bonnie & Clyde.

Bonnie and Clyde (the film, not the outlaws) was an iconic noir film and had drawn some inspirations from a very popular French film À bout de souffle (which I will call Breathless from here on out because this is a pain to type each time and also because Breathless is the name it is commonly known as in the English-speaking world.) This film essentially kicked off the French New Wave cinema movement.

It is common knowledge that Watanabe is a fan of French New Wave cinema and it was a significant influence for him while making Cowboy Bebop.

The overall nihilistic atmosphere of Spike’s past is extremely reminiscent of the generally bleak storylines of sweeping romances, heartbreak, death, infidelity, pathos etc. which were a common theme in French New Wave films of the 50s and 60s and also in American cinema of the same time.

Jean-Luc Godard (kinda looks like Decker too doesn’t he?), the creator of Breathless, is one of most prominent names of French New Wave cinema, who is also paid an homage in two of the episode names of CB. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and ‘Pierrot Le Fou’ are both films created by Godard. In Bebop, both of these episodes have protagonists who are conceptual opposites of each other….Wen is an old man in a child’s body versus Pierrot, who is a child in an old man’s body. With such a direct homage, it begs for one to delve deeper into these two works and into Godard’s films overall. Sympathy for the Devil is largely a documentary about The Rolling Stones, whose songs are referenced heavily throughout the show, but it doesn’t seem too tied into the story of Bebop.

But ‘Pierrot Le Fou’ is another story. Along with this, although not directly referenced, there is another film by Godard which seems also reflected in CB. This is, once again, Breathless. Though I don’t think it is referenced anywhere directly but some aspects of it seem similar. The protagonist is Michel, who seeks refuge in the apartment of his lover Patricia while on the run after killing a policeman. She takes him in and he tries to persuade her to run away to Italy with him. As they stay together, it becomes clear that Patricia wants a more eloquent, romantic relationship while Michel wants a more physical, baser one. They are lovers but on two different pages and hence not able to love the other in the way most meaningful to the other. Eventually, Patricia finds out about Michel being on the run and ends up betraying him to the police, who then kill him.

The reason why I feel Watanabe might be referencing this film is that it is a seminal piece of work which began the era and style of cinema he loved. Spike ending up in Julia’s apartment, trying to convince her to run away with him, her feeling a disconnect between what they each want from the relationship, pressured to do something she does not wish to, leading to her eventually betraying him…can be taken as a loose parallel. There are a lot of quotations about being free as well which sound very Bebop-esque. The film was also a mish-mash of genres like Bebop is, made heavy use of jazz, and focuses on the role of media and its influence in our lives, how it controls the way people behave and interact, something which is also a running theme in the session Brain Scratch.

The character of Michel also has this cavalier kind of attitude toward death, like he is expecting it and is not too bothered by it. He feels it will catch up to him eventually and philosophises on this. Sound familiar?

The next film, which I’ve already mentioned, is referenced directly in the anime-Pierrot Le Fou. I feel this film and the New Wave influences overall led to the color choices for the characters in the show. The color scheme of Bebop’s main characters, playing with primary colors, is very reminiscent of the colors used by Godard in some of his films. Blue is the color we relate to Spike, Red with Julia (rose, umbrella, car), and yellow with Faye. Blue and yellow are also the colors associated with the Bebop itself, with its blue interiors and yellow couch. I’ll come to what these signify in Godard’s context in a bit.

The film starts with Pierrot reading a line to his daughter meant to be about the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez but which could, just as easily, apply to him as well. “The world he lived in was a sad one: a degenerate king, sickly infants, idiots, dwarfs, cripples, clownish freaks dressed as princes whose job it was to laugh at themselves…” I find the beginning of the CB OVA fairly reminiscent of this. It begins with Spike’s voiceover saying lines which seem to be about Vincent but are also true for himself. “It’s just that he was all alone. Always by himself. Never anyone to share the game. A man who lived in dreams — that’s who he was.”

In the movie, Ferdinand or ‘Pierrot’ (meaning Sad Clown in French) decides to ditch his wife and kids and his comfortable, bourgeois life to run away with an ex-girlfriend Marianne, seeking adventure. Marianne goes on the run from gangsters after a corpse turns up at her apartment and Pierrot accompanies her on a crime spree ending in their settling in the French Riviera. Here, as they get some stability, once again the theme of differences surfaces, similar to Breathless. We have two people who are supposed to be in love but are unable to understand each other. They need different things from a relationship and cannot provide what the other needs.

Pierrot goes through hell and high water for Marianne but eventually is betrayed by her, realizing she was just using him. She turns up with her real boyfriend Fred and runs away with money Pierrot stole. There is a sequence where he shoots or imagines shooting Marianne and Fred. Due to his deteriorating state of mind and inability to tell reality from hallucinations, it is unclear if he actually does it or dreams it. Anyway, finally he paints his face blue, drapes his head with red and yellow dynamite and blows himself up.

Pierrot painting his face blue is taken to indicate that he longs to return to the bourgeois life he had before but cannot. The illusory life he imagined building with Marianne is what kills him in the end. Yellow dynamite is the inner layer and red is the outer layer.

The third film which may be referenced is Le Mepris in which the red convertible features prominently in the inciting incident. I do mention this in the other post that Julia’s look may be inspired from the character of Camille during this sequence, a woman caught between two men. She feels betrayed by her husband, believing him to want to use her to further his ends. She eventually leaves him for this other man but they both die.

Now, there are a few distinct themes which emerge from these references:

1. People who are supposed to be in love but who want different things, who are unable to understand each other. They think they are in love but, once they spend some time together, realize they are very different people. During the excitement of getting together or being on the road, in Pierrot’s case, they feel they are compatible but as they get to know each other more they realize they are not. There is a sense of being runaways to both films.

2. Betrayal. The men in these stories are betrayed by women they believe love them and are their true soulmates. Patricia’s sense of loss of control over her own future leads to her betrayal. Marianne had a different plan all along. She pretends to love Ferdinand but, in truth, was colluding with another man all along. Camille betrays her husband since she feels betrayed by him first, like she is being used as an object of barter in the equation between these two men.

3. Colors and what they signify. Blue is the color which relates to Ferdinand’s life at home while red relates to the “other life” which he seeks with Marianne and which eventually ends up being his doom. Red is also the color most associated with Marianne in the film, one we see her wearing a lot, and is also the color of their getaway vehicles for most part, including a red convertible.

Three colors are mainly used by Godard-red, yellow, and blue. These colors also feature prominently in the context of three main characters on Bebop.

The way I interpret it, since blue and yellow are the colors of the Bebop, they may be intended to relate to “home”…Spike’s new life, freedom, and a place of belonging, one where he is safe and cared for. We never see him wearing this outfit in his past. The color red associated with Julia might be intended to represent the life he wanted to have but which, if we go by these parallels, would have ended up in the eventual realization that they were two very different people and also, most likely, further betrayal. Since we continue to see this color being associated with her even when we finally see her in the present, I am also kind of pulled into another theory that the betrayal from her end may not quite be over yet at this point.

The color yellow is a neutral color in Godard’s films generally, used less than red and blue, featuring more as an accent or a “middle-ground.” In the context of Bebop, I consider the color yellow being used for Faye is to identify an emotional trifecta. Faye is the only member of the crew who gets pulled into Spike’s story and vice versa. Associating the third color with her establishes her as an important player in the story, albeit a neutral one-someone not out to sabotage Spike or with whom his association does not automatically spell doom. It’s also a way of showing her as someone who offsets the story of Julia and Spike by appearing as a character foil to Julia with parallels being drawn between the two women. Yellow is also the colour of his shirt, which may further indicate that she is a significant and perhaps even an intimate part of his new life since no other crew member features these parallels.

Spike in his new life himself wears blue, same as the color of the Bebop’s interior. In the images from his past life, he is not shown in the same outfit and whenever he goes back to his past he covers up the blue with a trench coat, indicating him slipping back into his past persona as a Syndicate operative. The exception is when he meets Julia in the graveyard at the end. She is a part of his past but he meets her without the trench coat (and please don’t tell me it was logistics since he literally picks up a rose lying conveniently on the ground-it’s all symbolic). It can indicate that he meets her as the person he is now and not as his past persona. He is cold to her so perhaps it indicates that the persona he had as her lover no longer exists. He is shown picking up the rose, a symbol of his love for her, but never shown giving it to her. He holds it in his hand juxtaposed against her holding a gun in hers.

Post his final battle with Vicious, the song played is also called ‘Blue’ which is all about his being free now, associating this color with a lighter, liberated Spike. The colors blue and yellow are also associated to the Bebop’s interiors, to the new “home” situation in the life which he finds after leaving the Syndicate. The ship’s walls are mostly blue and accents are mostly yellow but quite significant amongst them is the couch. This is where we see the crew most of the time, the place they end up huddling back to during their bounty chases, or where we see them go about their daily lives, a symbol of co-existence and companionship. It’s also where we see Spike mostly in tame circumstances, either sleeping or reading or whatever.

The color red is associated with both Julia as well as the Syndicate. If we go by the analogy of Pierrot, it can be taken to represent the things which weigh Spike down, things which are harmful for him, which actively lead to his destruction. It’s the color of deceit, associated with the woman who is one thing but turns out to be something completely different. Julia drives a car similar to what we see Pierrot and Marianne in-a red convertible. It’s also similar to the one which begins the chaos in Camille’s life. And that really makes me question what we are supposed to take away about Julia’s character. We know the Syndicate is actively out to destroy Spike but is there something we have missed about her?

There is another director from the French New Wave who I feel may be somewhat referenced in Bebop as well-Francois Truffaut. Ed is named Francoise. At the age of 18, Truffaut joined the army and served for two years, which ended in him being incarcerated in military prison (albeit in his case it was because he kept trying to defect). He was freed and then took up a creative career as a filmmaker. Sounds kind of like Gren. Lastly, his movie Tirez sur le pianiste or ‘Shoot the Piano Player’ features a man who leaves life as a concert pianist and starts playing in a bar after his wife kills herself post a fairly devastating confession. The theme there is someone leaving their destroyed life, one where they held prominence, to rebuild a new one of ignominy, doing the only thing they know how to do, while being unable to escape from the past. Um….do we know someone like that? About yay high? Green hair?

Exploring some of the influences of French New Wave cinema.

[age-of-moonknight]

“Hunter’s Moon,” Vengeance of the Moon Knight, (Vol. 2/2024), #4.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[aeb-art]

i was trying to make up side characters for @8um8le's space friends and thought "every show needs a grump"

i'm not gonna finish this though, so y'all can have it now o7

[dragonowlie]

My internet is back! *holds my downstairs neighbours like a cat that knocked over a potted plant* YOU!

anyway the second I realised my internet was fully back I immediately put on castlevania nocturne and there is so much I could say about it and if I had more energy I might but tldr

BAROQUE MUSIC

[silvvergears]

So I guess I'm going to spend the next four to five business days hyperfocusing on a potential Dishonored au for TOG ft. Hunter as Emily, Eda as Corvo, and Belos as the Royal Spymaster. I've already figured out most of the casting and how the storyline will shift and change (Hunter is older than Emily was and has a much more active role) for both games, and as soon as work is done I'm going to work on some art for it

[dan-crimes]

I don't personally enjoy death in my stories for one because I have no experience with it personally and for two because you can't torture a character anymore once they've died 😇

[weedle-testaburger]

You know, since it's Pride Month (and also I miss them), I feel like reminding everyone how fucking important Ruby and Sapphire were.

The way they were both unambiguously conceived as queer characters and let the writers make an established character queer retroactively. The fact that as soon as they share the screen, they immediately show how in love they are, without any ambiguity to please the censors, and they do that almost every episode they're in.

How their relationship isn't always 100% perfect, and they do conflict and fall out, but make up in the end because they genuinely love each other. How they were allowed to be iconic parts of the show, not just through being the focus of two of its most famous songs (Stronger Than You and Here Comes A Thought) but also through the book version of The Answer.

The fact they got the first gay kiss...

...and the first gay wedding in the history of kid's TV.

The way their reception showed networks that yes, people do enjoy media with queer characters, and so they contributed to many other series with prominent LGBTQ characters getting greenlit.

I honestly don't think it's exaggerating to say they're among the most important queer characters in the history of fiction for all that. And people need to say it more, and demand stuff like them more.

[silkentine]

Me when they are the sisters ever: 😭😭😭 They came out soooo freaking well. I won’t lie, they took me a thousand years to finish but through the constant support from all of my buds (and my latent bisexuality), we made it 😤

Hopefully you guys know the deal by now: design choices, easter eggs, and (NEW!) closeup shots below the read more. ⬇️

I wanted Ace to have a very down-to-earth vibe and looked at Aussie beach-girls, coastal cowgirls, and vaqueras for reference. (IDK, I’ve just always envisioned Ace as part-Australian🌺 and Mexican 🏴‍☠️) Her clothing choices are mostly natural or utilitarian materials like the painted wooden beads on her top, her woven fabric and leather belts, and her denim jumpsuit. I gave her bikini top a zen-garden kind of feel because I read the first Ace’s Story Novel and I loved how idyllic and peaceful they made Sixis Island sound so I wanted to invoke that in some way.

Speaking of her painted wooden beads, they hang off the back of her top and represent her connection to Sabo and Luffy. They watch her back once she sets sail. She only wears one red glass bead earring because the other one got ripped out of her ear when a child, leaving her earlobe torn (don’t think about it too much 😢). Also, YES! she does wear a hibiscus flower just like Rouge (because I hate you and I want to make you cry, muhwahahahaha).

Also, I really wanted her to have super textured curly hair that licks behind her like flames. I am always considering whether or not a character should have long hair or not because I don’t want it to be a hindrance if they’re in a fight (or if they ARE a fighter with long hair, how to they avoid an enemy making use of that?). Ace is, of course, a Logia-type Devil Fruit User so I think she wouldn’t have trouble with people grabbing it LOL I get the feeling that she doesn’t take very good care of it even though it looks amazing. Like you’d think it would be soft and bouncy just by looking at it but if you ever get the chance to run your fingers through it, it’s a total rat’s nest and there’s sand and food all up in it. She still falls asleep while eating 😂 but she tries her best to only do it around people she can trust (woman moment 😔).

Honestly, her design is not that different from Ace’s canon look. It feels really vital to Ace’s character to have a lot of skin showing. And he’s always hanging all over himself with his hips all cocked like the weight of the world is too much to stand up straight. It is certainly not my OWN preference to make her an absolute smoke show. That’s just the character, okay? (I’m partially lying and the proof is that I turned the emblem on Ace’s hat strap into a sternum tattoo for no other reason than that it is sexy af.)

Here are some closeups of Ace:

Now for Sabo, I’ve made her very girly. I tried putting her in pants or something more militant but she told me that she’d wear the big poofy sleeves and hiked-up ruffled skirt. I think Sabo has always had a strong grasp on his fashion sense and individual flair and I truly believe that his personal style is one of the major influences for the rest of the Revolutionary Army resulting in the very flashy, queer, steampunk aesthetic (aside from Dragon’s plain-ass cloak). So of course I had to implement her nonconformist look when reimagining her as a woman and dress her up to the nines.

I’ve given her very ornate jewelry that is there to tell a story, even if she herself doesn’t know it. I like to think she picks up stuff from her travels that resonate with her, such as a damaged set of earrings with one stone missing or red cup-shaped shells featuring three nestled pearls. Another accessory that cannot go unmentioned is her dragon claw hat pin that keeps her top hat resting on top of her hair (and is definitely used as a weapon when the situation simply doesn’t call for trusty metal pipe). She also has a veil that obscures her prominent facial scar. I imagine she’s not very keen on the reminder of the incident from her childhood that took away her memories. I also kept her chipped toothed because 1) it’s fucking adorable and 2) is a visual reminder that she no longer aligns herself with the nobility who would have gotten such a thing fixed. She is so poised in almost every outward facet of her life from her dignified role as the Chief of Staff to the elegant materials in her clothing that it can be easy to forget she was also a rough and tumble forest dweller. Every time Koala remembers this, he lets out the biggest sigh.

Her hair is inspired by Gibson Girls and Elizabeth Swann from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I wanted it to be fussy and tidy but fall apart when she’s in moments of distress. For example, when she remembers her sisters, her hair starts to look like Ace’s flaming mane. I’m so in love with her, I think she looks like an adorable little porcelain doll that would fuck you up. I made an effort to keep her eyes a little bit manic. I get lost in her steely black orbs (and also Ace’s warm brown ones, but we’re talking about Sabo rn).

Here are her close-ups:

Plot notes for this AU:

For this series of character designs, I wanted the expressions and outfits to be aligned with the canon plot but I don’t know if I have the heart to kill fem!Ace in my AU. I’m too attached and ASL has suffered enough!!!!! But Ace’s death is also a major defining moment for Luffy so it feels disingenuous to completely avoid it. Also a huge aspect of Sabo’s character is carrying on Ace’s will and I have so many thoughts about how the Dressrosa Colosseum scene would play out if they were all women. Oh well, I’ll cross that tragic bridge when I get to it. I’m definitely going to draw some Modern AU Girl Piece ASL though. They deserve to hang out with no stakes 😭 They are sisters!!!

Check out the tag “girl piece” on my blog for my other One Piece genderbends! 🥰

[tohruies]

a realisation that home was here. home was now. and it had been all along … 🥺💘

— ☆ 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒

alhaitham x ryu. this is obviously a selfship piece for ryuhaitham and it’s in first person. canon au. comfort. fluff. read here if you want more context on us. 0.7k wc

I sat curled on the couch with a blanket drawn tightly around me, staring at the modest decorations I’d strung up days ago when Alhaitham first left for Akademiya business. The lights, the strings of ribbon—they felt out of place here, like foreign embellishments in a world that had no meaning for them.

Christmas. Once upon a time, it had been everywhere—woven into every light, every note of music, every breath of winter air. It wasn’t as though I’d celebrated Christmas extravagantly but the absence of it here made the ache of displacement settle heavy in my chest. Even if I’d only half-participated in the holiday back then, its laughter and warmth had always been a comforting constant.

Teyvat moved without pause. The winds of Mondstadt whipped across snow-buried plains, Sumeru’s ever-shifting leaves played on the breeze and Liyue’s lanterns flickered against a fading sky. It was timeless and unchanging, as if the universe was indifferent to the celebration I longed for. But like the decorations I’d strung up, Christmas had no place here. And in that knowledge, my homesickness deepened, the distance between my old world and this one stretching farther.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and I startled, my gaze snapped to the figure entering. Alhaitham’s silhouette was outlined against the dim light of Teyvat’s evening and in his hand was a small neatly wrapped package, the paper a rich shade of crimson, tied with thin, silver silk that shimmered softly in the light.

“You’re back,” I mustered, rising slightly from my seat.

“I am,” His gaze swept over me, and a crease formed between his brows. “You look troubled.”

I offered a fragile smile, “Just thinking about… you know.” I trailed off, eyes drifting to the window where whimsy unbeknownst to me twinkled in the inky expanse above.

Without preamble, he extended the gift toward me. “Here.”

I blinked in surprise, looking from his hand to his face. “What’s this for?”

“Isn’t it customary to exchange gifts for… Christmas?”

The word fell from his lips tentatively, as though testing its weight. His eyes searched mine for any sign that he had mispronounced it. Then, a bittersweet ache unfurled in my chest.

“You… remembered?”

He remembered. Even in passing, even if I hadn’t explained it in detail, he had remembered. And more than that, he had acted on it.

“You mentioned it once,” he replied, the faintest hint of awkwardness colouring his tone. “I don’t fully understand the tradition, but it seemed important to you.” He paused, then added softly, “I thought it might remind you of home.”

My fingers brushed the wrapping paper, tracing its edges as a quiet laugh escaped me. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“It matters to you. If it makes this place feel less foreign, then it’s no trouble at all.” He spoke as though his sentiment was the simplest truth in the world.

I bit my lip, his words filling the emptiness in my heart like the flickering flame of a candle in the dark. Slowly, I unwrapped the gift, the paper falling away to reveal a delicate glass ornament, its shape a perfect, crystalline star. It caught the lamplight, scattering prisms across the room like a reflection of something celestial—like fragments of a distant sky.

“It’s not much,” he almost sounded apologetic, “but stars seem to hold significance in your world’s imagery for this holiday.”

I stared down at the gift, my vision blurring as the sting of tears welled unexpectedly. The ornament trembled in my grasp, held close to my chest as the first drops slipped free, unstoppable. “Thank you,” I whispered, so softly it felt like the words might dissolve and me with it.

Watching me closely, a shadow of concern crossed his face, as though uncertain whether he had made me uncomfortable. “You’re crying…” His voice wavered, caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

I wiped at my tears, smiling through them. “They’re happy tears,” I told him. “I really needed this.”

Alhaitham sat beside me with the same calmness that defined his every action. The silence now brimmed with a bubbling warmth, deeply felt like a steadfast anchor.

“If you’d like,” he started, “then we’ll celebrate it. Here, every year. However you wish.”

His offer settled gently. “I would like that,” I said, already untethered.

Alhaitham nodded, brushing his hands against mine, the touch so tender it seemed to carry a promise with a three word phrase hanging in the air. As the glass star shimmered between us, the ache of homesickness began to ebb. In its place bloomed a sense of belonging.

A realisation that home was here. Home was now. And it had been all along.

© 2024 grimmweepers — do not repost, copy, translate, modify my work on any platform

divider: @/adornedwithlight

[creatingblackcharacters]

No, That’s Not ‘How Color Works’. - Whitewashing

Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"

In fandom context, we know it to include:

Making someone’s skin lighter

Making someone’s hair a thinner texture

Changing someone’s nose to be thinner

Shrinking their lips

Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else

The Normalization of Whitewashing

Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But that’s the key word here- overt! It has to be “bad enough” to make enough people speak up, but as we’ve seen many a time, “bad enough” seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesn’t exist!)

Some visual examples

This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.

I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uh… I didn’t know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that 🤣. Jokes aside, as I’ve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if they’d chosen to do ye same olde… there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.

Colorism as a Tool

Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think “oh well at least they’re Black!” as if that is the only important part. It is not.

While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not “enough” to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.

It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. It’s been happening for years, and I don’t think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesn’t look anything like Kida- it doesn’t matter if she’s Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! I’ve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to which… I don’t have the words. I can’t fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.

The Common Excuses

I must be honest. I don’t really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because I’ve already discussed these things in massive detail. So I’m just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.

“Their hair/eyes are like that because they’re biracial so-”

Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10

There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!

But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blackness… I don’t know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.

You don’t get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people don’t always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do don’t deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But don’t change a character’s entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black character’s mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.

“It’s my style/It’s the color-”

Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10

I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but I’ve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as I’ve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the “style” and “color” excuse.

Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. I’m not saying they aren’t. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:

1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoples’ features. That’s you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!

2. “Everyone who is brown will look ashy so I just-” if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then it’s time to try something else! I don’t understand this sudden need for “realism” when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldn’t have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is “how it works”. That’s not fair.

The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone else… and not the Black characters.

If you use the color picker and the color picked is… disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!

“It’s the lighting-”

Relevant Lessons: 4, 5

If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.

If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DON’T change your character’s skin color!

I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.

Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.

Now look at this image in comparison:

In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.

To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.

‼️DISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLE‼️

Okay. I am about to show y’all a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artist’s name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and it’s over- they’ve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason I’m including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what I’m telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and y’all sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.

I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:

“Well it’s just MY design of them-”

Relevant Lessons: ALL

The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is different… is the man himself.

Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say “oh well this is my design of them” …and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blackness… Racism. If you’re going to “make up your own design”, then do that!

“Blackwashing”

Speaking of: I’m sure someone edgy out there thinks they’re so smart as they retort to the screen: “but if that’s not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?” To which I say- shut up. 😐

The “definition” by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.

Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is “to defame”, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say you’re blackwashing their characters, when they mean you’re making them “less likable because they’re Black now”. 🤔

Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.

Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I ‘headcanon a character as Black with 4C hair’ is not going to make the studio go “oh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!” Me saying “oh I think I’d like this character better if they were Black” as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because I’m not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewer’s dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game media… and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful “Blackwashing” with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.

How it could be "solved"

Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didn’t want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!

I wouldn’t have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. We’re not allowed to even be present! I’ve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think there’d be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.

Something I’ve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans “allow” it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, who’s ever done it what their comments are like. I’ve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how it’s somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of “hey maybe you shouldn’t do this” prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.

Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!

1) Using References!!

Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. We’re humans. It’s 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when it’s time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when it’s time to love and depict us. If you’re on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if you’re in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.

Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.

Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldn’t need a reference? Unfollow them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. I’d far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!

Part of the issue is people draw what they’re used to, what they’re comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what you’re used to is not what someone will look like… That’s not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If you’re not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!

If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. I’d far rather deal with someone saying they’re unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because “well at least I’m trying!”

2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!

Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in “regular looking white dude” on google). There’s hardly ever any white characters, you’re so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because you’ve seen just how amazing this artist creates! They’re so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image of… Assad Zaman.

That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chef’s kiss. Stunning! But… He’s not white. That’s not what you asked or paid for. You can’t even fathom how they mixed this up, they don’t even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you can’t tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, you’re the racist! But you’re not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! And… It’s not you.

It’s dehumanizing. It’s being told that there’s a “better way” to look like you, and that’s by… Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are what’s incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. It’s better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, it’s better to have lighter skin, it’s better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.

And what makes it worse is knowing that people who don’t look like you? Probably won’t care. They won’t be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that they’re propagating harm by not acknowledging it. They’re letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that ‘attempt at inclusion’. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.

I’m going to say this, and it’s awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, but… Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated as… alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately don’t know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know we’re there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!

By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you don’t need to be drawing us.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said “gee, not another white guy!” It simply doesn’t happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. There’s no danger to any of you of “being erased”.

(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)

People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, but… To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned characters… Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldn’t have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.

But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because it’s the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that you’ll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have just… Drawn more white people.

I’ll say it again: antiracism is hard. It’s hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. It’s really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, I’d far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less ‘hopeful’ than I normally am in these lessons, but… People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. It’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- let’s choose better actions.

[the-ellia-west]

HOW TO WRITE ROMANTIC ATTRACTION FOR DUMMIES

For anyone who wants to learn, (especially aro/ACE, aspec, ect.)

Requested by the lovely @darkandstormydolls

Alrighty! Welcome back or welcome to my blog! I'm dipping my toes back into the category of posts that gained me my exposure!

So if you're here, you want to know how to write romantic attraction/romance!

Strap in and let's begin!

(Pls spread this to people you think would benefit from seeing it, or anyone who requested it bc I forgot, ANY ASPECS)

Step one -

Your characters must admire one another at the beginning, Romantic feelings usually do not present themselves as obvious until you really think them through, meaning your characters may not notice they have a crush until it's too late

These are general statistics and light stereotypes. So feel free to not use this tip:

Male characters usually tend to notice physical things first, like body shape, hair, skin, clothing, the way their lover moves, ect

And Female Characters Generally tend to notice more small things and personality-based traits first, like their lover's humor, speaking mannerisms, shifts in expression, ways they fidget, emotion in their voice, ect.

And someone who is in love will generally show more interest in this particular person's movements, actions, words, and anything in general.

Step 2 -

The character will show more interest in sharing their love language with their lover/crush

Physical touch - People with physical touch love languages may want to hold hands, cuddle, hug, or just lean on their crush whenever they are close to them moreso than they want to with others

Gift giving - Gift givers will want to get more gifts more often for their crush, probably thinking of them whenever they see little trinkets or wanting to get them big gifts for special occasions or signs of appreciation

Acts of Service - Acts of service people will offer to do extra favors and a bunch of extra stuff they don't have to do twice as much as normal

Words of Affirmation - Flattery, they will generally flood their crush with kind words and compliments

Quality time - Quality time people will want to spend time with their crush at almost every turn, and when they want company, will turn to their crush first

Step 3 -

After a while, these urges while become very prominent and more noticeable to the person having them

They may find themselves fantasizing about their crush or having them show up in their thoughts more and more, feeling nicer and happier when they're around, or when they're thinking about them

Smiling when they think about them, cutsey little fluff thingies like that

A crush is essentially: I want to date that, I want to be near that always, I want to marry that, I want that to snuggle me (or other love languages)

Or in simpler terms: if that asked me out, I would say yes (or at least want to say yes if your character is in denial)

Step 4 -

The character's urges to be close to this person grows strong enough that they do smth about it, whether prompted by another character. Or they just don't know I how to not anymore (like when you wanna eat candy and you don't want to, but you do anyway bc I JUST NEED THE CHOCOLATE OKAY?)

(Or for Aro/Ace, garlic bread)

People who are in love are generally very prone to be all dreamy and poetic and VERY EXTREMELY BIASED towards their crush

Then Yada Yada they kiss & shit

You're welcome, BYEEEEEEEE 👋

Happy writing!

Love you! Thanks for reading, And Ghost Tumblr Mother says go drink some water and have a snack, you've earned it, and you are beautiful <333

Have a good day! :]

@blue-kyber @thisisntrocket @cosmolumine @i-do-anything-but-write @paeliae-occasionally

@supercimi @the-letterbox-archives @sunglasses-in-the-bentley @vyuntspakhkite-l-darling @artsandstoriesandstuff

@corinneglass @wyked-ao3 @urnumber1star

[vadlings]

Represention of Autistic Frustration in Laios Dungeon Meshi

Like many other autistic people, I related strongly to Laios Touden while reading Dungeon Meshi. This post isn't going to spend time disputing whether he displays autistic traits or not—while I could do that, I want to focus on why specifically his portrayal struck a chord with me in a way the writing of most other autistic-coded characters has not.

Disclaimer: as the above suggests, this post is strongly informed by my own experiences as an autistic person, as well as the experiences of my neurodivergent friends with whom I have spoken about this subject. I want to clarify that in no way am I asserting my personal experience to be some Universal Autistic Experience. This post is about why Laios' character feels distinct and significant to me in regard to autistic representation, and while I'm at it, I do feel that I have interesting things to say about autistic representation in media generally. This also got a bit long, so I'm sticking it under a read more. Spoilers for up to the end of chapter 88 below.

The thing that stands out most to me in regard to Laios' characterisation is the open anger he displays when someone points out his inability to read other people. This comes up prominently in his interactions with "Shuro" (Toshiro Nakamoto):

The frustration pictured above (Laios continuing to physically tussle with Toshiro, using crude language toward him) becomes even more notable when you remember that this is Laios, who, outside of these interactions, is not easily fazed and often exists as a lighthearted contrast to the rest of the cast. Then we get to Laios' nightmare.

In Falin's words: "Nightmares love emotional wounds. Wounds you hold in your heart. Things that give you stress, or things that were traumatic for you. They aggravate memories like that and cause the dreamer to have terrible dreams." (chapter 42, page 10.) (damn. i'm properly citing for this post and everything.)

Thus, Laios' nightmare establishes an important fact: even if he is unable to recognise social blunders while he's making them, he's at least subconsciously aware that other people operate on a different wavelength to him, and that he's an outsider in many of his social circles (both past and present). His dream-father's disparaging words stress the impact this has had upon his ability to live up to the expectations set out for him, and we also get a panel of kids who smirk at him (presumably former bullies to some degree). Toshiro's appearance only hammers home how much Laios is still both humiliated and angered by his misunderstanding of their relationship.

I've thought a lot about anger as concomitant to the autistic experience. When autistic representation portrays ostracization, it's generally from an angle of the autistic character being upset at how conforming to neurotypical norms doesn't come easily to them; as a result, they express a desire to 'get better' at meeting neurotypical standards, a desire to become more 'normal' (whether the writing implies this is a good thing or not). In contrast, not once does Laios go, "I need to perform better in my social interactions, and try to care less about monsters, because that's what other people find weird." His frustration is directed outward rather than inward, and as a result, it's the people around him who are framed as nonsensical.

The Winged Lion starts delineating Laios' anger, and Laios' reaction is to think to himself, "It can sense all my thoughts, huh?" (chapter 88, page 16.) This is the scene that really resonated with me. I'm not saying I have never felt the desire to conform to neurotypical norms that is borne from insecurity, but primarily, I know that I don't want to work toward becoming 'normal'—I don't want to change myself for people who follow rules I find nonsensical. It's the difference between, "Oh god, why can't I get it," and, "WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT?" (phrasing here courtesy of my friend Miles @dogwoodbite). And for me personally, Dungeon Meshi is the first time I've seen this frustration and the resultant voluntary isolation from other people portrayed in media so candidly. Laios' anger is not downplayed or written to be easily palatable, either.

The culmination of Laios' frustrations in this scene wherein we learn that Laios has fantasised about "a pack of monsters attacking a village" drives home just how alienated he really feels. I need not go into his wish to become a monster himself, redolent of how many autistic people identify/have identified with non-humans to some degree as a result of a percieved disconnect from society (when I was younger, I wanted to be a robot. I still kind of do.)

Obviously, wishing death upon other people is a weighty thing, but the unfiltered nature of this page is what deeply resonated with me. The Winged Lion is laying Laios' deepest and most transgressive desires bare, and they are desires that are a product of lifelong ostracization by others (whether intentional or unintentional). This is the brand of anger I'm familiar with, and that my neurodivergent friends express being familiar with, but that I haven't seen portrayed in writing so explicitly before—in fact, it surprised me because most well-meaning autistic representation I've experienced veers toward infantilisation in trying make the autistic character's struggles easy for neurotypicals to sympathise with.

Let's also not neglect the symbolism inherent to Laios' daydream. "A pack of monsters attacking a village". Functionally, monsters are Laios' special interest—he percieves everything first and foremost through his passion for monsters. His daydream of monsters attacking—killing—humans, is fundamentally a daydream of the world he understands (monsters) overthrowing the world that is so illogical to him, that has repeatedly shunned him (other people). I joked to my friends that it's an autistic power fantasy, and it actually sort of is. And in it, his identity is aligned with that of the monsters, while his anger manifests in a palpable dissociation from the rest of humanity. This is one manga page. It's brief. It's also very, very raw to me. I think about it often.

To conclude, I love Laios Dungeon Meshi. This portrayal of open frustration in an autistic character meant a lot to me, and I hope I've sufficiently outlined why. Also, feel free to recommend media with autistic representation in the notes if you've read this far—I would really like to see if there is more of this nature. Thank you for reading. I'm very tired and should probably sleep now.