#because of how many characters are just... ambiguously brown
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Katya goes by both
She’s a girlboss
if i see even one more of my russian lit mutuals making pedantic complaints about how katya should be goncharova and not goncharov i'm going to lose my mind. As if the film isn't literally all about cultural dissonance. As if it's not OVERTLY satirical with regards to american stereotypes about Russians, especially back in the 70's when Scorsese was working. Like of course her name is the literalization of Americans misunderstanding and misappropriating other cultures and languages. And that's before we even get into the gender politics of giving Katya a masculine name. There's such an interesting conversation to be had about the strategic withholding of womanhood, even by Katya herself as a self-defense technique in the male-dominated and hypermasculine Naples mafia culture, but all you guys want to do is summarize the Wikipedia page for russian naming conventions to prove you were the runner-up in the 8th grade scholastic spelling bee. Like I understand the impulse but it really makes me worry for the reading comprehension on this website.
#goncharov#katya goncharov#katya goncharova#actually there was a time i had female ocs named tishanev and enakovski#but that was different#it started out as me being kinda nonlucid and illogic#but since everyone else has fictional surnames like halapsian mgelidze moshir tadris secura guzekin polpettoso ostrodono tilnova obunga#verian versalatte paepi nephilim...#but at least danvers and essex are real#but are the only ones and pronounced slightly different anyway#ダンヴェルス for danvers#エッセクス for essex#basically i decided those names are a translation convention for cubism#all those characters are native to the same country and ethnicity its just all stilized#which is why only male characters are black and only female characters seem asian#zukcoh is my most asian of the male characters#and even then#hes more anime than anything#so basically#black men equate to white females and white men to asian ladies#kind of#because of how many characters are just... ambiguously brown#basically#its cubism#its to render xyronia more vague#xyronia could really be anywhere lel#there are times it feels american italian japanese or even caucasus or central asian#i was p illogical so i considered the country of georgia to be one of my fandoms#and always blamed it on susan wainwright#well ofc i was so obsessed with her
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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.
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ok armand's backstory is super tragic in the books but the show makes it even more devastating with The Implications. imagine marius leaving armand (his slave who he abused ever since he was a child) for the Evil Satan Cult and instead turning bianca (white rich woman)and choosing her as his new companion. makes me sick insane etc
OH MY GOD YES IM ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT THIS!!! In the books Armand is also technically Marius’s slave, but the way it’s portrayed from Armand’s perspective encourages u to forget about that. But the way the show highlights how Armand was a slave and shows how it influences the way Marius treated him annnndddd made Armand a person of color adds such a disturbing layer to an already disturbing dynamic. (Which i love lol)
I loooveee that u brought up Bianca bcus the whole dynamic with Bianca is sooo fucked up and no one ever talks about it. In blood and gold Marius explains that he was lonely and wanted a vampire companion, who he originally wanted to be Bianca, but he felt super mf guilty about this bcus Bianca is a young well off bright white girl and by turning her into a vampire and taking her for himself he’d be depriving her of her chance at a prosperous life and humanity. And the way Marius gets over angsting about how badly he wants Bianca but how he can’t take her cuz it’d be fucked is by BUYING ARMAND!! Marius buys Armand bcus he considers him *less of a person* than Bianca and therefor someone he can use and abuse without any guilt. So now that Armand is a person of color, that dynamic It’s basically like, “I can’t harm this sweet white girl even tho i want to so bad, that would be horrible!!! Wait, Oh my god yay!!! A brown boy <3 I can do as many terrible things that I want to him because he isn’t human to me <3” like holy shit that is sickening. And it’s such a nail on the coffin how once Marius decides to discard Armand bcus he’s not worth saving to him he immediately turns Bianca and decides that she’s his companion now, like oh my god.
making Armand a person of color was honestly one of my favorite (if not my fav) change that amc made with the characters. In the books Armand is always portrayed as having this ambiguous social oppressor that causes him to be seen as less then human or less worthy of inherent respect + dignity as other ppl, especially in his human lifetime, and it is so prevailing throughout his life that Armand is used to being treated like he’s nothing, so Armand being a person of color just makes sense to me. Not only that, but his entire backstory where there is so much emotional weight put on how Armand was stripped of his cultural identity and his birth name and his connection to religion by being sold into slavery so he’s lost the ability to understand who he is ?!?!? Like it’s kind of insane to me sometimes that all of the aspects of Armand’s backstory in the show that are very much racial trauma happened the exact same way in the books 😭. It makes a little too much sense lol
thank u sm for the ask I love angsting about Armand’s backstory more then anything!!!! ❤️❤️
#armand#The vampire armand#armand iwtv#amc iwtv#iwtv#interview with the vampire#amc interview with the vampire#iwtv s2#iwtv amc#iwtv meta#vampire armand#vampire chronicles#the vampire chronicles
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Hi, no worries about my og ask being deleted, because I’m a weird little freak that writes drafts for my asks in my notes app. So here’s it again:
This is a completely personal opinion, and I’m not faulting anyone for having this headcanon, but I absolutely hate Asian Melanie headcanons, specifically Chinese Melanie.
The reason why is because I am Chinese, and I hate the idea of sharing anything in common with her.
But also, I don’t really like any PoC headcanon for Melanie. I’m not black so I can’t really say how bad it would be, but to me, headcanoning one of the most physically aggressive characters in the show as black is… not great.
And I understand that there are a lot of PoC that relate to Melanie, or see her anger as righteous fury that so many minorities feel.
But to me, she is 1,000% white, mostly because her anger sounds so entitled to me, she’s like “I fought tooth and nail for everything in my life” and it’s… a YouTube channel. Not “I worked so many jobs trying to climb the ladder but everyone looked down at me.” (Which Sasha did have) or “anywhere I go, people look at me with scorn.”
All her anger and the only thing we see that she’s angry about is that she became a meme.(an oversimplification, I know) And maybe she did have to work a lot of jobs until she got to where she is, but we never really hear about it, so it’s a moot point.
I am of the opinion, that all the characters that don’t have a canon race, are written as white, because Jonny Sims is white and he wasn’t trying to write a story about race. But for a lot of them, making the a PoC doesn’t really change their story, but I’ve seen people think otherwise.
The one I’ve seen most is saying that if Jon is brown, it changes his story because of the way Jonah was manipulating him and that he is a victim of police brutality, but I don’t really think that would really affect his story, because Jon isn’t a character that, to me, takes his race in to account for how others treat him. However, Melanie definitely is, if she were anything other than white, she would be loudly declaring the racism that she is met with all the time, as is, she only talks about her experience with sexism.
And I know I’m digressing, but it annoys me to no end when people are like “Jon has to be white, because if he were a PoC he would have been suspicious of Elias, and wouldn’t have been so shocked that he was the murder suspect. And if you think that he could be brown, you’re stupid and racist” And then they’ll turn around and say that one of the other ambiguously raced characters is a PoC.
Like, you’re going to say Jon has to be white because he he didn’t think he was a murder suspect, but turn around and say Martin “you’re the police” Blackwood isn’t one of the whitest characters in the show.
Race doesn’t really make a difference for any of the characters, but some do have more hints of being stereotypically white than others, and Melanie is definitely one of them to me.
Sorry, this got long. And once again, to be clear, I don’t really mind people headcanoning any character as any race, if I see something I don’t like , I just try to scroll past, and I never say anything on the post. I just needed to vent about the general situation of race in TMA, and put my two cents in. (Melanie was just a good starting point for it, and the one I personally have beef with) (also, sorry if it’s confusing, it’s pretty much just all stream of consciousness)
Anyways you can all tell me how wrong and racist I am if you want. 🗣️
Ask that ties to this
Yeaa I definitely see what youre saying. Personally I dont think much abt characters races, bc yea. The majority of it is rly ambiguous but I definitely see what youre saying - rosette
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Been thinking about my experiences as a POC within fandom while also being an artist and how much that sucks sometimes. This is primarily in regards to the Redacted fandom, but could be applied to any other fandom honestly.
Proper "fussing" under the cut (for those who would rather not see):
Sometimes, I really stop and think about what it must be like to be a white person in fandom, especially when you're an artist. To see yourself reflected in the spaces you exist in all the time. There are some exceptions to this, of course. For example, lack of body diversity is just as much of a problem in my opinion (Like fat people exist. Disabled people exist. Fat, disabled people exist. You can draw them, y'know? /rhet) But generally speaking, it's not difficult to find designs that probably look like you. There will be blondes, brunettes, redheads even— It's everywhere you look.
I don't think most people realize how isolating that ends up feeling though.
Because it's not just the fact that most of the art/designs you'll stumble upon won't resemble you. It's the fact that the prevalence dictates how everyone else interacts with fandom too.
Do you know how much it sucks seeing a post saying "So we all agree that Asher's blonde, right?" and knowing that most people are thinking of a white guy and nothing else?
Or noticing how Alexis, a generally "hated" character in the fandom, is the only vampire most people are willing to make visibly brown?
How about the fact that Gavin, the "thrilling" and "sexy" incubus, has so many black and brown designs— But I can count the non-white Lasko designs I've come across on my hand?
People can do whatever they want. I've said it before, and I'll continue to repeat it when I make these rambles. If you want to make every single design you have varying shades of white and never stray from that, that's your prerogative. But for the love of god, I wish I didn't feel like I was fucking crazy for talking about how much that shit sucks to see as a person of color.
On top of that, do you know how frustrating it is to watch white artists get praised for generic diversity when POC artists have been consistently bringing forth such compelling, stunning designs to table? Like I see the kind of shit that gets praised in this fandom and what doesn't. Racial ambiguity or the slightest addition of a curl gets treated like it's revolutionary— And that's only if it's the "correct" character. It has to "make sense", right? The same way Sam has to have sun-kissed, golden skin even after he's been turned, or the way Guy has to be white because there's no way someone with that personality could be anything but.
Do you know what it's like to be filled with such a sense of joy because someone made a design where a character had your skin tone or hair texture or facial feature? Like, I genuinely have a strong reaction whenever I find a black or brown design in this fandom because they're so rare in comparison to everything else. And when I really stop to think about that, I realize how fucked up of a phenomenon that is.
I love the designs that I've made, but I've also noticed which ones "do better" comparably. I don't change much of anything with how I go about posting or promoting them. The only difference is that some of them fit what is considered widely "canon" in fandom. And the others... don't. I go out of my way to make every design POC in some regard, and you can usually tell visually even without the addition of colors. I'm not gonna stop doing that because I know why I started in the first place. But fuck, it does start to hurt seeing white artists with the same general white designs get hyped up endlessly while I internally debate if I should even make another character look like me or not. If it'll even matter to anyone but me.
Some days, I just really wish it didn't feel like shit being black in this fandom. I hate knowing that I'm gonna post this, and I'll probably get responses for other people of color primarily.
But maybe putting this out will help that pill get easier to swallow.
#PK Rambles#Fandom Wank#If you feel “targeted” by this post: Maybe just ask yourself why? /gen#Because I promise you that your brief discomfort will fade with time#And my isolating exhaustion will continue to seep deeper and deeper into my bones#I'm just really fucking tired in a lot of ways
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Hi! I'm a reader with hEDS like Violet, and Fourth Wing made me feel like I'd been spat on.
*This* is what we get for representation? One million instances of pushing through pain?
In terms of Violet being lanky and skinny, I get it. A lot (not all! Not all! Do you hear me! Not all!) of people with hEDS are extremely thin, but also very tall. I felt a bit sad that that second part wasn't explored-- it's way harder to keep from bumping your elbows when your arms are that long. What I really wanted to see with the "uwu I'm sooooooo white-- I mean pale -- and skinny owo" was some kind of sunburn. Hell, even more evident bruising. There are consequences to the EDS complexion (obviously poc will have different experiences, but we're talking about a Generic White Fantasy Girl Here)
I kept hoping that she would get some kind of mobility aid, some kind of help from her small dragon, a brace, anything. We got a few mentions of wraps, but considering her biggest issues seemed to come from her shoulders and knees, that's a bandaid on a stab wound. It wouldn't save her forever.
The opportunity to explore accessible and altered sex positions was entirely ignored. Considering, again, the shoulders, there should have been more thought put into it. (Also, did you know a hEDS symptom is easier bruising? This includes the cervix. Do with that what you will)
I kept waiting for something (electric finger splints? Aches from the storms her powers cause? A day when she finally went too far and couldn't move? Nosebleeds from flying too high?), and it just never came. Violet was the bestest and the most powerful because she pushed through her body's warning signal that something was about to give, and was rewarded with Ambiguously Brown Man #45.
What a waste of time. What a message to give to the people with the same condition.
I didn't have very many opinions about this because I didn't know very much about hEDS. But even to me the whole thing of her having the disease felt kind of gimmicky because of the way that it was treated. I honestly didn't realise (because of the way everything was written) until like the end that her getting injured easily wasn't just another quirky trait of hers because she was just so tiny and petite and fragile.
but after hearing yours and reading other people's testimonies about how debilitating the condition can be, it's really insane to me how RY managed to misrepresent her own condition.
I don't understand why authors always make their mc so short and teeny tiny like it's so weird.
I feel like RY started writing her as a person with EDS and then got bored/forgot about it quickly and just peppered in symptoms while editing.
To me it felt like she was just using it as a way to add to Violet's QuiRy-ness and nothing more.
As far as I remember the only aid Violet got was the big dragon helping her stay on his back while she was riding but I don't think that that helped her very much.
I have mild hyper mobility and even writing for a long time is difficult because of that. So how Violet is able to ride a dragon and fight with a condition a million times worse and no aid I will never be able to understand.
I feel like RY didn't give her any mobility aids or anything because it would make her seem "weak" but de stigmatizing the need for additional help is an entirely different topic.
Honestly imo she just used the syndrome as a gimmick and an easy way to make her character interesting.
There is so much that could have been explored but wasn't.
Another case of lost potential, weak research and bad writing
#thanks for the ask!#fourth wing#bookblr#anti booktok#anti fourth wing#fantasy books#booktok#booktok critical#booktok cringe
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Character Development
Here's the summary of today's live discussion.
What is it?
Character development can refer to initial character creation, but when I say character development, I'm usually talking about how the character grows and evolves over the course of the story.
We will talk about both.
Character Creation
Creating a character is much more than just what they look like. So many things play into their personality, beliefs, feelings, etc. Their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, what kind of upbringing they had, past traumas, general inborn temperament traits, etc.
Character Types
Static v dynamic: refers to how much the character changes throughout the story.
Static characters stay the same and do not change at all during the course of a story.
Dynamic characters change and grow in many different directions. This character will develop and change throughout the story, sometimes to the point where it surprises the reader. Sometimes they surprise themselves and the other characters.
Flat v Round: refers to how much depth the character has.
Flat: A flat character is pretty one-dimensional, and that doesn’t change throughout the story. It is a static character with little to no depth. Maybe one or two identifying traits.
Round: A round character is more developed and has some depth and layers. They are interesting. They do not necessarily change throughout. (Unless they are also dynamic).
Character-driven story v Plot-driven stories: A plot-driven story is one where the plot moves the characters, while a character-driven story is one where the characters drive the plot.
The key difference between a plot-driven story and a character-driven one is that in a character-led narrative, the focus is more on the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist and the decisions that they make. Whereas, in plot-driven narratives, the action and occurrences that unfold will be the main point of focus.
Plot Driven examples:
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
Character Driven examples:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.
Some Definitions
Main Character: The character through whose POV we get the story. Often the same as the protagonist, but not always.
Protagonist: Prime mover of the plot. And in the vast majority of cases, the main character.
False protagonist: A character that seems to be the protagonist until a twist tells the reader otherwise. Think Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. This is why his death was such a shock, because most readers assumed he was the main character. This is often done exactly for that reason. Plot twists and shock value.
Antagonist: Opposing force who stands in the way of the protagonist’s goals.
Grey/morally ambiguous character: Just as it sounds. A character who is not all good nor all bad. They have complex motives and can sometimes be a loose cannon. Their actions are not always clear-cut in terms of morality.
Unreliable Narrator: An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view. The unreliable narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided, forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller.
Character Arc
The character arc is the full extent of how the character's inner world - thoughts and emotions - transforms from the beginning to the end of a narrative.
Things we will discuss in a future session:
Character motivation
Inciting incident
drivers of character growth
Random recommendations from today:
Lovecraft Country: an American horror drama television series developed by Misha Green based on and serving as a continuation of the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. Lovecraft Country follows Atticus Freeman as he joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.
Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong. A good example of using the same characters but shifting who is the main character from book to book. The series began in 2001 with Bitten, featuring werewolf Elena Michaels. It continued for thirteen novels, introducing other supernatural characters–witches, ghosts, necromancers, half-demons–and spinning off to their stories, and expanding the series into a multi-narrator fantasy world. Past characters continued to appear in guest roles and often returned to narrate new novels or short fiction.
Ya'll, I'm sure there were more recs from both myself and others but I'm drawing a blank and once the live stage ends, I can't see the chat anymore, so please comment or DM me if you remember a rec that I didn't.
Please, if I've missed anything at all, mention it in the comments and I'll add it!
Also, check out these articles:
Character Development
April Event:
TBD pending voting.
Word Warriors:
@karahalloway @aussiegurl1234 @harleybeaumont @alj4890 @peonierose @petiteboheme @twinkleallnight @lizzybeth1986 @noesapphic @thedistantshoresproject @welcometotheweirdplqce
@ryns-ramblings @tate-lin @nestledonthaveone
@aallotarenunelma @kristinamae093 @coffeeheartaddict2 @memorias-depresivas
@jerzwriter
#word warriors#writing tips#writing advice#creative writing#writing#writers on tumblr#character development
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If Nettles was white, she would be as popular as Lyanna, Brienne or Arya, and y’all know it.
She grew up a homeless orphan (which is why it’s so insulting when people try to act like she’s a freaking idiot who doesn’t know how to bathe herself yet she can tame a dragon🤦🏽♀️ Put most of the highborn women in her position and they wouldn’t survive a day in her shoes).
She’s the only known non-Valyrian dragonrider who claims a wild dragon. A prince who believes in Valyrian supremacy falls in love with her to the point where he’s willing to sacrifice his life for her. Nettles singlehandedly disproves the whole idea of Targaryen exceptionalism and their blood purity. She slowly earns a dragon’s trust by bringing him sheep, and gradually he lets her closer, and then forms the dragonrider bond and lets her fly. up until this point, nobody had tried a strategy like that before.
Nettles is self-made. She’s self-taught. She’s loved for herself. She survives a freaking war and becomes a fire goddess/witch. Who wouldn’t want her ? Who wouldn’t want to be her ? Unlike Rhaenyra and Alicent, she’s the final girl of F&B.
Once again, I don't understand where you got that I'm anti Nettles? I'm anti Nettles x Daemon, but other than that theory, I very much am a fan of Nettles as a character. I won't say that there isn't racism and unfairness that happen regarding Nettles' character (though I haven't seen it personally), because people can be really shitty. But me personally, again, I'm not anti Nettles, I just dislike certain groups of her stans.
Again, I don't deny that Nettles was a strong woman. She endured many things most characters in F&B don't and most likely survived the Dance. However, I do disagree with some of the ideas you're stating as fact.
For starters, we don't know if Nettles is non-Valyrian; that's one of the many theories surrounding her, but it's not confirmed, so stating it as fact is misleading. Just because she lacks traditional Valyrian features doesn't means she isn't a dragonseed.
Jace and his brothers don't look Valyrian but they very obviously are of Valyrian descent. Rhaenys, the queen who never was, had black hair; Duncan the son of Aegon V looked like his mother, Betha Blackwood; Aegor Rivers also had black hair; Baelor Breakspear had dark hair; Daeron son of Maekar had sandy brown hair; Rhaenys the daughter of Rhaegar had her mother, Elia Martell's features.
Moving on, Daemon's relationship with Nettles is ambiguous. We don't know if they were in a romantic relationship or if his attack on Aemond was purely to save her (though I'm sure that was part of his decision). Again, you are stating a theory you believe as fact, even though it's unconfirmed.
I'm not going to touch the whole thing of Targaryen exceptionalism, because, as I said earlier, Nettles' parentage is unconfirmed. But the whole blood purity thing still hasn't been disproven at any point of GRRM's works; they intermarried to preserve their magic blood, the magic blood still exists in ASOIAF due to the incest.
Nettles is an important character in the story of the Dance, but she isn't the "final girl" you claim she is, let alone of the whole book. There are several dragon riders who survived the Dance and thrived. Rhaena is the ancestor of the Tyrells in the main series. Aegon III is the ancestor of Daenerys, the Baratheons, any remaining Blackfyres, and possibly Jon Snow and Young Griff. Baela and Alyn are the ancestors of Aurane Waters and the Velaryons.
The book of F&B is so much more than the Dance of the Dragons. Saying that Nettles is the "final girl" of the book doesn't make any sense when she only appears in a few sections. That's like saying Alys Rivers is actually the main character of the book. Nettles disappears after the Dance and doesn't appear in any other event. She does nothing else after her disappearance and has relatively little impact on the history of Westeros post Dance.
I have absolutely no idea where you're getting the whole "fire goddess/witch" thing. However, you have already been throwing out theories and your personal biases as fact, so I don't think it matters. I'm not trying to control who your fav is, I totally understand wanting to be a certain book character. But that doesn't mean you can act like everyone else is wrong for not having the same fav as you.
It's that kind of entitlement, thinking you're better than everyone else that makes people not like Nettles stans. It's almost on par with stansas and Alicent stans. People like you project so hard onto your favs, you take any perceived insult, critique, or argument as a personal attack. It's exhausting interacting with people like you.
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How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?
Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake. He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life. This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.
Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...
Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis
“I could tell the truth. But I don’t.” - Robin 66
...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.
And I think that’s great.
Below the cut:
Shorter version - key points about Jack
Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)
Final thoughts
Shorter version - key points about Jack:
He’s a bad parent. He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.
But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way. He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters. Jack’s not a monster! He just...kinda sucks.
He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset. He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.
And Tim loves him, a lot. Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!).
...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in. Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.
The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)
Very long version:
(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)
Okay! So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation. You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in! I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.
My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area. Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away. He's just...not great. Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.
I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD
My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)
Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values. Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.
This is a great setup for an ongoing comic. It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:
Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play;
Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance;
Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...);
Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);
etc. etc.
The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism. Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.
And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.
I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever. Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot. And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...
...but also he ends up lying more and more.
(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)
Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation
(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)
Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do. When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.
And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV. If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really. So what do you do? Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around? Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?
Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy. Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out. How would you react? Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts. You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him. You’re upset with his dad. But also... what should you do, exactly?
Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.
My Harsher Take
Jack never hits his son. But his temper is a big deal.
In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it. When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.
This is bad behavior! It is Not Good!
And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.
Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.
More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake
Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either. Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust. When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified. When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem. Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious. And so on.
This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person. So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.
The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.
Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations. When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies). When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him. So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!). It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.
Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.
For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy). Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.
I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.
If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).
#tim drake#jack drake#ask tag#i wrote this ages ago and now i can't remember what i was going to add to it so oh well draft amnesty? sorry for the long wait anon!! <333#anyway i kept this carefully on topic and virtuously did not derail into talking about the other blorbo but tags are for disorganization SO#for me this kinda half-in half-out place where tim is with the batfamily is SUCH an interesting part of his relationship with dick#and i never stop turning it over in my head#he's kiiiinda replaced dick in that he's robin - but in a very real way he *hasn't* - he's NOT bruce's new son the way jason was#and early!tim makes a BIG POINT of how bruce is not his dad#and i think this relative distance from bruce is a huge factor in why dick is able to build a close relationship with tim at all#(because dick's still pretty estranged from bruce!)#and there's such interesting tension there when dick starts jokingly calling tim ''little brother'' or when villains call them brothers#because they're NOT. increasingly they would both LIKE to be brothers! but dick has zero official standing in tim's life#if tim got hit by a car in his civilian identity bruce and dick wouldn't even be able to visit him without his dad's permission#which jack would be pretty unlikely to give! jack doesn't like or trust bruce!#or like. this is morbid. but if tim died. dick wouldn't even be invited to the funeral you know?#and there's such interesting tension there for me in the contrast between this vigilante relationship that's very very close#but in their civilian lives no one would assume they're anything in particular to each other#anyway the 1st half of tim's robin solo has this thread of tension between tim's family life vs. his vigilante life (plus his mom's death)#and then the second half + red robin has the thread of struggling with grief in a world that's not fair + feeling lost/alone#and these two threads are a big part of my interest in tim as a character! jack's the backdrop that makes a lot of stories possible
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IIRC the Made in the USA retcon's purpose is kind of exactly what it says on the tin- there were arguments that America wasn't a "real" Latina because of her solo series establishing that she was an alien from a Latina-adjacent planet, and there were complaints that presenting her as a Latina character was false advertising. I don't remember any of those arguments or complaints being from actual Latinx people, though.
This conversation has been ongoing for a long time, and Latine people have definitely made that criticism. I'm not Latine, and I'm not Black, so I don't want to speak on it too much. I did write a review of Made In The USA back when it came out, which led to some productive dialogue. You can read that post here.
I do want to clarify my statement, though--
When I say that Made in the USA tanked America's backstory and ruined her character for nothing, I'm not being facetious. The retcon did not add or resolve anything regarding America's heritage or identity which hadn't already been done, besides moving her birthplace to a more recognizable version of Earth. In my opinion, Made in the USA threw out everything that had been established about the character up to that point, rendered most of her motives and achievements moot, and did not make enough additive or constructive changes to justify that damage.
In Made In The USA, we see that America was adopted by a Puerto Rican family, the Santanas, and identifies as Puerto Rican. Although it is contextualized differently by the retcon, this is not new information. The Santanas were introduced in America (2017) as the first family that took her in when she arrived on Earth. This is part of a longer sequence in which America explains how and why she identifies as Latina, having come to Earth and found people whose culture paralleled her own. And I want to be clear that while one of America's mothers is an alien refugee, the other residents of the Utopian parallel are, by all accounts, human-- they're just from an alternate universe.
Because the Parallel is so different, and because Gillen, et al, never gave America a specific, real-world identity, she is, by definition, a monolithic stereotype, and that's a problem. But the retcon does not establish Elena or Amalia's "real world" nationalities or ethnicities, either. On paper, America is still what's she's always been-- an ambiguous brown girl with an adopted identity.
America (2017), seeks to resolve that problem, firstly by bringing more authentic cultural inspiration to America's fantastical home worlds, but also by using that fantasy story to explore the formation of identity as an immigrant or refugee-- an experience which echoes through multiple generations of America's family. I won't try to judge how successful or authentic that actually was, but broadly speaking, I think that it is a legitimate and valuable avenue for sci-fi/fantasy storytelling, and the fact that it is done here in a story centered entirely on Black and brown LGBT people, is historically significant for both the genre and the medium.
Again, I'm not trying to diminish the fact that America was, for many years, tokenized and touted as something she could never be, due to of her white creators' lack of sensitivity or care. And I will not try to arbitrate whether it is better for this character to serve as literal representation, or as an intersectional allegory. But I think there's room in the superhero genre for both, and I think it's a shame that Made in the USA-- which, from a craft perspective, is an objectively worse book-- undermined America's story in such a disrespectful manner. I can't help but wonder if we-- both the company and the fans-- had been more honest about the expectations we were placing on this character, then she might have had the opportunity to be more well-realized as either, or maybe even both.
#america chavez#Having said all of that-- I do not want to engage in further dialogue about this and I probably won't respond to any messages or comments#I've made my perspective as a critic on both books very clear but I think I've also made it as clear as I can that this is just objective#analysis of text themes intention and execution.#I don't feel comfortable holding dialogue outside of that because this-- as I've been reminded-- is Not My Lane.
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your subway order total is $19.21
(extra notes below)
ok, so here's the deal with the slight design change! (i swear, it's cool)
i wanted to make chuck latino because i joked about it once (w/ fred stoller being on handy manny saying "my amigos 😆" and then saying his colors look like the flag of colombia 💀) but it stuck for some reason. to me, it works PERFECTLY.... if becky can be an alien who is
"ambiguously brown"
then why can't a sandwich person like chuck also be brown, yknow 🔥⁉️
(help i keep accidentally latinoifying wg characters--)
chuck? nah. he is now, officially
chuck el sandwichero perverso 🥪🇨🇴‼️🔥
(as they call him in the spanish dub aka chica supersabia)
for starters, i wanted to experiment with changing the type of bread he's based on. i can assume chuck is based on the classic sandwich made up of white bread (...💀) so i wanted to change it up for latino chuck.... yknow... yknow.... yknow.... 🕴️
i'm also just not a fan of plain white bread 🤕 LMFKAJDKSN
i had a couple of options to chose from so i can upgrade his sandwichness™ 💭 but i decided to settle onnnnnnn..........................
funky multigrain bread!! my favorite 🥄🥄‼️ anytime i make a sandwich, i usually reach for this bread... (and when i say "anytime" i mean the times i'm extra and watch a chuck episode while eating a sandwich 💀💀)
i like the idea of chuck having seeds and grains on his face... think of it like moles, freckles, or even acne scars if you will 🤷♂️ brent straight-up has seeds on him that represent freckles so why not, right⁉️ we can get creative here w/ it!!
plus- he's so much more bread-like this way
above is a fast doodle, but it is what i ended up sticking with for my design. if you see in the final drawing, i did shift around with some of his costume colors to make it work with the bread type-colors!!
i imagine brent being a variation of bread that looks similar to chuck. that way chuck can be multigrain bread and brent can be another type.
parent who is multigrain bread + parent who is another type of bread = two siblings, each being one of two options of bread because of genes™ (wow. sandwich person science 😍😍🥪🧬 /s)
my two options for brent's bread type? because i will probably never draw that man? either molasses bread (left) or even dark rye (right)?? but i lean towards dark rye brent because that idea seems so scrumptious to me
ngl i have never been too sure what type of bread brent is based on......
the wiki doesn't really help me decide. he has freckles that seem to be like seeds, so that means he's a type of bread that has seeds. but also, not that many seeds.... which is likely an animation thing since animating all those damn seeds must be hard. but idk? but his skin tone is very slightly darker than chuck so that makes me think he isn't white bread based™ (help what am i talking about)
if any bread experts™ out there have some guesses, let me know so we can talk about that more. for some reason, this is really fascinating.
anyways.... latino brent can be real too 🤷♂️
um...............
brent 😍🥪🇨🇴🔥‼️
(because i swear to god they just call him brent in the spanish dub instead of his long ass name)
but yeah 👍 that's my little hc-chuck related ramble. i may not talk about him, but i really fuckin love chuck 😭
............ .. . . . ... . .... . .. . ...... . .. ...... ....... .. .. .. .....typing this out has made me realize how much thought, effort, and research i have done all because of a joke i made. a joke i made about a cartoon character from a kids show where we haven't gotten new content in years. and that it's likely that i'm the only person thinking so deeply about a family of sandwiches--
#chuck the evil sandwhich making guy#wordgirl#chuck wordgirl#wordgirl pbs#sal arts#chuck el sandwichero perverso#chica supersabia#<- might as well 🤷♂️#wordgirl fanart#wordgirl art#art#artists on tumblr#wg#wg pbs#wg chuck#wordgirl chuck#pbs kids#pbs kids go#2000s cartoons#🤖: by jove you've wrecked my queue!#(aka scheduled all to hell)
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I would rather not get too much into the wuwa vs genshin vs r1999 because each game has their own pros and cons. But I'll say this much about these three games.
Genshin representation is getting to a point where it's now becoming a racist Fandom, especially on genshintwt. These fuckers harrased and made fun of a Hawaiian because all she did was to show how Maulani is EXTREMELY whitewash. Both her and her brother are no longer on twt due to constant racism. (Doesn't help the fact that Maulani and her tribe are the stereotype of the "nice welcoming Hawaiian"). With every excuse that these racist would always use, "it's fiction it not suppose to be reality". The same can be said for HSR
r1999 does have good representation on LGBTQIA, sexual oritentation, and having characters that aren't just pasty white. HOWEVER, as many people have stated, we have yet to have a black person. They have mentioned Black historical figures such as Louise Armstrong but not yet a playable character. It's also doesn't help that in one city they have an area called "Cotton Club". The last time they had a POC was in 1.3 as of right now, at least in CN service, it is now 2.0 and there hasn't been another Black or brown character. Those who do have brown skin are usually the "ambiguous brown" (take a look a Joe)
Wuwa...I'm just gonna say this much. Kuro games has a history of being generous. We see this in PGR so for veteran players their generosity is nothing new. Representation wise....it's a not that great but its not bad. While they do have some brown and dark skin (really depends if you see their skin as ashy or not with the exception of Vonnegut) characters, they still follow some Oritentalism as well as not having another Black or Brown character for awhile. Seeing how they are open to new cultures and how they listen to feedback we can only wait to see if they are going fix their mistakes or not.
Each game has their fair share if criticism. However to say r1999 has "better" representation than Genshin is a stretch. They have a good set of diverse characters but no Black Characters despite the fact they have entered an era based of the Roaring 20s.
Off topic the only CN game I have see that has Black Characters is Dislyte. At the beginning they did have racist stereotypes but they learned from their mistakes. And there are some ambiguous brown/Black Characters. Moroyama and Yalina for example.
I agree, I should probably word myself better when talking about the games as to not seem so- like putting one on a pedestal cause they all have their pros and cons (though genshin is bottom of the barrel dogshit in terms of rep)
I love Dislyte though, they genuinely seemed to have improved a lot in terms of how they represent characters, and people, and just overall cultures- and I’m honestly really happy with that. The Dislyte fandom is like… microscopic I feel BAHAJHAHA, so I haven’t heard much in terms of criticisms for them, so I won’t speak on that because I don’t know- and I’m just not aware :’)
#I do agree with a lot of the points you said though#genshin impact#cal chats#boycott hoyoverse#hyv boycott#boycott hyv#hoyoverse boycott#HYVboycott#fix natlan#fix sumeru
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Top 5 things/people you love about the buffyverse?
oh THIS is a fun retrospective. i haven't yet started buffyverse rewatch 2k24- but it's happening SOON. i've given myself a new edict to scrub away 27 years of btvs/ats opinions, loves, hates, fandom histories, annoyances, EVERYTHING- and go into this rewatch totally fresh, to let opinions form as organically as they can for a universe so near and dear to my heart since i was. god lol 6 years old. i'm personally hoping characters, ships, and plots that i've found hopelessly aggravating before, i find blazing passionate love for now. WOULDN'T THAT BE FUN THO??? i'm sick of negativity, i wanna embrace joy.
before i scrub myself clean, it's nice to remember why i was invested for so many years in the first place. SO. TOP 5 THINGS/PEOPLE I LOVE ABOUT THE BUFFYVERSE!!!!!!!!! not exactly my favorite 5 EVER about the buffyverse, but an assortment of 5. 5 separate top favorite things.
cordelia chase- my love my life my soul my queen c. the thing is. i adore her. i adore her as a bitchy mean girl, using her wealth and her beauty and her status to squash down our heroes. i adore her as a broke struggling actress, using a vampire detective agency as a stepping stone for international stardom. i adore her as a genuine hero, embracing her destiny, choosing to be a demon, and fully throwing herself into fighting the good fight because it fills her soul with purpose, belonging, and fulfillment. she has an utterly flawless character arc, one that parallels buffy's own in so many ways. (and fyi as a sidenote i am ENTIRELY POSITIVE that in ats s4 amnesiac cordy was 100% cordy, jasmine did not take over her body until she had the vision of the beasts eyes, and then it was real cordelia again in you're welcome. there's not question or ambiguity about it for me personally, not anymore.) my love for cordelia is all encompassing. i love her more than anything.
buffy&dawn, angel&connor- probably my favorite plot for both buffy and angel was when they each gained a kid who automatically became the most important part of their life (while my ultimate buffyverse otp is angel/cordy, i am very fond of bangel- and my biggest proponent for a postseries reconciliation revolves around this shared life experience) there is so much i love about both characters getting an auto-grown, magically created, blue eyed brown haired impossible teenager dumped in their lap (with bonus world-altering magical memories making their existence assimilated and accepted). giving them both not just another person to love, but another human being that is entirely reliant upon them specifically for love, protection. one person with the power to uplift or destroy them, through their own actions or the actions of another. buffy and angel both went through phases of being willing to destroy the whole world just to keep them safe- buffy in the gift, angel in forgiving. i just think it's NEAT. i probably spend more time thinking about angel & connor bc i do remain frustrated with a lot of choices made wrt them in s4 (the decision to lean far harder into whiney ungrateful teenager and less into feral hellchild raise by ultrareligious 18th century man in a barren wasteland of demons was in fact frustrating to me!) but hey, i still love connor in all his messy angsty ways. and origin/not fade away put a pin in that conversation in ways i will adore FOREVER.
the concept/importance of families of choice. for as much as i've waxed poetic over two of the series core biological relationships lol, the real center of both shows is always that love between a group of unrelated misfits. i've gone back and forth over the years on my opinion of many of the relationships within the buffyverse, and how successful those families can be- but it is still something i really love. and it's especially at the heart of what has been my 2 favorite seasons- buffy s5, and angel s3- which, only hitting me now, is also when dawn & connor are introduced, which brings the group much closer together. it's unfortunate tho, that in this world of two separate families of choice, with an assortment of characters from a large variety of backgrounds, that we only got one main that's not white. forever the biggest problem with both shows. and also why i won't shut up about how kendra should have been brought back. SHE ONLY DIED A LITTLE!
wolfram&hart as a main baddie. lawyers are evil. we know this. LOL BUT RLY THO. god! a perfect PERFECT villain, perfect way to use the fuckery of the legal world to impose your will upon broke private detectives. lawyers are everywhere, i'm p sure there's more lawyers in california than in any other state. we are very litigious. the mystery behind ~the senior partners~ that is always hanging over our heads, the horror that can be inflicted by these very human lawyers engaging in blood sacrifice, murder, every evil thing under the sun- and the fact our heroes can't exactly run around killing them because a. human and b. there's way fucking more where they came from. of course they were never defeated, of course they are a main villain from beginning to end. i have less fond memories about the state of wr&h in s5, but that's less about them and more about how our heroes try to utilize their resources (badly, it's badly). lilah morgan, one of the best antagonists EVER. holland manners, linwood murrow, gavin park. they come at angel investigations from every angle- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. but they. never. stop. 10000% perfection.
okay this one is more...... idk. this is a random thing i've been thinking about. and it's set design. lmfao. maybe it's because these shows have been part of my life for so many decades, because i grew up watching and rewatching and rewatching, but there's so much i love about their main sets. the hyperion hotel is one of my favorite locations on tv ever. the magic box! the sunnydale high library! i feel like i too lived in these locations. and i wanna go BACK!!!!!!!
#lodgeveronicaa#buffyverse2k24#i feel like i wanted to cover 5 different TOPICS within the buffyverse#if that makes sense#BUT THERE'S JUST SO MUCH I LOVE AND ADORE AND WANNA GO ON AND ON ABOUT FOREVER#so many characters and relationships#a few days ago i actually made a pinterest board for 'favorite things in the buffyverse' and just added pics of assorted characters/ships#THX FOR THE QUESTION BABES#buffyverserewatch2k24#retroactively adding this tag so i can go back and see where i started
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Raine for that character breakdown thingy
Raine Whispers my beloved
How I feel about this character
Man I get emotional over Raine when I think about them too long. Every single aspect of them from their name to their design to their identity is incredibly fun and important as representation. A brown nb middle-aged badass that's a major love interest that also plays a role in defeating the ultimate evil? They're just such a fun character with so many cool aspects to them I could just keep listing em. Like their palisman being a fox that's disguised as their instrument weapon?? The symbolism there??? They're a bard with stage freight but also a massive flirt??? Canon monsterfucker???? I could go on for hours, unfortunately it won't be very articulate after a while
All the people I ship this character with romantically
Obviously ride or die raeda, but I have always kinda liked raidarius and dariraeda, preferably the second one because ot3s are fun. But raeda is like "this is a pair do not separate" that I don't really care about shipping Raine outside of it unless Eda is involved too
My non-romantic OTP for this character
So I guess raidarius goes here too because Darius is very ace/aroace to me so I like them as like, sad cuddle buddies post Follies
My unpopular opinion of this character
Raine has always felt masc/butch to me considering their canon design and how Dana always drew them in her art, so I don't always vibe with fanart of them presenting very fem (which I've seen a lot of over the years, it's nbd its just not my preferred way to imagine them)
One thing I wish would happen/had happened with this character in canon
Was honestly surprised raeda wedding didn't happen considering Eda's gold ring on her left hand and Raine taking one of her hands (to disintegrate so she didn't die), but I'm not too upset by it. I remember Raine's VA being very insistent Dana not answer if they were married or not so it could be ambiguous since there're so many types of love, which I appreciate! I definitely wouldn't have turned down a wedding tho
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𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐫'𝐬 𝐬/𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞
⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ
🌿ESFJ 🍁Slytherin 📜Lawful Good 🔮Leo Sun, Cancer Moon, Scorpio Rising
SFW🌿
・As a half-elf, you weren’t welcomed into the Elvish land, culture or customs. Your mother had been in love with an elf, and although they wanted to be together, he was killed in battle.
・You know how to heal, energise, calm and hurt. Herbs are your speciality. And your cottage is full of them.
・Both inside and outside of your property, beings are instantly calmed once they step foot on your land
・You have bushes of lavender, a huge garden full of herbs and flowers. Even your own vegetable patch
・The fellowship had come looking for help
・You knew Gandalf because of his travels, and you were more than happy to aid the group
・Aragorn was very polite, and an absolute gentleman
・Pippin and Merry asked you nearly a million questions about your life, your work and way of living
・Legolas was absolutely charmed by you. Although he didn’t show it, he was delighted by your knowledge. You often verbally sparred with him at dinnertime. And the whole table would laugh at your jests
・But your dog, Findis (you call him Fin), would not leave one member of the group alone. Fin’s brown tail couldn’t stop wagging whenever Boromir was around.
・And you had always taken Fin as a good judge of character - well, one of the best actually.
・There were many late nights, when you were up, milling about the cottage
・And Boromir would wake, finding you outside, setting up things to charge underneath the moonlight
・It was those moments, when you were alone, that you got to know each other
・And each night he would wake, watching you, asking if you needed any help
・For the most part you declined help, but said he could stay to give you some company
・When it was time for the fellowship to leave, Boromir was sad to say goodbye.
・And without thinking, he promised that he would return
・When the fellowship left, each had a potion, protection charm and/or knowledge on how to heal themselves
・Months later, Boromir returned
・When he returned, his smile was so big it gave you butterflies
・You knew he was in line to inherit a kingdom, so you didn’t expect much to come from your friendship.
・Boromir had spent a lot of time at your cottage. Sleeping in a spare room, or on the lounge.
・The friendship was morphing into something romantic. And the desire was so strong that Boromir had to leave for 2 weeks. He couldn’t kiss you without promising life with you.
・So he went to his father, and told him he was going to marry you.
“A witch? Who lives in a cottage on the outskirts of a kingdom? You cannot marry them. I forbid it.”
“Then the crown will go to Faramir. I will not marry anyone else.”
・And so ... he came back to you.
・Boromir knelt on one knee and pulled a ring from his pocket.
“Will you do the honour of marrying me, Y/N?”
・You married. And it was a glorious affair.
・It was supposed to be small. But he invited all he knew: the Hobbits, the Elves, the Dwarves.
・And they came and witnessed your marriage and celebrated after.
・Life with Boromir was difficult at first, you didn’t want to leave your home. And he had responsibilities to honour.
・Yet somehow you both make it work.
・Boromir is the first to wake, always
・And he makes you a herbal tea and writes you a note if you do not wake in time to see him off
・He always comes to you for advice
・And likes to bring you to counsel meetings whenever they’re held
・Sometimes you get odd looks from the townsfolk but that will wear off in time. They just need to get to know you
・Fin loves that Boromir is around permanently. He always takes Fin for walks (which makes him love the tall human even more but that’s not really possible since he already adores him)
・Helps you with spells; foraging for the right ingredients, buying you whatever you don’t have in town etc
・Boromir likes when you cup his cheek and rub your thumb over parts of his face, especially his lips
𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒆𝒕 𝑵𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒀𝒐𝒖: My love
𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒂𝒈𝒆: Quality Time and Acts of Service
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒏𝒈:
Crazy In Love by the Midnite String Quartet
𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔:
✧ You Fell First But He Falls Harder
✧ Looks Scary But Is Actually Soft (Boromir) x Looks Soft But Could Kill You (You)
✧ “You wear the pants in this relationship” (You say to Boromir) x “Oh I wish, I cannot control you at all” (Boromir replies, always with a laugh)
I just want to say thank you to @leniabranch for giving me insight into each of the LotR characters. She did it in her own time and did not have to at all, but it helped me so much in writing for these characters. So thank you! I think Boromir is one of my favourite characters now 💗
#boromir x reader#boromir headcanons#boromir x you#boromir x witch reader#lord of the rings#lord of the rings headcanons#lotr#lotr headcanons#lotr x witch reader#tolkien#witchthewriter#headcanons#dating would include#would include#boyfriend headcanons#lotr fanfiction#lotr reader insert#reader insert#lord of the rings fanfiction
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Sorry to come to your inbox for this but I feel like you’d understand
As an Asian person living in the West, I’m aware of the different kinds of colorism in different cultures
I’m really tired of seeing people saying canon Wolfwoods are not dark enough for them. Yes there are variations in his coloring but in no iteration they made Wolfwood white (no, not even in BLR)
Not to mention other characters also have variations in their color design. Nightow’s Vash color pages are inconsistent too; sometimes he’s much darker
There’s a lot to unpack here that I don’t feel coherent enough to even begin
thank you for sending this, i really appreciate it. i'm not asian, so it really feels like not my lane to post about, but i notice all the time how reductive the conversation's become, and it really gets under my skin.
wolfwood is a japanese character, or at the very least designed that way. one of the big pieces of Trigun Trivia is that wolfwood was inspired by a japanese musician, tortoise matsumoto.
his skintone is inconsistent even within individual iterations but he's pretty much always drawn with monolid eyes. even in BLR and especially in stampede.
and that's just... not part of the conversation? somehow?
like. yes. colorism. but stampede wolfwood is immediately identifiable as an asian character, he still has a distinct nose bridge, the undertone of his skin is olive/yellow even when he looks pale. he's not white. he's asian.
and then in english-speaking fandom specifically, often explicitly with a dismissive sneer towards wolfwood's stampede design, wolfwood is very racialized in a way that distinctly does not depict him as asian, which i would bet money is because of western stereotypes about asian men. western wolfwoods are usually latino, or just... ambiguously brown.
(and of course there are asian wolfwoods among those, but his monolid eyes tend to be considered less important to preserve than his tits and his nose, along with stuff that was fully invented by fandom, like his body hair, and the exaggeration of his tits and nose, that rosary... weird how that happened.)
and... like.... there's nothing inherently wrong with character redesigns. or focusing on the parts of the character you find attractive when you draw or write them. i know a lot of specifically latino wolfwood came from latino fans. fanon wolfwood is a very handsome man. i see why so many people like him.
but it is. a bit fucking funny to have a whole host of people calling studio orange colorist and racist for wolfwood not being brown enough and then turning around and making wolfwood Fandom Papi Of The Year.
the vitriol towards stampede wolfwood feels just that much more disingenuous when the language is only surface-level about colorism, and the real complaint is that he's not attractive enough as a sex object.
thank you for the message <3 i'm very tired.
#'dark-skinned men are always the dom top and they're pretty mean about it too' is a fandom race-weirdness staple#'latino men make the best boyfriends they will give you the Best Sex and then make breakfast afterwards' too#it's. weird. i don't like how much of fandom content is just moderately racist and misogynistic tropes tacked onto a new blorbo.#i know characters are not real people. but it is really obvious that wolfwood is designated Piece Of Meat by this fandom#the amount of lineups i've seen where everyone is perfectly on model but wolfwood is hairy as a werewolf and busting out of his clothes#and like whatever do what you want#but the hypocrisy sure has been something to watch.
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