#black characters are allowed

[galfromearth-22191]

I honestly don’t know y’all….

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[canisalbus]

So i remember an ask mentioning your mortal enemy, Felis Atra and their cats, and i thought it'd be fun to draw what Felis Atra's version of your italian dogs would be.

I think they would be called Butter Knife and Flamengo! Butter Knife is not his real name, it's an nickname given by his peers because of how harmless he is. I choose Flamengo because that's the name of Vasco's rival football team here in Brazil, so i thought that was the perfect name :)

Cat Machete was slightly inspired by the Oriental Shorthair cat because of their long noses and thin head shape.

Cat Vasco was inspired by the Scottish Fold cat, because FLOPPY EARS. I gave Flamengo longer ears and orange fur to make him more like his look-alike.

The last doodle is a reference to this ask (https://canisalbus.tumblr.com/post/728923918314946560/me-i-am-machete-ear-fan-number-1-those-ears) and contains the tumblr ask stand-in dog, whose cat version was inspired by the American Curl cat! They have round ears that are slightly floppy outwards.

Final notes: I know cardinal clothes don't come in vibrant blue, but i was ADAMANT on switching Machete's and Vasco's clothing color patterns. I would draw the rest of Butter Knife's and Flamengo's clothes, but i suck at designing cool outfits.

Speaking of outfits, for Machete's iconic void outfit, i figured it would be fun to make it more baggy for Butter Knife, in contrast to Machete's, that looks very tight-fitted. I think it's cute, it kinda looks like a sweater. Also i can't imagine a Machete doppelganger without high heels boots, so those HAD to stay.

Oh, and just to be clear, i'm not like, claiming ownership of these guys or anything. I just thought it would be a fun exercise. Hope you like them!! I love your art and your characters.

.

[quibbs126]

I needed references for Earthspark Elita, and honestly in doing so, I’m realizing how much I like her design in this show

Like genuinely, I just think it’s a banger, and I like how blocky it is. Also, she gets to be a car here, unlike Transformers One

[tomialtooth]

To have a face is to have personhood. So by making Bell wear a balaclava, Bell's personhood and identity is denied.

Bell's balaclava therefore serves two purposes. In universe it serves both as a tool to sever the connection between Bell and their former identity and to dehumanize them to the rest of the safe house crew. Getting attached to Bell is dangerous and it's easy to get attached to something with a face. By removing Bell's face from the equation with the Balaclava it becomes easier for Park and Adler to avoid becoming attached to Bell.

Out of universe it allows the player to imagine however they want Bell to look like without having to add actual character model customization to the game.

[not-poignant]

Hi,

I'm not sure how to approach this without sounding like an ignorant asshole, but I'll give it a go.

I'm from a country where the Trans movement isn’t very visible, and most of what I know about it comes from the internet. I’ve never truly understood gender dysphoria. I’ve tried to listen and put myself in others' shoes, but I struggled to be genuinely empathetic. Instead, I just tried to be supportive because it was expected of me, without really getting it.

It might sound silly, but reading Underline the Black made me stop and think… Wait, is this what I think it is? Reading Efnisien’s internal monologues and introspection made me feel something—maybe not from the same circumstances, but in a way that something inside my brain clicked, and I finally saw where the pain was coming from.

I guess what I really want to say is thank you. Thank you for helping me begin to understand and for broadening my perspective. It might sound small, but it’s something I deeply appreciate. I’ve been trying for a long time.

I do feel a bit foolish realizing that it took an ABO fanfic for me to get it… but at the same time, I was also reading about your real-life experiences. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me. Forgive me if I’m wrong.

You have an incredible talent for expression.

Anon, until you know otherwise, everyone has to start somewhere. This applies to unlearning our biases and prejudices, which we all have for something, or many things, until we unlearn them. The fact that you've even tried to be supportive of something you don't really understand is still important, and still matters. It's a step into understanding, even if you don't have it yet.

I don't think it's foolish that it took you a story to realise what you've realised! This is actually exactly why representation of diversity (in gender, sexuality, culture, race, etc.) is so important in fiction. Because it's in fiction we can be free to explore concepts that are different to our own, or that challenge us, or make us see the world differently. This is why it's so important to know it's possible to identify with a trans character, or a POC character, or a character from a different culture to ours etc. Because that's when we humanise what we previously saw as like, different, Other, hard to understand. We go 'oh that's...really relatable actually, I think I'd feel the same way if that was my experience of life' or 'I don't know if I'd feel the same way but I really understand where that person is coming from.'

Gender dysphoria is complex, and different for different people. Being able to write it metaphorically through Efnisien's journey has been really interesting for me personally, because I've been able to depict both the inner conflict of knowing that your being is not...automatically going to be accepted as normal no matter what, unless you stifle or suffocate yourself, alongside the true euphoria and joy that can come with living as your best life, or your very self.

I have once seen a good analogy which is simply: Imagine from tomorrow onwards, everyone uses the pronouns you don't associate with yourself. You are bullied and mocked unless you wear clothing that is opposite to how you want to appear to others. You are put down and treated as psychologically abnormal for finding joy in true expression, even when that expression doesn't actually hurt anyone else at all. And now tell yourself that even your loved ones, when you desperately try to explain how wrong it all feels to be treated as so different to your true self, they explain that it's just mental illness, or that you're just confused, or that you don't understand yourself, and condescend to you, and treat you like they somehow have always known you better than you know yourself. And that's when you realise you might have to choose between your true self, and your family and loved ones who don't understand, or worse, hate you.

And then imagine that's the rest of your life, but it could change in an instant, if all of society just accepted that you are who you say you are! That all of your depression, and oppression, and suffocation could literally just vanish, if everyone was like 'oh sure actually, you want those pronouns? Cool! You want to wear this clothing? I like it!!'

And that journey is very tough in the real world, even in more accepting places (the US is clear evidence of this). In Underline the Black, I get to put Efnisien in a very specific space, and show the journey in a kind of specific way that isolates it and speaks through metaphor.

My experiences are different to Efnisien's, though I am trans, I never actually started out wanting to write a 1:1 trans narrative. Like, in this universe, "conventionally" trans people exist too. Efnisien's experience is a new thing, and a separate thing, but still - as we can see - a very good metaphor as well. I like telling parts of my story, but only small parts. I am more interested in...telling healing stories where I can watch a character heal and go 'oh I would like more of that for myself, as well.'

(Also, it's better to just say omegaverse, or AOB, etc. because a/b/o without the dashes is a slur in Australia, and while I know most people don't live here! We try to avoid slurs from other countries when we can. And we can only know to do that once someone tells us!)

But yeah, no, you don't sound like an ignorant asshole at all. You sound like someone who has learned something, and has gained more understanding, and was open to doing that, and honestly anon if more people came to something they didn't understand from your perspective, acceptance and love would be a lot easier to teach people.

It's so important to read stories about characters who aren't quite like us, or aren't like us at all, because that's when we realise just how much we actually do share so many similarities, and why our differences matter too.

Anyway thank you for sharing your message with me! I really appreciated it.

[lesbianralzarek]

trying to not complain about the discrepancy between how much content fictional women and poc have vs the white dudes in every fucking fandom im in, because no one owes me fanart/fic and i can make shit myself, but holy fuck can any of you name a woman?

[asexual-juliet]

no but ryo paul debut is actually making me care about paul as a character for the first time because holy fuck if a white darry & japanese american paul dynamic is not supremely compelling in terms of 1960s oklahoma race and class tensions

[battfishe]

people who reduce relationships between a male and female character to “sibling dynamic” are weak and won’t survive the coming winter

[maladaptivewriting]

you know the jily fans are crazy cause every jegulus post is like

i ship jegulus (NO HATE to lily, i love jily too, just my opinion, i dont hate women 🙏🙏🙂🙂🙂🙈🙈🙈🙈)

like okay let’s let people ship what they want without immediately calling them sexist

[bri-cheeses]

“how can you not like Snape but like Regulus, Barty, and Evan?”

Because, in my mind, Snape was a bitch (derogatory), and Regulus, Barty, and Evan were bitches (affectionately)

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

the fact is, if varric lives (and that's an if bc maybe solas does kill him lmao idk how much to trust that minimap reveal) it IS weird that you can't customise a hawke or account for the decision because it would be a little weird if a man who has lived through a wannabe god + blight dragon attacking warden fortress has nothing to say about ghilan'nain and her blight dragon attacking a warden fortress, especially if he potentially lost his best friend (Hawke). It's not outlandish for people to be a little disappointed to not get some customisation there because the choices are not equal to varric. the loss of hawke is obviously a bigger impact on him than whichever warden is there. given varric's personality, it's not outlandish to expect him to talk about it with Rook either especially considering weisshaupt is a thing that happens in the game. if he dies beforehand it doesn't matter, but if he's going to be around? yeah you'd think he'd be talking about it here.

speaking of weisshaupt, A PLACE YOU GET TO GO, a hero of ferelden who made the ultimate sacrifice IS FUCKING INTERRED THERE. But it's just "whining" to expect a nod (esp one that you can customise so it's your hero of ferelden) i guess.

regardless of whether morrigan has mythal or not, who she is as a person does change based on whether she was romanced and whether she had a child. it is natural that this matters and people aren't stupid to be tentatively concerned that nothing of her history is "required" but she's apparently this important vip character who will have more involvement in the game than you expect. like you are allowed to ask: okay what does this mean, what will she be like, will she be the same character i've loved across multiple games?

people are allowed to be upset or concerned that a game series that historically took your choices and your decisions into account has watered that down to 3 choices when certain choices that WOULD impact characters that appear in THIS game aren't. (and to be clear being upset does not mean harassing the devs, don't do that).

[cuppajj]

Hwello! Black Pearl anon back again with another inquiry about the good ol' Duskgloom Sovereign in BAAU—

So BP would understandably be enraged after Dragonberry whoops her tail, but do you think she would do anything besides sulk and await the day DB returns to get revenge? 

BP strikes me as a character who, while not in the best headspace, would dread the idea of being defeated by a land Cookie, and would want to avoid such a fate at all costs. Maybe a fight with DB is a wake up call that some major stuff is happening outside the Duskgloom Sea, stuff that could potentially one day come knocking at her door.

CRK lore is a bit iffy about whether or not BP can leave the Duskgloom Sea, but I doubt she would remain idle after seeing the threat that DB alone poses to her… 

BP begrudgingly might be willing to make a deal, perhaps to ensure the safety of her sea, perhaps to gain even more power, perhaps to simply help others work against DB (and the other [Neo]Beasts)… or work with them.

idk I might just be nerding out about BP too much. love baau regardless, you're doing a beautiful job!

Helllloooooo BP anon :)

That is a good question!! I also like the idea of her actively hunting Dragonberry down, but it just depends on if she can leave the duskgloom sea… which honestly I’m pretty sure she can (afaik the duskgloom sea is just her stomping grounds and not a place she’s tethered to), she just has no reason to.

That is unless she’s petty enough to chase after Dragonberry! It’s fun to think about a minor saga where Dragonberry’s kingdom is threatened directly by the legendary. I’m fairly certain her kingdom is coastal, so I can see a vivid image of the beast of pride stepping out on her balcony to see the mer looming over the horizon with hateful, glowing eyes. If she’s here, Dragonberry figures, then she wants something from her; and she knows what that is.

Dragonberry would be more guarded since BP showed up to her kingdom, so there are liabilities all over the place, but she’s not against sending Black Pearl into the sea again. She might even bring Pitaya out to play!

Cue part two of the epic girlboss anime battle that ends with BP getting her ass kicked again, but she did put more of a number on Dragonberry. The beast would probably respect her enough to offer to leave her sea alone (there’s nothing of interest there like she first thought) if she plays nice and does something for her; I totally see her interested in a (subservient) ally in BP, who could serve as some good intimidation for the beast—especially towards Cacao, whose licorice sea is gradually getting closer to invading her kingdom’s waters. And if BP refuses… Dragonberry won’t be mad, won’t even kill her if she can, but she’d laugh and look forward to knocking on her door a third time.

If they do become allies then Dragonberry would definitely know that Pearl still wants to destroy her; compromise or not, she’d always be eager to fight the mer again.

[wild-flowerhoney]

sirius and regulus run away AU but make it moonwater/moonseeker

they do go to the potters and sirius immediately fits in, they're a family of eccentric extroverts and that's exactly the kind of people sirius adores - regulus doesn't, though. he still has hang ups about james, euphemia is Amazing but he's truly not comfortable with her expansive nature and fleamont is just barely better.

anyway remus stays for a bit during summer and the plan is to bring him home (the lupins dont have a floo connection) and stay for dinner there. except. hope is immediately enamoured with the tiny, sarcastic teenager standing moodily behind his older brother - reg is quiet and looking at the bookcases more than at them but still managing to snark and jokingly insult the others in a way that makes her genuinely laugh. and remus is so clearly fond of him, the two of them going back and forth easily.

and regulus likes her too - hope is warm but quiet, motherly but in a subtle way. and lyall is gruff and clearly doesn't know what to do with all these teenagers but he still looks at his family with love even if he doesn't know how to show it. they're a little broken, a little less clean and polished than the potters are. and regulus likes it that way, prefers their quaint little home (with the yellow paint peeling off of the old wooden front door) to the splendour of potter manor.

he visits often, during that summer. until he's pretty much only going back for sirius (living without his brother, even after everything, would be too unnatural) because he's got his own bed at the lupins', his own bookcase and space in remus' closet.

(sirius knows his younger brother. he pushes reg to accept the offer of staying over more often, even if it feels weird to have breakfast without him outside of hogwarts. he stays at the lupins' himself, as much as he can, just to give reg more opportunities. sirius has a mother in euphemia, regulus wont let himself admit the same about hope.

sirius has only ever wanted happiness, for his little brother. he wont let regulus give up on it for his sake. )

this is all to say: reg at home with the lupins, building a close friendship with remus and falling in love with him through late night talks and mornings spent together and long nights crying softly under the light of the full moon - hope has two sons now, both happier than they've ever been. lyall watching his wife and son welcome another boy into the family is exactly the kind of shock he needs to start proving that he can be part of it too. remus and regulus being loved and loving in return. life has never been so good.

[squeezetheduck]

Here’s the thing with people shipping Alastor, I could not care less about who people ship Alastor with or whether they ship him at all, what I do care about though is people making him allo.

This is one of the few cannon ace (possibly aro) characters out there and he can 100% be shipped in verity of ways without ignoring he is ace or aroace.

Make him aroace but still platonicly obsessed with Lucifer or Vox.

Make him sex repulsed or indifferent it doesn’t really matter (I could 100% see him having sex with someone for entertainment purposes just like I can see him being sex repulsed).

Even make him Demi/grey-ace if you must show him reciprocating sexual attraction.

Bonus points if he’s aro and you play around with platonic relationships/QPRs.

I know at the end of the day he is a fictional character and people will do what they want, but please listen to aro/ace fans when we ask you not completely ignore his sexuality when there are so many ways you can still play around with his characterization without disrespecting one of the few cannon ace characters to exist in TV.

[breha]

i'm reading crescent city girls: the lives of young black women in segregated new orleans by lakisha michelle simmons and one detail in it is about how although the french quarter during the first half of the twentieth century was overwhelmingly white, a black order of nuns owned a building there, at what's currently the site of the bourbon orleans hotel, from 1881 to 1965. they lived there and ran an orphanage and a school for girls (the order and the school still exist, just in a different neighborhood). i think it's an affecting image that 1132 royale street was so close (a 7-minute walk, just down the street and around the corner) to a high school claudia was pointedly not attending. she probably walked by the building hundreds of times, at night when it was shuttered and quiet. she walked by it when she was 14, 15, 16, 17, just like the girls who studied there, but she was fundamentally separated from them forever. she could go there, even slip into the classrooms or the dormitory where the nuns slept, but she could never get there, across the veil to the place it was during the day. and at first she didn't really grasp what any of this meant because it was novel, even a little exciting, it made her feel special – "i've gotta go to bed when the rest of the world wakes up, so there's less kids to play with..." – but you know it sank in eventually. as the students moved from grade to grade, graduated, grew up, and were replaced by new girls, claudia stayed the same. her and the building, its balconies, its arched windows, the cross against the night sky, unchanging. singular. forever. fuck!!!!!!!!