#why do the dark elves who are described as having skin as black as the night have such a light skin tonr

[venomgender]

thinking about t/cf and how good the story is but how badly it suffers from the writing

[anghraine]

thatinsufferableb-st-rd said:

@anghraine so i have read the books multiple times and am an avid fan of the movies. I enjoy both for what they are. I think the main difference is that Peter Jackson was very open about what they chose to cut and why from anything I've ever seen. They even have Sam give a nod to the book readers by saying "by rights we shouldn't even be here". No I'm not happy about what they did with Faramir and Glorfindel got jipped, and I would have lover to have seen Elronds sons but at the end of the day there were acknowledgments of what and why. Rings of Power to me has always come off as hiding from any criticism by using the shield of "well if you don't like it it's because you don't like POCs in it". To which I genuinely could not give a fuck less, like there are so many branches of elves that went different ways so that could make sense within what Tolkein established. But don't hide behind that when your writing is just "Sauron is evil. We know. And we know she knows. But we have to make it seem like she's the only one who Has A Clue so we must all try to shoo her off to make a plotline"

@lesbiansforboromir has already correctly and politely pointed out that you are doing the very thing we were criticizing in that post—intruding on ROP fan discussion to unfavorably contrast the show to the Peter Jackson films, while also applying a degree of scrutiny to ROP that the Jackson films are rarely subject to in a remotely comparable way and could not bear. Frankly, @lesbiansforboromir is nicer and more restrained than I am about this, but you chose to tag me as well, so I'll also respond.

We (lesbiansforboromir and I) were talking about being excited about costuming in S2 of ROP and disliking the fandom meltdowns over ROP's costuming looking (somewhat) different from the films' aesthetic. Since it had already come up in their discussion, I added that I'm not convinced by the anti-ROP contingent framing their seething hatred of the costuming and design as just caring so much about fidelity to Tolkien's vision. I pointed out that Tolkien fandom broadly cares far more about their preferred, film-influenced aesthetics than Tolkien's actual descriptions and gave some specific examples of this.

There's been a lot of talk, for instance, about how the universally long, flowing hair for Elves preferred by the fandom and used in the films is actually totally canon according to Tolkien even if it's rarely mentioned in LOTR proper. This is inaccurate. Galadriel's brother Aegnor is typically depicted in the fandom/film-preferred style rather than per Tolkien's description of his hair as "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames" (indeed, in general neither Aegnor nor anyone else is ever depicted this way, and this description rarely shows up in the lists of "no it's about ethics in adaptation" Tolkien hair quotes).

Tolkien repeatedly describes Elvish, peredhel, and Dúnadan women as wearing their hair bound up in braided coiffures with jeweled hair pieces/nets rather than loose and flowing à la the films and the fandom. Nobody cares, any more than they care about Tolkien's description of Arwen's clothing as soft, grey, and noticeably devoid of ornamentation apart from a belt and netted cap (i.e. the opposite of her highly elaborate film costuming and typically loose, unbound, uncovered hair in the films and most illustrations).

Meanwhile, my fave Faramir's hair is nowhere near long enough in the films or most art to mingle with Éowyn's as Tolkien describes. It's usually also depicted as blond, reddish, or brown rather than black as in the book; in Tolkien's LOTR, all described Gondorians have dark or black hair, with the only difference in coloring being that some Gondorians are dark-skinned and some are pale. Again, almost nobody in the fandom cares about this when they're going on about costume design and casting to reflect Tolkien's vision, and male Gondorians are overwhelmingly depicted with short or shoulder-length hair in the films and in Tolkien illustrations.

Popular depictions of Gondor, including the Gondor of the films, very rarely reflect Tolkien's description of Gondor's aesthetic as similar to ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire. Film Gondor has, at most, extremely vague allusions to Byzantine architecture amidst the general and deliberate westernization of Gondor's design—as just one example among many, Tolkien's explicitly Egyptian-based design for the royal crown of Gondor is converted to a generically western European-style crown in the films and overwhelmingly in the fandom.

I then pointed out that it's been very noticeable that ROP haters tend to have a powerful double standard wrt fidelity when it comes to the Jackson films. For over 20 years, most film fans have been constitutionally incapable of tolerating even slight criticism of the films without jumping in to defend their greatness and condescendingly explain the most basic elements of adaptation. (Yes, we know film is not the same medium as text, we know changes are part of adaptation to another medium, we all know that, we all know that a word-for-word adaptation would suck and never be made, this is not new information and does not make the PJ films' every choice a good one.) Yet most film LOTR fans who vocally despise ROP display none of the charity towards ROP that they demand for the films (demand even from someone like Christopher Tolkien, a dead man the entire fandom is deeply indebted to, whose dislike of the films still leads to regular attacks on his character from Jackson film stans).

This hypercritical yet hyperdefensive tendency in the fandom is neatly illustrated by the fact that you responded to a conversation about the double standards in evaluations of ROP's costuming vs the films' to go on about how ROP is objectively bad for reasons entirely unrelated to costuming, how you're totally not racist (something nobody was talking about), and to quote you directly, "Like the show was just Bad." Truly, an incisive critique. Meanwhile, your concessions with regard to the Jackson films are mainly about extremely minor and defensible omissions like removing Glorfindel and the sons of Elrond rather than the serious and fundamental problems that lesbiansforboromir and I have with them, or even the ways they do pretty much the exact same things you're lambasting ROP for.

I mean, if we're going to talk about action hero Elves in ROP vs the Jackson films, what about the action hero-ification of Legolas in the films? He was described by Tolkien himself as the Fellowship member who accomplished the least, so super badass battle-skateboarding Legolas hardly represents fidelity to Tolkien's vision. Why should that get a pass while film-stanning ROP haters seethe about ROP!Galadriel being too special, even though Tolkien described her as one of the most special Elves to ever live and specifically as remarkably athletic and insightful?

Meanwhile, film Gimli is reduced to comic relief, the only dwarves taken seriously are conventionally hot ones in The Hobbit films, and Frodo's expressions of strength and fortitude are consistently removed to glorify other characters. Film Gondorians were deliberately designed to seem like useless tin soldiers (which they are in the films, as well as whiter and blonder than Tolkien wrote them) rather than the physically imposing and highly effective fighting force of the book. ROP imagining Elvish rituals upon approaching Valinor that aren't based in Tolkien canon but don't directly conflict with it is absolutely trivial compared to the films' handling of Denethor and Faramir.

The point is not that you, personally, are not allowed to like the films or dislike ROP despite all this. Many people do love the films, including most of my followers. They do have their strengths, though they are extremely racist and few film fans will acknowledge this without soft-pedaling it in some way (esp, since you brought it up, given the context of the truly unhinged degree of racism that has accompanied much of the broader discourse around ROP).

The point is that film fans who hate ROP are constantly showing up in our conversations to be "well actually ROP is just objectively bad, unlike the films, because the show has failings that are also in the films but it's totally different there because of the contents of Peter Jackson's soul" or whatever. The point is the absolutely glaring and obnoxiously hypocritical double standard of defensiveness about the films and obsessive nitpicking of ROP that leads to ROP haters continually going on rants to ROP fans that are unwelcome, uninvited, and usually (as in this case) irrelevant to what was even being discussed.

[nolofinweo]

An explanation of why I am confused by some Noldor pictures and view them with skepticism

There are many pictures of the Noldor and their 3 great houses. Some look very good and others are a bit more difficult to interpret.

What irritates me is that they are often depicted as dark-skinned (brown, sometimes completely black?), which is not exactly what Tolkien describes.

There are several reasons why, for me, all high elves are not brown or black-skinned and this has nothing to do with racism, but with some other factors that are ignored by many people!

The author, J.R.R. Tolkien, grew up in a racist time. At that time, it was extremely frowned upon to depict black people in stories or other art. Black people were viewed as inferior people at that time. (One reason why I absolutely detest the years 1800 to 1965! All people are equal, no matter what skin color they have! -.-*) When Tolkien spoke of 'black elves', he was referring to their hair color or their difficult character, not their skin color. For example, the children of Fingolfin are not black-skinned, but black-haired!

The basis of the idea of ​​the Noldor. Anyone who knows a little about European history will certainly still know the ancient tribes of the Slavs, Franks, Saxons, etc. These tribes were certainly used as the basis for various peoples of Arda. Not only because Tolkien himself was a Briton and thus knew European history himself, but because he borrowed a lot from the Edda or was inspired by European history. Some tribes, including the Franks, often had long hair. Especially the leaders! They were very easy to recognize by their long hair, because they often had the longest hair. (Source: Franken/Merowinger )

The geographical location of the island of Valinor. Valinor itself is located more northwest than in the southwest or even entirely in the south. The further north you live, the fewer color pigments your skin contains. This has something to do with the sun's rays and the shorter days. The further south you live, the more intense and longer the sun's effects on your skin are and the more color pigments your skin has to protect itself from sunlight. This is also the reason why there are more black people in Africa than white people. The white people only moved there through colonization. If black people lived only in the north for generations, they would experience a lightening of their skin after just a few generations because they get less sun in the north. The dark pigments thus lose their usefulness or protective function. That's how I see it with the Noldor. Due to the location of the island, all high elves will be white-skinned rather than dark-skinned.

In short: I do not doubt that there are black-skinned elves. I strongly assume that they exist. I just don't see that the high elves have black skin, only black hair (with a few exceptions, due to intermarriage with the Vanyar).

I strongly assume that black-skinned elves are not high elves, but rather belong to the Moriquendi. The so-called dark elves. I don't know which tribes, apart from the Sindar and the Teleri, belong to this group. However, I assume that some tribes of the Moriquendi certainly went to the southern lands, to Rhun, Umbar, Harad or even further south; to countries that are completely unknown to me.

Of course, everyone can draw what they want. Celegorm is also wrongly depicted with blonde hair, although he had black hair like his father (blonde cannot result from red hair and black hair, it's called genetics…). This is up to each individual, but please forgive me for not sharing these works. The reasons are above, if anyone takes it badly, that's fine. I don't care.

I just wanted to give my opinion here and clarify again where the term 'dark' comes from in Tolkien's works and what it refers to.

[antiracist-tolkien]

Fingon is Black...ish?

Compared to the Hobbit or LoTR fandoms, there seems to be much more of a tendency in the Silmarillion fandom to portray characters of colour with Eurocentric features like blue eyes and a straight nose or button nose.

Fingon is the biggest example of this. Black Fingon is popular on tumblr and the depictions of him range wildly in skin colour and facial features. But even compared to characters like Aredhel, who is also often drawn as Black, a lot of people draw or write Fingon with blue eyes or light skin.

Black people can look like anything and elves especially can look like anything. They’re not human, so there’s no reason they need to conform to human phenotypes. Besides, light coloured eyes are not unique to white people. But we both know that’s not why people draw Black characters with blue eyes.

The majority of Black people (and PoC in general) have dark eyes. PoC with dark eyes are vastly under-represented in character designs, writing & art and it's because of racism and white beauty standards. While I’m not assigning motives to any individual artist or writer, the trend towards giving characters of colour 'white' features is fueled by (and regardless of intentions, contributes to) Eurocentric beauty standards and racism.

It's very common in literature and art for PoC (particularly WoC) to be given unusual or Eurocentric features to make them stand out. Think Hazel Levesque in Heroes of Olympus, who's African-American but has gold eyes and 'cinnamon' / 'caramel' hair. These features get added to characters of colour to make them seem a) unique and special, not like those other PoC who all look the same (/sarcasm) or b) more beautiful and desirable (again, particularly WoC). We're only beautiful, only worthy, if we can approach whiteness.

It's why light skinned actors get cast more. It's why Hollywood loves giving rebellious Asian women a neon hair streak (see, she's not like those other docile submissive Asian girls!). And I do think it's why people default to drawing Fingon as essentially a white European with skin tinted a few shades darker.

Imo, in Tolkien specifically, hair colour is a different scenario. It’s one of the few features that frequently gets explicitly described, and it has in-universe importance. Eye colour doesn't.

There are suggestions that many Noldor and Sindar have grey eyes, but not all of them. For example, Miriel:

silver was her hair and dark were her eyes

I think part of it is also that many people imagined Fingon as white when they read the Silmarillion and probably saw art of white, blue-eyed Fingon before they saw art of Black Fingon. It's somewhat understandable that the image of blue-eyed Fingon was cemented in their headcanons and remained even when they began headcanoning him as Black.

It can be a self-perpetuating cycle, too. When lots of Black Fingon art has him as light skinned, straight nosed and/or blue eyed, that becomes the image of him in your head.

But intentions don't change the outcome of racism.

I get it. Sometimes you get firm character images stuck in your head and nothing is going to change them. And like I said, I'm not assigning motivations to any particular individual. I don't think every single instance of Fingon having grey eyes or light skin is a bad thing. The issue is that it's not equal. I wouldn't care about designs of blue-eyed Black elves if they didn't so thoroughly outnumber brown eyed ones. If straight noses didn't outnumber wide ones.

It can be hard to change the image of a character that you have in your head. But that's not an excuse to not try.

[galsinspace]

Has there ever been a discussion about how Bethesda games have this weird tendency to make black male NPCs who are kind of annoying and then the fandom gets INCREDIBLY into hating them so much that it becomes one of the main memes about the game? I'm thinking about Nazeem and Preston, and I think it's weird that it happened twice!

(This is just me rambling about something that's bothered me for years.)

They're super different characters of course, Nazeem is an absolute parody and was clearly designed to be a hateable asshole which makes me pretty uncomfortable in general, especially in the context of this "viking-esque" fantasy game with both an in-universe racism plot and an uncomfortable connection to real world racism that no one ever mentions - really guys, did you have to call them the Nord? Nordic is not a neutral word in the context of ethnicity. The Nazis did not just use the word Aryan to describe their made-up race categories, they used Nordic to describe the "highest" category of Aryan: blond blue-eyed people. In German, the use of the word Nordic is often a huge red flag. This is not a neutral word and I think it's insane that they actually used it for their fantasy worldbuilding.

(Fun tidbit: my part-Jewish German grandma used to refer to bleaching your hair blond as "nording it up")

Anyway. Black characters are rare in Skyrim, and Nazeem is usually one of the first black characters you'll meet. The game also barely has black hairstyles, all of the black women just have the same straight hair as the white women, men have like one cornrow style I think. So Nazeem, who is bald, is among the most realistic looking black characters in this presumably pre-straightening iron world, AND he has one of the darkest skin tones available, AND he's explicitly a foreigner, AND he's an unlikeable asshole who mocks the player and was clearly created to be hated. It just doesn't sit right with me. The only town NPC I can think of who's a similarly one-dimensional asshole is the guy in Windhelm whom you can challenge to a fist fight for being racist against dark elves (another can of worms), and even he at least serves the purpose of illustrating the problems in town. Nazeem is just there to be a hateable asshole.

Preston of course was not designed to be hated. I think he actually suffers from being written as too good of a guy, he's just brave and noble and selflessly caring and it makes him pretty boring imo.

(He does also pretty much immediately hand over his position of authority to the player character which I think is pretty uncomfortable as well, it makes no sense, but it fits in the Bethesda way of game design where apparently you just have to become the leader of every faction in the game. It makes no sense for the Institute storyline either, and there was a cut path where you become the Elder of the BoS as well.)

But of course it's a badly designed game and Preston hands out endless radiant quests that get super annoying, so players just HATE him. And I think it gets pretty uncomfortable how much people in the fandom vocally hate Preston! Why is this such a trend! He's an NPC, the problem is bad game design, why do people focus their hatred on a fictional black man?

Funny enough this is actually also a problem with another character in Fallout 4: Marcy Long. Marcy is a female character whose crime is that she's angry and complains, and hating her is also a huge meme in the fandom. There are mods to build prisons/stocks/whatever in your settlements for her and it really feels like a gross power fantasy about putting women in their place.

(It feels worth mentioning that she might be Asian? Her husband's name is Jun Long and his voice actor is Asian, but hers is white. Marcy Long has dark hair and dark eyes and looks ambiguous to me.)

So like, I think it's just a bad trend in the fandoms of these games for people to make a huge joke out of how much they hate these black characters and that woman. Gamers are bad and Bethesda is bad. A failure all around.

[elfgarlic]

this is why i decided to make my own drow lore when i got into dnd, because the existing material is just riddled with racism. when i switched over to mostly playing pathfinder i adapted it but still kept on with the project because pathfinder drow lore still had a lot of baggage. (though to paizo's credit they have scrapped that in the remaster and started totally rebuilding their cave elves)

i know that recently wotc has started to say that not *all* drow are evil, but it's not being handled well imo because at the same time the new drow art is also making them much paler. and i shouldnt have to point out why their rehabilitation being associated with light skin is bad. not to say old drow art wasn't also racist considering some of it definitely looked like offensive charicatures of black people, but that doesn't mean you need to make them pale. you can also just depict dark-skinned elves without being shitty about it.

to add another layer, pretty much the only other dark-skinned elves you would see in official dnd material were the wild elves in 3rd and 4th edition, who were literally described as 'feral' and 'savage'.

so yeah that's one reason why i and a lot of others i know do so much homebrew. i love fantasy rpgs, but the racism in both official material and the community for many games is abysmal.

I think it's good as enjoyers of fantasy RPGs to realize that even the greatest fantasy RPGs (Rolemaster) are kind of mired in racialized iconography and it's very pervasive across the whole genre, but that there are better ways of dealing with it than 1) pretending it's not there and 2) trying to put a progressive coat of paint on it.

I'm very much an advocate for "orcs are just some guys." Orcs can be a bit nasty and crude. That I feel is part of their appeal. Humans can also be nasty and crude, and at the end of the day being a bit nasty and crude doesn't make anyone ontologically evil and undeserving of grace! They can also be ugly, because being ugly is not a sin! At the same time it's of course good to move away from depictions of orcs that lean very heavily on racialization!

Attempts to sanitize orcs often fail not because they aren't well-intentioned but because they often end up replicating a bunch of unfortunate tropes from the other side. Turning orcs into essentially elves with tusks of course rejects the idea that orcs are ugly, but instead of doing it by way of "there's beauty to be found in the monstrous" it does it by actually leaning into a very conventional set of beauty standards (including lean, muscular bodies!). Attempts to sanitize orcish culture in turn while trying to keep parts of their culture like them being a "warrior culture" and their focus on strength often end up turning them... Into noble savages. Which isn't great either!!!

Anyway, orcs can be just guys. Get out with that "warrior culture" shit too. No culture has ever subsisted simply on raiding and pillaging. And a culture that has to constantly supplement its own subsistence with raiding is also one that is constantly failing and could not in fact continue to exist for an extended period of time! Of course there are orcish farmers and crafters and laborers at home!

And at the same time orcs can be ugly and a bit crude but none of that makes them evil because being ugly isn't a sin and even if you say "h*ck" and "fuck" doesn't mean you're beyond salvation!

[doberbutts]

Things I do actually have a problem with:

Hair :( The human men have long hair so why not the elves? Seems like a weird choice to make in all honesty, especially with Finrod who is specifically described as having long flowing hair now sporting a shaved haircut. I’m not saying everyone needs waist-length hair but shaved sides/back are more dwarvish and human things than elvish things. The mohawk that looks right on the dwarf looks absurd on the elf, even if it’s styled fine. Similarly, yeah, sad to not see beards on the female dwarves. Disa does have sideburns (sparse, but present) but... bearded lady pretty...

The bending of canon to make it fit makes sense in some areas and not as much in others but I’m waiting until the season ends to see if they tie up these ends neatly before making my final decision on that. Having Elrond go to the dwarves seems like a weird choice when Celebrimbor is literally right there. Shortening the timeline so they don’t keep building up and then killing off characters of less long-lived races does make sense for this specific format.

Personally I think the only way to have avoided that problem would be for it to be less inter-connected ASOIAF-style and more Silmarillion-style. So like, an entire season spent on Beren and Luthien, an entire season spent on Turin, and entire season spent on the War of Wrath, etc. That being said I think that would have appealed to a much more narrow audience as the Silmarillion is well known to be the least appealing of the “widely known” books (being Silmarillion, Hobbit, and the LOTR trilogy) to new fans due to how dense, dry, lore-heavy, and flowery it is. It’s also harder for new fans to understand how everything connects without spending quite a long time on the ol “yeah hey you remember this guy from this episode? well I’m his great great great great great great great grandkid” or “hey you remember this one thing that seemed like a really minor detail? SURPRISE it’s a MAJOR PLOT POINT now” So I think no matter how you tell the story of literally anything from the Second Age, there will be complaints to how that translates to the screen considering Tolkien never wrote for the screen and never expected his works to be adapted let alone in this manner.

Again, if you watch with the attitude of “inspired by, not 100% word-for-word” similar to how comic book and videogame movies are made, where it’s set in a version of the same world but it’s not exactly true to source, it’s a much more enjoyable watch than if you were expecting everything to be exactly the same because it super will not be.

I’ve heard complaints about the only black elf thus far being a low-class elf (who is currently engaged in a slavery subplot big sigh) but also consider: that’s because most of the high-class elves are directly related to each other. Meaning if one is black they all have to be. And considering Tolkien fanboys are already shitting themselves about a single original character being black, can you imagine the pushback if the entire Noldorian line was black? Also that would directly fall into a different antiblack trope because the bulk of the Noldor have bright red, blonde, or silver hair which relies on the “dark skin but eurocentric features” trope. And then if you change that, you get people raising hell that Galadriel’s “golden hair that shines so brightly it looks like the light of the Two Trees is contained within” was changed to brown or black. But then if you don’t make her black but do make other characters directly related to her black...

While I do think there should be more speaking black characters, and especially more black elves among what Amazon is calling the “watchmen” since there’s more room to play with that than the Noldor because, as said, everyone’s related to each other for that clan, the complaint that there are only a handful of black characters is sort of lost on me. There’s dozens of shades of brown in the crowds of people. The speaking characters could use more diversity, but the world itself is more diverse than is being implied. And, to be quite frank, more diverse than Tolkien’s writings or literally any adaption of them.

HOWEVER I do agree that it’s a little yikes that the only black elf is currently engaged in a slavery subplot. I mean yeah Sauron did do shit like that, and orcs are technically super fucked up elves so he needs fresh, er, “breeding stock” as it were, but really you gotta throw your only black elf into it? He did get some moments of being a badass and in fairness there’s white elves enslaved with him but. Still a little yikes. Hopefully he will break free and continue to be a badass, honestly I’m so normal about him, really the blorbification level is at an all time low, I can be normal about an AfroLatino elf truly I’m incredibly normal about this man.

[la-noche-cae]

Elaborating on Nightfall's coding, antiblack racism.

Since I mentioned antiblack coding on this previous post, I feel I had to bring up specifics. Let's get into it:

Skylanders has many issues with racial coding, especially when the human characters were all white (until like a year ago presented in Ring of Heroes). We can say the elves coded as Asian is a problem, or the fact that Glumshanks- a Troll- participating in Judaism is suspicious (both of which do have the stereotyped green skin). The fact Fiesta is called Fiesta. Bad Juju and Voodood’s names are references to black & latine religions that have been demonized, or simply put as “spooky magic”- contributing to the homogenization of black religions.

/Racial coding/

Even if Nightfall's skin tone is not human, it is a deep dark. Media has long represented evil characters with a darker color palette (if they’re a nonhuman) and a darker skin color than the protagonists (if human, which is straight up racism). Why do we associate dark things in general with bad things? Reminder Nightfall's catchphrase is "Dark and dangerous!".

While probably not a human looking species, dreadwalkers are represented by Nightfall. Why are they named after dreads? Because it’s a hair pun, referencing how Nightfall’s hair looks "like dreads" and the dark element, “dreadful”, how her hair is linked to the floor, hence "walking" on them. Her attacks are based on hair puns, examples of which is Whip lash and Bad hair day. One of the paths you can develop for her powers is called Dreadhead…

Hair puns, especially Bad hair day, just.. why? Black people have had their natural and protective hairstyles demonized. Latines have the racist habit of calling tighter curly hair, "bad hair" (pelo malo), and in general black hairstyles are considered "unprofessional" and "unkempt", etc. Put together with how Nightfall's presented as aggressive, this is not good.

/Hyperaggression/

Remember when Nightfall told Stormblade she liked her better when depressive because she was “less chirping”, then invaded her personal space to take something she could easily ask for? Stormblade was scared, she is after all in a cage, with no magic, with Nightfall who looks about to pounce on her, who then corners her to take one of her steel feathers.

Perhaps this shows us Stormblade reacting to how she thinks Nightfall is, making the assumption she would hurt her. Though that’s another way the writing demonized Nightfall, through relationships.

Nightfall is described as having a “strong sense of justice”, that I personally consider a good thing, but in canon has been put as bad, for example, Stormblade saying she’s “harsh” for attacking a the villain keeping them captive, Nightfall confirming and apologizing about that she’s been harsh to Stormblade. This goes along with what I mentioned of making GNC women- namely butches and trans women- put as radical and angry. Now add the anti black sentiment of "angry black woman".

I think I’m about done explaining some of my issues with Skylanders, putting the especific words out. I had already addressed the demonization of GNC women, and lack of tact with mental health issues, but I needed to also address the anti-black coding. In fact I’d say it’s the heaviest thing about Nightfall’s negative stereotyping.

Thank you for reading.

[fandomblr]

Let’s talk about racism in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Trigger warnings: racism, (obviously) anti-blackness, possible anti-black caricatures, racism towards Asian people.

I feel like something that I don’t see addressed in the Tolkien fandom are instances of racism in his work. Now, Tolkien himself was allegedly pretty anti-racist during both war and peacetime, BUT ultimately he was still a British white man that lived in the 1920’s and his writing does show some (although very possibly unintended) racism towards Black and brown people. Note that I am a pale Latino and thus I cannot speak for BIPOC, however, I will be using my readings from HoME (The Lays of Beleriand and The Shaping of Middle-Earth) to show very valid instances of where Tolkien’s racism has been argued for, and I’ll link some research about these criticisms. I strongly encourage BIPOC to add on or correct me on this post, since I do have have a lot of white privilege from being light-skinned.

The first instance of racism in Tolkien legendarium are the race of orcs. And before I go any further, let me show a passage from the Lay of Leithian (taken from The Lays of Beleriand) in which Beren, Finrod and his men are disguising themselves as orcs in order to pass through Angband:

“They smeared their hands and faces fair with pigment black,” which shows us first of all that the color of the orcs skin is ultimately dark/black, at least of the orcs here in Angband during the first age. This also implies Blackface being done by Beren, Finrod and his men here, and while it was used as a survival tactic to pass through Angband without being killed/enthralled/tortured, it’s still pretty darn racist. Black people have also spoken about how orcs have been written (intentionally or unintentionally, we probably will never know) as anti-black caricatures, and this is one article discussing this by a Black person that I found eye-opening.

Another instance of the orcs being racist caricatures is in that in a private letter Tolkien describes them as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." Obviously, this is clearly racism towards Asian people, and journalists have even written about how orcs look like the worst depictions of the Japanese drawn by American and British illustrators during WW2. The same article above also speaks about the Haradrim and Easterlings in the LOTR movies clearly having inspiration from Eastern and non-Western cultures.

Next, another probably more well-known racist issue in The Silmarillion fandom is Maeglin, (Meglin here in HoME’s The Shaping of Middle Earth) who is described as ‘swart,’ aka meaning dark-skinned, and so was his father, Eöl:

Obviously this is racist because Maeglin is CLEARLY a villain of color in this scenario, (he is the cause of the fall of Gondolin plus he basically tries to rape his cousin Idril and kill her child) in a world where other “good” characters are either described as white or whose race is simply not stated. If there were more EXPLICITLY elves of color in the Silm this wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but Maeglin here is one of the few elves (besides his father, who was clearly also a villain) whose skin color we know about, and what color is that? Swart, aka brown. What’s even worse is the fact that Eöl pretty much coerced Aredhel (who we can assume to be white since she’s known as the “White lady of the Noldor” and her skin was described as pale) into marrying him and having his child, which just perpetuates the racist stereotype of men of color being dangerous to white women. Tolkien, sweetie, this definitely reeks of racism.

Next are the men of the East of Beleriand, of who we get a pretty clear description of in The Annals of Beleriand from HoME The Shaping of Middle-Earth:

Here these men aredescribed as having lots of body and facial hair (which is a trait that can be seen in people of color) and their skins are “sallow or dark.” This is probably the least incriminating piece of evidence on this post because as you can tell, not all the men of the East were evil. Bor and his sons specifically were not, and they were loyal to the Sons of Fëanor. However, Ulfang (Ulfand in HoME) betrays the Fëanorians and ultimately is responsible for the tragedy of the Nirnaeth. And even worse, Bor and his sons are even slain by him (although Ulfang did pay his treachery with his life) here in this version. And as a whole, the Easterlings are described as more being on Morgoth’s side than on the elves, and like I said earlier, they draw a lot of non-western inspiration that can identify them as people of color, especially from the cinematic trilogy. Although these men are ultimately supposed to earn redemption during the Dagor Dagorath (aka the end of time when Melkor comes back from the void and the last battle is fought) this doesn’t erase the fact that Tolkien chose to villanize an entire group of Eastern people who we can assume to be people of color. The fact that they are called men from the ‘East’ while Aman/Valinor/the Gray Havens are considered the ‘West’ just shows you how eurocentric Tolkien’s works are by themselves, but that’s another topic for a different post. At the end of the day, lots (if not most of) these men were men of color that were portrayed as treacherous, unfaithful and even “accursed” in the case of Uldor, Ulfang’s son. All traits which demonize people of color in Tolkien’s legendarium.

Now here is the question that’s worth all three silmarils: was Tolkien aware of his racism as he should have been as an allegedly “anti-racist” that was born in South Africa? I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that, and as a person with white privilege I don’t think I’d be qualified to answer this question regardless. This is why again, I’m encouraging BIPOC Tolkien fans to come forward (as long as they want to and are comfortable of course, since this is a triggering topic) and share their criticisms on Tolkien and how he portrays race in his legendarium, add on to what I found and correct me if they think I added something wrong. The thing is, even if Tolkien was intentionally racist, the man died in 1973, and sadly Christopher passed away last January. So it’s up to us as the Tolkien fandom to not only recognize but also address and challenge these racist concepts in his work, and make sure we are creating an environment that’s safe for fans of color and marginalized ethnic groups like myself. One of the things I love about our fandom is the diversity in fanart, since I’ve seen lots of elves drawn as POC and I really want to keep seeing this, but we also have to take into consideration how racism plays into LOTR and all of Tolkien’s works so we can be mindful consumers of it.

[marisol993]

For some time now I've seen, over and over again, that the Qunari in the Dragon Age Universe are apparently some kind of racist caricature of black people, muslims and other types of poc's, bipoc's, minorities, ....

From a personal perspective I never saw them as such, but since a personal view of things isn't very objective and can be skewed by ones life-experiances I was completely willing to admit, that I might have been wrong about that and had an opportunity to learn something new here.

The more I thought about it and critically examined this statement though, the less I agreed with any of it. Especially since a lot of arguments in favor of this view seemed to boil down to "this person of [insert relevant minority here] said so". I.e. another "personal viewpoint".

So let's get into a critical analysis of the Qunari and why I think that they are so very far removed from any kind of "minorty" (from a western point of view) coding that you couldn't even see it with the power of the Hubble and James Webb space-telescopes combined:

First of all, who are the Qunari? The Qunari are tall, medium to heavily built, horned (or unhorned, if you only played Origins) humanoids, that come in varying shades of grey skin, with whiteish hair. They are more intensly sexually dimorphic than the Dwarves, Elves and Humans of Thedas, with the males being sometimes nearly twice as wide (especially in the shoulders) and much more muscled than the females. They call themselves the Qunari as they are followers of the Qun (their guide to life and society), though the word is more of an umbrella-term, since anybody of any race is called a Qunari if they "convert" to the teachings of the Qun.

Here's a picture:

At this point some people might already remark, that the Qunari are very obviously "black-coded" since apparently nowadays any deviation from natural, real-life human skintones automatically has to mean, that the fantasy-race in question is meant to reflect black or brown people (even if they are green or bright purple), unless you literally give them a complete and utterly snow-white skintone. If that is the argument you want to go with, I would like to redirect your eyes to the picture above, as it already disproves this. As it is shown there (and in the DA:I Character-Creator), the Qunari can come in a complete spectrum of skintones (from very light grey to nearly ebony), just like all the different races of Thedas (even the dwarves for some reason, which doesn't make much sense for a race that lived underground for most of their history, but what can you do..). This basically means, that yes there are dark-skinned (or "black") Qunari, but there are also those that could be better described as "light-skinned", so the coding-qualifier goes away.

Then there are the people, who might want to say, that because they are tall and "burly", together with the unnatural skintone makes them "black-coded" which is something I never really understood, since the tallest people in the world by ethnicity are the Dutch and if you look at heights in correlation with body-weight the Russians take first place. Both countries not really know for their large populations of darkskinned-humanoids. Another coding-qualifier that goes away.

And then there are the people (who I would seriously suggest should maybe review their own "racial" views, if "black and brown people" is the first thing they think about when it comes to this), who say, that they are a stereotype of the "savages and natives", which is something that is actively contradicted in canon. One of the most prominent traits of the Qunari is that they are efficiant to a T, use every resorce at the disposal to it's maximum (including their people) and that they are more technically and scientifically advanced than many other race in Thedas (except maybe the dwarves) . This is shown through their mastery of gunpowder (which they call gaatlok) and the fact that they can use chemicals and drugs to literally warp the mind of people without needing magic. They are in no way presented as "savage" and if they are named such, it's usually by people who they are actively at war with, who want to insult them. They are also not "natives" of Thedas. Even their so called "homeland" in Thedas, which is called Par Vollen, was colonised by them, when they landed at it's shores in 6:30 Steel-Age and started converting the original population of Tevinter humans and elves, with whom they have been at war with ever since. Let me say that again: The Qunari are active colonisers and at war with the Tevinter-Imperium, who's people are the original population of the land. Not exactly a typical "native or black" stereotype in western media.

So who do I think the Qunari are actually modeled after?

Well let's summarise:

The Qunari came from across the ocean in their ships filled with cannons and guns, to colonise the land and convert the native population towards their beliefs. They are currently fighting a war against the Tevinter-Imperium, an old and powerful empire, that engages in widespread slavery and practices blood-magic by sacrificing said slaves, sometimes also to one of their many gods.

(If you can't guess who I think they are supposed to be modeled after by now, I would recommend to maybe picking up a 7th-grade history textbook again)

Yes, you can make a very strong case for the Qunari actually being these guys:

The Conquistadors (heck, if you cross out a few letters you can even anagram the word "Qunari" out of the word Conquistador). Who also came from across the sea with ships, cannons and guns to colonise the land (south- and middle-america) and convert the native population (to christianity) and fought an ancient and powerful empire with slaves and blood-sacrifices (the Aztec-Kingdoms).

So after pissing of one half of tumblr with that, let's start with the other half by talking about the apparent "muslim-coding" and how I disagree with that too.

Let's start with a rough definition of what a muslim is and how I think that that alone shows how the Qunari are in no way coded to be them:

I would define a muslim as somebody who is an active member of the religion of Islam. Islam is defined by it's holybook (the Qur'An), which was revealed to the prophet Muhammad by an all-knowing and omnipresent abrahamic god.

This in and of itself basically already disqualifies the Qunari from being "muslim-coded" since first and foremost the Qunari are not a religion. They do not have a god and they don't pray to any, the Qun is not a "holy-book" and Ashkaari Koslun (the guy who wrote it) was not a prophet, who wrote down the word of god, but a philosopher who basically crafted a "guide to life and society" with his works.

If you really wanted to find something that is slightly "muslim-coded" in the world of Thedas, you might actually have more luck with the chantry-stuff, since they do have a prophet (Andraste) who could talk to god (the Maker), they have a holy book based of her teachings (the Chant of Light) and they believe that the whole world should follow those teachings, so god will return to them (singing the Chant from all four corners of the world). They even have their own flavour of jihadist religious warfare with the Exhalted Marches (though all in all I do think that the Chantry can be better viewed as a take on christian religions since the split between the Imperial Chantry and the original one is similar to the split of the (western) christian church into catholics and protestants).

So what do I think is a better representation for the Qun in the real world?

Well lets look at it in the simplest way possible that the canon gives us:

The Qun is a guide for the life of the Qunari (the people of the Qun) that ecompasses everything from laws, legislative guides, too how society should be struktured and how everyone has to fit into and function in that society, from the most mundane and simplest tasks and jobs to it's highest administrative bodies. Everyone in this society is evaluated, so that they can be put into a position that is best suited to them and their skill-sets. There they will then each work according to their abilities and each be provided for according to their needs (see what I did there). Yes, the Qun can in my opinion be best described as a take on an authoritarian-socialist guide to life, written by somebody with a similar philosophie as Karl Marx.

So all in all, I don't think that the Qunari are in any way black-, brown-, bipoc- or muslim-coded, but a fantasy take on the Conquistadors, if instead of a bible they had all carried around "A Guide to Life, Luck and Community, written by Karl Marx (during one of his more productive weekends)", visually represented by giant Minotaur-People of many colours.

Also I find this obsession with finding every and any kind of reflexion of our real world in some random fantasy setting, by people who are most of the time actively looking to get offended by at least something and mostly every- and anything, quite contrived most of the time and that the day people on tumblr learned the word "codeing" a significant part of the internets critical-thinking skills and will just shrivelled up and died.

Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.

[midas-or-khaos]

Something that @enzymethe3rd asked to be brought up and I think should be talked about. It’s a serious topic like the Arwen discussion but it’s worth saying. Tolkien did have racist themes in his work, and I’m here to discuss why I believe what I saw and picked out to be racist.

To start, I’m going to be going over peoples. Specifically, the easterlings. There’s a few layers to this, but bare with. Some argue that the easterlings are not racially stereotyped because they are just the first men that didn’t leave for the west and thus not one specific race (black, white, East Asian etc) and thus in later books when on multiple occasions they betray other races like the elves, or enslave other humans, or follow Melkor and Sauron it’s because they’re from the east. I do contest this though. Tolkien did leave descriptions of these men on multiple occasions, and though he did differentiate different clans of easterlings, when elves first met these men in the history of middle earth, Tolkien did describe the easterlings in one overview:

From The History of Middle-Earth, Volume 5

(also Harper & Collins, 1993):

" Now the Easterlings or Romenildi, as the Elves named these newcomers, were short and broad, long and strong in the arm; their hair was black, and grew much also upon their face and breast; their skins were swart or sallow, and their eyes brown; yet their countenances were for the most part not uncomely, though some were grim and fierce. Their houses and tribes were many, and some had greater liking for the Dwarfs of the mountains than for the Elves."

Tolkien uses the words swart. Swart, or swarthy men as they’re also called, meaning black or dark skinned. Tolkien intended for these characters to be seen as POC. Now having POC peoples or characters is never a problem, the problem comes when they’re near constantly described as evil. Outside of their first introduction as well as bòr and his people, the easterlings are consistently shown as evil. There’s also the problem of the language used to describe them.

. Savage

. Cruel

. Barbaric

These words aren’t the kind of words aren’t used to describe any other of the men in the west, even those individuals who act Vile like Grima, Denethor etc. None get given descriptions that dehumanise them in quite the same way, nor to the scale of a whole people like we see with the easterlings.

It’s not just the easterlings though. Other men from the south, such as the haradrim, receive the same negative representation. Clearly being inspired by the real life Carthaginian people which were a people from modern day Tunisia, Africa. The haradrim show up at the assault of Gondor with Oliphaunts and rarely are mentioned except to cause evil for either Melkor or Sauron depending on which age.

From The Return of the King:

"And if the Rohirrim at their onset were thrice outnumbered by the Haradrim alone soon their case became worse; for new strength came now streaming to the field out of Osgiliath. There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of Gondor, waiting on the call of their Captain. He was now destroyed, but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variages of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black man like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues. Some now hastened behind the Rohirrim, others held westward to hold off the forces of Gondor and prevent their joining with Rohan."

This goes onto my next point. POC colours are rarely mentioned in Tolkien fiction. The biggest defence people hold against this is that the story is obviously heavily influenced by Tolkien’s love for epic poetry (specifically beowulf) which was obviously Scandinavian/Viking based and thus didn’t have people of colour in at the time. But people forget three things

1. Tolkien was inspired by more than just beowulf. He was also inspired by Classical Greek and Roman literature and history, which we can see in the battle between the haradrim and the rohirrim outside Gondor. This fight was obviously inspired by the Punic Wars (three wars between Carthage and Rome) because of the use of the oliphaunts (elephants) as war steeds against the men of Rohan, which Hannibal from Carthage actually used during the Punic wars. (The more you know).

2. Tolkien was also inspired by more than just one culture. The hobbits reflected Tolkien’s own life, the haradrim reflected Carthaginian culture, the rohirrim reflected Viking culture etc

3. It’s fantasy, the rules of real life don’t apply here. If minor gods in the form of wizards can exist, famous warriors can be brought back from the dead and dragons the size of mountain ranges can fly, black, Asian and other ethnicities can exist as fruitfully and as actual characters rather than some background people.

Please as always respond and share your thoughts, and if you’re passionate about this topic please also go check out @diversetolkien for more in depth coverings on Eöl and other characters and themes.

[theladyregret]

I've looked at some of your Drow art and why do you white wash their features? The same goes for your OC which you keep tagging as Desi but they clearly have pale hair, skin, and blue eyes.

Honestly I'm not very surprised to get this ask...more that it didn't happen sooner I guess. Tumblr being Tumblr sometimes you know? lol

First...please don't refer to Dorian as being white washed. He has albinism. It's really insulting to refer to PoC with albinsm as if they are now suddenly not PoC. I take his asian indian ethnicity seriously and have been working very hard in recent years to accurately portray his ethnicity properly in his facial features. It's art. I have to learn first. I think I've been doing pretty good now honestly. Definitely better then my older art for sure.

As for Drow...that's mostly just I feel personal preference I guess. I just never equated Drow with the idea of them being black people the way some people have so I don't usually portray them that way when I draw them because that's just not how I've personally pictured them. I have nothing against it of course I just never saw it that way. If a character was described as specifically having those features I'd use them. I personally always assumed elves would have ethnic variants no differently then humans would and that would also apply to Drow. Meaning you could have surface elves as well as Drow with varied ethnic features depending on what regions they come from and not just Surface Elf = Caucasian and Drow = Black simply because one is described as having black skin as a racial trait.

I've also always been a fan of assuming science and evolution still exists even in magical worlds even if the people in those worlds don't know what it is. So I always assumed the idea of Drow having black skin as a divine punishment to show that they're evil was just theological propaganda. Not actually true and this has been supported more in recent media. I also always visualized Drow as having black skin that's blue or purple tinted rather then brown so you could still have a surface elf with black skin and black features and that wouldn't mean they were Drow. So why scientifically speaking would a subterranean race have such dramatically dark colored skin when they never seen the sun and all of their other racial features support their subterranean nature? (extremely pale hair, larger light sensitive eyes, shorter stature, etc. I also personally decided that Drow characters still get Infravision because I thought it was stupid to take that away and just replace it with a bigger range of darkvision. Dark vision still requires a light source to function...which isn't usually the case in the Underdark...ANYWAY)

There actually is an explanation that goes beyond just them being allegories for black people (not saying that they weren't meant as such originally I just never personally assumed that...ever)...and that's the fact that the Underdark has it's own form of radiation which has adverse effects on those not native to the region. I also found it interesting that other Underdark native subraces also seem to have darker skin pigment then their surface cousins...and they're not affected by this radiation. So the darker pigment would actually be an adaptive trait which protects them from the Underdarks natural radiation. I also personally think Drow on the surface probably burn really easy under the sun despite their dark skin because it's not actually designed to protect from UV rays and sometimes I draw Drizzt with warmer hued skin because I feel he'd have the Drow equivalent of a tan compared to Drow who haven't lived on the surface as long heh

Literally this is the stuff that went through my head when I was first introduced to the race back in the early 90's so...that's just always how I've personally interpreted them. I think both concepts are correct and fine to use. There's no reason to say that Drow all have to be based on any single ethnic source any more then a surface elf should if you're going that route so if anyone wants to give them caucasian features, great. Black? Awesome. Asian? More power to you. It's all valid to me honestly.

[yibo-wang]

okay so Legolas having blond hair doesn't make much sense? Idk if you know but Legolas is a Sindar, but I'm gonna clear up what that even means first! Sindar were defined as followed:

"(...) applied to all the Elves of Telerin origin that the Noldor found in  Beleriand, though  it later  excluded the Nandor,  except  those  who were  the direct  subjects of Elwe, or had become merged with his  people” (War of Jewels)

so these are the Sindar, there are some other groups (like the mentioned Nandor) that are also of Telerin origin, and also Elves not of Telerin origin living in Middle Earth.

Now you ask yourself "What does blond hair have to do with being a Sindar?" and technically seen the answer is simple.... everything. Legolas is Sinda, and not a Vanya. It's repeatedly emphasized that the Vanyar are the Elves with Yellow and Golden hair, which includes the House of Finarfin:

''the  Vanyar  had  golden  hair,  and  it  was  from   Finarfin's  Vanyarin mother  Indis  that  he, and  Finrod Felagund  and Galadriel  his children, had their golden hair", (People Of Middle Earth)

"(...) [Galadriel & Finrod]  were  the children  of Finarfin,  Indis' second son.  He  was  of his  mother's kind  in mind  and body,  having the golden  hair  of  the  Vanyar," (People of Middle Earth)

"(since the  whole of  this clan had  joined  the  Eldar  and  reached  Aman).  The name  referred to the  hair of  the Minyar,  which was  in nearly  all members  of the clan  yellow  or  deep  golden" (War of Jewels)

thus Legolas shouldn't be blond. Rather than blond I'd say he should either be dark haired (brown or black) or, if you do want to keep it light like in the movies, then it could be silver. Even that would require a special case, becaude while silver hair is something the Sindar do in fact have, this is limited to the royal family. I'm fairly sure every Sindar we do know that has silver hair is mentioned to be related to the royal family.

“Elwe [1] himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue,  but this does not seem to have been a  common  feature of the Sindar, though  it  was found  among them occasionally, especially  in the nearer  or remoter  kin of  Elwe (as  in the  case of Cirdan)." (War of Jewels)

okay so as an example of someone of the kin of Elwë, except for Cirdan, we have Celeborn:

“ Similarly  on the  other side,  Elmo's [2] son  is  Galahon,  and  Galahon  has  two sons,  Galathil and  Celeborn 'prince  of Doriath', and a daughter  Nimloth,“ (War of Jewels)

“and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them“ (FOTR)

regarding on why I said Legolas' hair should be dark, I'd like to point out this:

“In general  the  Sindar  appear  to  have  very closely  resembled the Exiles [Noldor], being dark-haired, strong and tall, but lithe.  Indeed they could hardly be told apart except by  their eyes;” (War of Jewels)

and Noldor are described as:

'[Noldor]  were  tall,  fair  of skin  and grey-eyed,  though their locks were dark, save  in  the  golden  house of  Finrod [3] [Finarfin]' (People of Middle Earth)

also I believe the only mention of Legolas's hair was in the Fellowship of the Ring? If he had silver hair, Tolkien would've noted [4] that more often I believe. Here is the passage that describes his hair:

“[Legolas’] head was dark, crowned with sharp white stars that glittered in the black pools of the sky behind." (FOTR)

which you admittedly can't use as "his hair is dark in the book" because this scene is at night.

The only indication that Legolas would've been able to have blond hair is from his father.

"(...) sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair, very much as Bombur described the figure in his dream." (The Hobbit)

Which is kind of going against the rest of canon that only the Vanyar have golden hair but the Hobbit was written before the rest of the history was created. So we're kind of in a difficult position here?

[1] Elwë is another name for Elu Thingol, King of Doriath, husband of Melian, father of Lúthien.

[2] Elmo is a brother of Elwë and is only notable for his descendants Celeborn and Nimloth. Nimloth is part of another one of Tolkien's tragic love stories and Celeborn is the husband of Galadriel.

[3] Finarfin was originally called Finrod, this was later changed and Finrod became the name of Finarfin's son.

[4] He tells us that Mahtan, Nerdanel, Maedhros, Amrod and Amras have reddish hair. He also notes when a person has blond or silver hair usually, so if Legolas had silver hair — which would give him a relation to a famous family — he probably would've mentioned this. Which is why I believe Legolas probably had dark hair

I believe there was a mention of Miriel having silver hair somewhere, as well as Celegorm having light/silver hair, but I wasn't able to find it.

I had a lot more quotes but I cut out like half of them because they were kind of repeating stuff or going into some other things too, which I thought would be too complicated. Also Haldir most likely actually has dark hair. I think it was just a decision from the film makers/art department idk to like... set the elves apart by giving them all a hair color while disregarding the rest of Tolkien's canon.

Laura omg!

I'm still trying to classify everyone because there's so many!

But okay what I got from this is the Legolas shouldnt have dark hair cause he's not Vanyar. Which makes me think of Legolas with dark hair and isnt that a sight cause fjfjfj I really do like dark haired people 👁👄👁

[xaysnotebook]

Chapter 2 - Two New Friends

Alex’s last memory was having Tasha ask why they were watching a window, then suddenly blackness and cold. They couldn’t see anything around them, their chest felt full and it was hard to breathe. All around them was darkness and silence. Silence. Something Alex had not experienced in years. There was always some noise; a thought, a voice, a noise. But here, it was almost like before, when he was still innocent.

“You find comfort in this place? Most mortals panic almost instantly, they feel trapped and go insane in moments.” Resonated a voice, deep and smooth, like a professional conman’s. Sounding both distant and close, like both a memory and person. “Strangely enough, you are able to listen, but not respond. You’re meek, not confident enough in who.. no.. what you are.” Alex was most definitely not confident when it felt like a planar entity was casually conversing with them.

Suddenly a dull purple haze crept into the nothingness in front of them, seemingly clinging to a figure. Almost humanoid, it looked like something out of a badly rendered game. The figure was tall, close to Alex’s height, with what seemed like four legs in an X pattern, a very spindly torso that couldn’t have been more than a foot across which slowly rose to a broad chest that held a single set of muscular arms and something that vaguely resembled wings. However, they were fluid, and seemed more like a collection of squid tentacles that simply held the shape of wings. The head, or what Alex could only assume was its head, was far larger than a humans, being close to thirty inches in circumference with extremely high set features, similar to how elves are described in fantasy. The only facial feature that Alex could clearly make out was a brightly glowing pair of  violet eyes.

“Interesting indeed, you don’t seem afraid of my form.” It resounded, not visibly moving any mouth. “You could prove helpful, maybe even perfect to bridge the gap again.”

“Where the hell am I and what the hell are you?” Alex’s voice boomed, startling even themself, the creatures “wings” stopped their movement at the sound. “Why are you looking at me like a dog?” It felt draining to speak, and the two sentences left them feeling like they had just finished a mile sprint.

“Very interesting indeed, strong force of personality with low confidence.” It mumbled as its wings started up again, but in a slower cycle, “I will answer one question for now. We’re currently in the Abyss, the deepest part in Zentharia.” The eyes narrowed slightly, “Zentharia used to be a twin to your realm, what you refer to as Earth, but is Pateteria to my people. However, Zentharia was long forgotten by humans after the connection was severed thousands of years ago.”

Alex immediately felt like his head was swimming, he had to be on a bad trip as none of that made sense, realms? An abyss? A weird squid wing, creeper, wrestler cosplayer? Their vision began to go fuzzy and their head felt both heavy and light.

“You had better wake up now, Alex. If you stay too long, you’ll forget how to. But don’t worry, our conversation isn’t over quite yet. We can talk more when you’re stronger.” It said, beginning to dissipate.

“Alex!” cried a familiar voice.

“Tasha?” Alex croaked out. They blinked and suddenly they were in the  apartment complex. They could breathe again, their vision was clear, all the noise was back. The only feeling left was a cold spot near their heart and their eyes.

“What the  hell just happened to you? You had purple eyes and you were wheezing!” Tasha seemed ready to cry, which on its own would have scared Alex, but combining that with everything that had just happened, Alex was ready to either take a nice long nap or have a mental breakdown. Or both.

After about five minutes of them both freaking out, they managed to get into their apartment and lie on the couch. “Are we going crazy?” Tasha whispered.

“I don’t think so, this seems too real, plus we both are going through it.” Alex replied, still trying to figure out how to explain the weird purple squid thing.

“Well, what are we going to do about this? We can’t tell anyone, we’ll get kicked out of college, probably put in some institution.” She sounded as hopeless as Alex felt, it seemed like nothing would make any of this better.

“Well, there’s more to my side of this. I kinda talked to a, a something? An alien?” Alex began to explain the weird, vaguely humanoid looking creature and what it had said to them. Focusing heavily on the fact that there are apparently different realms, made up of things that knew of and once co-existed with humans. And they apparently knew English on top of everything.

“Dude. Maybe we should go see a psychologist. You saw a mist alien and I'm believing you.” Tasha said with a dull look in her eyes. Clearly she was trying to comprehend everything, and failing miserably.

“‘I’ve studied it for four years, unless we have some sort of combined schizophrenia, they’ll just put us in some hospital for being crazy. Or they’ll experiment on us. Or maybe even both.” Alex responded hopelessly. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, “Never happened.”

“Never happened.” Tasha agreed. “I have to get to campus, the math final is in thirty minutes. Maybe try to take a nap.” She stood and began to collect her notes.

“Unlikely, but I’ll try my best.” Alex stood and hugged Tasha for a minute, such being uncommon as Alex didn’t like physical contact very much. They often made an exception for Tasha, however, she was probably the only person they could touch on a regular basis.

“It’ll be okay my little raven.” Tasha said, taking a motherly tone. She was the oldest of six siblings and was used to the idea of comforting others. “When I get back, why don’t we order Chinese food and watch movies?”

Alex felt another shift in their balance, but different than before, “Or watch old cartoons?”

5:00pm came faster than Alex expected, they spent the time relaxing on the couch. Idly playing on their phone, the door opened and Tasha slunk through. “That was awful, but I made it back alive. Mostly at least.” Tasha said as she collapsed on the chair next to Alex.

“Did you do good on it?” Alex asked, looking at her admiringly, “I wasn’t ever really that great at math, you’re seriously good at it.”

“I think I did alright. Some parts of it were actually difficult, but my professor said that I would easily get my degree this year.” Tasha rambled on for a few minutes. Alex just watched her talk and waited for her to finish, “Jan was actually useless in finishing her part, I’ve been talking too long, what did you do while I was gone?”

“Just layed here on my phone, waiting for you to get back. I took a nap and watched tv.” Alex had actually taken a quick nap on the couch after watching cartoons, but was feeling a bit embarrassed by it, “You said we could get food and watch movies, is that still okay?”

“Of course it is. I’ll get the menu pulled up on my phone and you can pick out what we watch tonight. Do you want me to just get your favorite or do you want something different?” Tasha said, looking up from her phone, her tone very soothing.

“I’ll just take my normal, what kind of movie do you want?” As they were scrolling through the movies available. No response came, “Tasha?” Alex said as they looked over and choked back a scream, as Tasha’s had turned a pale color and her eyes had turned a bright golden color.

Tasha was extremely warm, like her lungs were filled with a cool fire. Her breathing was harsh and hot, her eyes were watering. All around her, she saw gold and orange. No one was around, but there was a distant sound of music and laughter. It seemed like she was going to explode in a flash of heat, but it was also comforting in a strange way.

“Terribly sorry it took so long to get here my dear, I was held up with some other matters.” A feminine voice said from behind her. Turning around, Tasha saw something both perfect and disgusting.

This creature that stood in front of her was at least a foot taller than, nearly the same size as Alex. Alex! She realized that he had partially switched out, and that they shouldn’t be alone for too long.

“Relax darling, they will be okay. You’ll be back soon to be with them again.” The figure said, its mouth open but not moving with the words. As it stood there, it looked mostly human; two arms, two legs and one head. However, it clearly had far too many eyes. It also had something that seemed like a set of wings, almost birdlike covered in feathers but with strange patches of skin-like material, almost like scar tissue.

“Where am I and who are you?” Tasha questioned through gritted teeth, feeling like she was talking through a campfire’s heat, her voice very warbled and unsteady.

“Well, my dear, I am Vesril, and we’re in a realm called Zentharia. Specifically, we’re at the top of what you would call a mountain, close to the peak where my family resides. This place is called Summoner’s Perch.”

Thankfully, Tasha was great at storing information quickly. Mentally rotating everything Vesril was saying, trying to decode and comprehend it. “How did I get here? How do I get back?” Tasha questioned, starting to get her voice to obey her again, “I want to leave, now.”

“You can leave whenever you would like to, child. All you have to do is ask and I will send you back. But you may want to hear what I have to say about your friend, Alex.”

Tasha was taken aback, anger and fear starting to bubble inside her, “What about them? Don’t you dare lay even a finger on my little Raven.” Her voice was instantly like steel, her eyes narrowed and burned at the thought of Alex being hurt. Just like any other time she began to get angry, it felt like her hands were set on a stove, burning hot.

“Ah, you’re further along than they are, that can be a good thing.” Vesril mumbled to themself. It made a sound like it cleared its throat before it spoke again. “Alex, as I’m sure you know, was contacted by another entity from Zentharia. I want you to make sure they stay far away from them. Alex is far too valuable to be in the hands of someone like him.”

“What do you mean ‘too valuable’.” Tasha was furious at this point, the idea of Alex being used by whatever this creature was was pushing her past her limit. Her fingers felt like they were wreathed in white-hot flames, but it wasn’t painful. “I swear, you had better stay away from Alex!”

Darling, I’m only trying to help the both of you. You both have extreme potential that would be wasted with those creatures.” The creature started to sound worried and angry.

“What are they then, if they’re so awful?”

“I can’t tell you that yet dear.”

Tasha snapped, she lunged at Vesril, faster than she had ever thought was possible, grabbing Vesril by the throat. “You stay away from me and Alex! We dont need some freak of a creature talking nonsense to us!” Her grip tightened even further, the burning feeling was gone, but her hands were still warm. Stealing a quick glance down, she was terrified, as her hand was cloaked in a dark blue flame. She looked back up, forgetting her panic, “Take me home. Now!”

“Very well.” Vesril choked out with a gasp, and suddenly Tasha had Alex’s neck in her hand.

[yandere-society]

Day 11 | Santa Tell Me

Synopsis: You’ve always been strangely scared of Santa as a child. The thought of a stranger in heavy boots breaking into your home and rummaging through your stuff has always terrified you. And you felt that terror right now, in this instant, as you laid there with two men in bright green suits hovering over your pretend-sleeping form.

The 12 Days of Black Christmas Event Masterlist

Pairing: Vmin x Female Reader

Admin: @roses-ruby​​

Trigger warnings: Yandere themes, bad crack, attempted kidnapping, stalking, stupid jokes, joke about religion, swearing, bad mouthing Santa 

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

You really hated Christmas.

You hated everything that had to do with Christmas. All the sugary deserts, the unhealthy binging, the fake family bonding and seasonal depression longing. The freezing weather that froze your toes and pipes, the blinding red and greens, otherwise known as holiday delights. The overzealous consumerism around every corner, the empty materialism that gave everyone boners. The deforestation and self-righteousness, the ugly sweaters and proud religious mess. You hated Christmas and its warping spider’s net and all the very, merry, happy, holy, holly, jolly shit that went along with it.  

It wasn’t like you ever had a good Christmas to change your mind. When you were six, every girl at school had the brand-new light up Princess Dolly sneakers for Christmas but thanks to your skinflint of a dad, you got the direct knock off; Princess Polly sneakers. Polly with a PUH. They didn’t even fucking light up. To this day you get nightmares from the bullying. At 15, you got typhoid fever before the big ski vacation and while everyone else got to go have the time of their life, you were stuck rotting at home with your weird cousin Sigil who collected the dead skins from snake sheds. And just last year, at an unbearably boring office party, your ex best friend and crush made out under the mistletoe for 15. Whole. Minutes. Last you heard of them, they were engaged.

Let’s not even start about your irrational fear of Santa Claus. Every bad Christmas could be traced back to him. You cried the first time you heard your dad describe the bearded old man. Your reaction confused the hell out of him but to you, he was the strange one. What kind of parent allows an overgrown, capitalist bear man who dresses in red and brainwashes elf and reindeer to come into their home using the chimney and spy on their kids throughout the whole year? Was he a sadist? When you were younger, you would wet the bed just thinking of him stomping around your house in the dark. Safe to say, you never left him any cookies. Now, you’re just glad you grew out of the phase of believing in such a horrid creature like Santa Claus. Finally, you could sleep happy knowing that no one would sneak into your house in the middle of the night.

So, while we’re on that topic…who exactly were the two men whispering in the dark inside your room if it’s definitely not Santa?

“We have to quickly get back before he notices we’re missing. QUICKLY, Taehyung.”

“I know, I know. Let me just untangle this rope, Jimin.”

Who the fuck were Taeyoong and Jimmy and what the fuck were they doing in your house? That’s what you were thinking as you laid on your bed pretending to be asleep, absolutely still in the complete dark. Of course, you had a break in on the night of Christmas because why the fuck not. What made you think this one year, your Christmas day would turn out okay?

You were stuck even further because you lost the window of opportunity to wake up and startle the intruders and perhaps scream for help because since the moment they snuck in (3 minutes ago) you did nothing but lay there listening to their banter like the idiot you are. Maybe you could pretend all their ‘noise’ woke you up, but then again you weren’t too fond of your acting skills.

But honestly, who were they? What did they want? Why did they keep mentioning returning before this ‘he’ found out they were gone?

As you were pondering your crisis, someone blew straight into your ear. You shot up from the bed with a scream and immediately turned on the lamp beside you. Two men in strange green tunics and stockings, pointy ears, and tall hats with a bell stare back at you with an equally horrified expression.

They were dressed up as…elves?

“See, I told you she was awake.” The one on your right, resembling a small animal, possibly the bastard who blew in your ear, chirps.

“Wow, you really do have night vision, Jiminie.” The taller one behind the edge of your bed, the one holding a rope says, while staring at you in a daze.

“Who the fuck are you both? How did you get in? What do you want?” You shout, bringing your comforter to your chest.

All they do is stare at you with lovesick eyes to which you scowl. Hold on, why were your potential murderers so hot?

“_-___,” The one on the right calls you carefully. He had round and soft features with a sharp jaw. Slender eyes and bright pink hair matching his rosy cheeks on his otherwise cute pale face. “It’s an honor to finally meet you…my name is J-Jimin.”

“I’m Taehyung.” You turn to the man with the rope. His features were extremely well proportioned and downright lethal. A devilishly handsome face, beautiful golden skin and dark brown mopy hair. He appeared and sounded like a mature sugar daddy but stared at you like a 12-year-old pervert.

You sat silent after the two men’s greetings. What were you supposed to say after intruders introduced themselves? Nice to meet you? And how did they know your name?

“…O-Okay…Jimin, Taehyung…why are you in my house.”

“We’re here to kidnap you.” Jimin smiles, his eyes turning into crescents.

“E…Excuse me?”

“Yeah! We’re here because we love you and we want you for ourselves, so we have to take you from your home.” Taehyung says, stretching the rope in his hands.

“WHAT?” You couldn’t believe your ears. Did you perhaps start hallucinating after your edible once again? Because that would explain this crazy ass dream you were having right now. Since when did you have an elf kink though?

“So you see,” Jimin begins walking to stand beside Taehyung so now they were both in front of you, “We’re Santa’s elves. We were the ones assigned to watch over you, see if you were naughty or nice.”

“Pfft, you’re very naughty~” Taehyung giggles, blushing like crazy. You raise an eyebrow at him.

“And over the years,” Jimin continues, “We came to fall in love with you to the point of obsession. So now we want to kidnap you and take you to the north pole where we three will live in a polyamorous relationship and only me and Taehyung will get to be with you.”

“We’ll fuck every day.” Taehyung chimes in proudly, earning a smack to the back of his head from Jimin who mutters ‘not yet.’

“Ahahaha, what Taehyung meant was…of course any sexual relationship would be consensual. No means no, after all.” Jimin winks awkwardly

You just sat there, mouth wide open as your brain refused to process all the information that was just presented to you. So not only were your intruders dressed up as elves, but they were also clinically insane.

“I’m calling the cops.”

“W-wait! We can prove it to you!” Jimin jumps, rushing back to your side. “When you were 10, you really wanted a MayaMaya doll collection set didn’t you? You didn’t tell your dad about it because you thought he would get you the knock off; the Papaya doll collection. It was the first and only time you were okay with Santa coming into your house, so you didn’t even set the bear trap in the fireplace like you did every year.”

He was right. What the fuck.

“W…how did you know that?”

“We saw you.” Jimin says, eyes soft and smile tender, “You were wishing so earnestly that Christmas Eve, it almost made me cry.”

“W…wait so…Santa is real?”

“Of course.” They sang in unison

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, time out.” You huff, “He’s been real this whole time, yet he’s never gotten me what I wanted for Christmas?”

“Oh, my love.” Taehyung strides up and sits on your side of the bed, taking your hand in his. “It was out of our hands…we tried to get you on the nice list, but he could sense your bad vibes…also I’m pretty sure he was salty you never left him cookies. He is sort of petty.”

“So you’re telling me that hippy bitch Claire really did deserved that large purple dollhouse more than me?”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, she hasn’t been on the nice list for a long time now…all she asks for are sex toys.” Taehyung stares off into the distance.

“How long have ya’ll been watching me?”

“We are supposed to stop once a kid doesn’t believe in Santa anymore...but we were just always rooting for you. Before we knew it, we were watching you way into adulthood...and then slowly we started falling in love with you.” Jimin blushes

“...Have ya’ll seen me-”

“Naked? No...but we really want to.” Taehyung bites his bottom lip.

“I can’t believe this…” You groan, placing a palm over your forehead.

“Hey now, Jesus didn’t die today for you to be full of despair.” The taller elf rubs your hand with his thumb

“No, you idiot. He was born today…I think.” Jimin tsks

“Oh…well the point still stands. Don’t be sad my love. We never want you to have a bad Christmas again.”

“Anyway, we should hurry before Santa notices we abandoned him. That ass-kisser Jin also tagged along so we don’t have to worry too much about our portion of the presents since he would love to show off how competent he is to Santa all by himself. We can just say we ran a bit late because some kid almost woke up.” Jimin tells Taehyung to which he nods, getting his rope ready.

Oh right, this was a kidnapping. You forgot.

“___, just stay perfectly still and we’ll easily load you into the bottom of Santa’s gift sack. That thing is huge, no one will notice but us.”

“Guys, wait.” You say to which they freeze. “Let me think about this.”

They look at you with pleading puppy dog eyes and you start to contemplate it. Should you go with the two elves that barged into your house and tried to kidnap you and possibly turn you into a sex slave?

…

What were the pros and cons?

If you go to the North Pole, you’d basically be stuck with everything you hate about Christmas all year round. But could it be that bad seeing how smoking these two elves were? They could easily keep you warm. Were all elves this hot? Wait…could Santa possibly be hot? Your mouth watered thinking about it. Is this an enemies to lovers AU after all?

Whatever it was, it was interesting and more importantly you had a lot of unfinished business with the man in red. You could see it now, forming a mutiny with all the elves. Killing Claus and taking over his empire. Then it would be you who rules Christmas and boy, do you have a few changes you wanted to make like the beginning of this story states. Finally, all your wishes will come true. This time you WILL get the light up Princess Dolly sneakers and MayaMaya doll collection set.

And so, with a sinister plot forming in your head, you smile at the two eager elves in front of you.

“Alright boys, let’s go.”

Maybe this Christmas won’t be so bad after all.

[for-peace-war]

do you think "race-swapping" a character in writing matters or is a good thing in representation? (for example, if harry potter who is "commonly portrayed as white" is portrayed instead by a black or arabic boy/man.)

I apologize in advance for how long it took me to get to these questions, and honestly, probably how long the answers will be to them.  So if you don’t want to see some discourse on race-relations in fantasy, then smash that J button and keep on moving.

Anyway.

Question 1:

In regard to the first question, that of “race-swapping,” I would compare it to the art concept known as “paintovers.”  Although the term is stigmatized in many circles because of how [lazy] it is, the truth is that there is an artistry and skill involved in being able to take something and remain true to its premise, while at the same time modifying its appearance.  In that field, let’s just simplify it to: there are good and bad paintovers.

I feel that the race-swap has the same standard of qualification.

The essential question I always ask myself is: why.  Why does this character need to be swapped, why did you pick this alternative, why do you feel this enhances the story in some way?  Why is not an argumentative or even exclusionary inquiry: it’s asking the creator to return to their first impulse and exam what it is.

So we have “Arabic or Black Harry Potter.”  There are a lot of questions that come up there, but I’ll divide them down into this:

Does Arabic/Black Harry Potter represent something White Harry Potter doesn’t?

Can this character be conveyed without an over simplification of some cultural aspect to “mark” them.

Who is this for?

In the case of the first question, I think that a Black/Arabic Harry Potter already has a lot of merit.  The issue is, we equate Englishness with Whiteness and to have a titular character in a series, a “nerd,” no less have the qualifications of something other than “just your average white Briton!” then I think you already have something there.

Of course, people will consider this tokenism at its outset, but I’d disagree.  While taking a Literary Criticism class, the discussion of Harry Potter actually came up.  In the conversation, one of the students said: “Well, I wouldn’t mind fi Ron or Hermoine were black, to be honest.”  Which is, on its face, a fine statement—I too am glad that you wouldn’t mind a black character existing — but the beauty of it of course, came from what was being excluded: Harry Potter, by contrast, shouldn’t be black.

This is why I would say that something as miniscule as swapping a color palette on a character is more than tokenism: by the simple act of existing as a marginalized person, the main character has already made a statement that people will take issue with.  How often do we see “politics in gaming!” when a main character isn’t a heterosexual white male?

So, if Harry Potter was a non-white character? I’d say it’d be worth examining.  But that delves into the second part. Can this be shown without it becoming a series of stereotypes?

I would say yes. Assuming that a person didn’t want to keep the stock nature of Harry Potter’s backstory consistent, which honestly I have no opinion on, there’s nothing wrong with drawing into consideration the places that people of various races/ethnicities are most prevalent.  So, if for instance, Arabic Harry Potter lives in an area that differs from White Harry Potter that isn’t bad, but it is worth expressing what this means in comparison to the former: how does this change influence the character’s core self and beliefs? Does it not? At all?

England has always had a fetishitic view of “Englishness,” and as media can [reproduce] life into the format the creator wants, it’s worth really examining what could be said by Harry Potter, the main character of an English series, not being as “English” as the aforementioned view might have indicated.  In a post-Brexit world, after all, we have seen that the notion of Englishness has become something of increasing fantasy.

So put Harry Potter the non-white in conflict with something “traditional” in its English nature, and this doesn’t even mean a racially themed motiff, it could be class or even generationally based.  Just say something with the change that isn’t already being said.

I’d like to take that point to also say, people probably should break their desire to have non-white represent non-traditional in all other ways.  It’s a bit on the nose when people’s avatar for social disorder have to be coded as being non-white.  I’ll touch more on this in the second question.

The last part ties back into the first: who is this depiction actually for?  Is the purpose of this to show people that it can be done, or children of this background that they are being thought of? Both have good and bad sides to them, with the former’s benefits being that it brings to an end “conventional wisdom” like “Black Superhero Movies Never Sell!” (See: Black Panther), whereas the downside is you risk rushing into doing something with ltitle thought beyond that change.

As to the latter issue, the downside can only be that you may have to essentialize what the acceptable rate for this character is.  For black people, I’ll say out the gate that shadeism will always be where you see how an author views their subject matter.  If the attractive woman has to be of a lighter hue, then really it comes down to telling black girls and women that their skin needs to be lighter.  So in that regard, likely consider the choices you make when you make them.

In closing, my view on race-swapping is have a reason to do it. If you don’t, then probably leave it alone.

Question B:

This is a two part question but I think they can be synthesized down into one answer.

This is going to go back to my “non-white doesn’t mean non-traditional” thing and it’s a point I’ve had before, so whatever.  We’ll take “black elves” and look at them as a specimen of fetishitic racism.

Here’s the thing.  When we think of elves, generally yes, we do think of white people.  It’s just how it’s coded.  But the whiteness isn’t even necessary: be it duskwright, kaldorei, or drow: you know what they are when you see them.  So an elf doesn’t “need” to be white or maintain whiteness.  So why is it whenever the whiteness is removed, the entire semblance of what an elf is switches as well?

In the case of the former: unnatural hues make the “non-whiteness” a non-factor.  Duskwrights, Kaldorei, and Drow by standards don’t have “human” tones and so, their non-whiteness is more an aspect of just being fantasy characters.  But when people begin working in “shades of brown,” the themes immediately change: fatter, more aggressive, scarred, etc.  

Here’s the thing.  If your statement is “body positivity is good and I want my black elf to be fat,” then okay.  That’s cool.  I guess.  My issue is that this goes more in line with the notion that black people occupy more space than we should, and as a result, will do no less externally.  I’ll just also say right now that fat fetish characters that are about “how much she (almost always a female) eats” or “how many rolls she has,” is not an argument in favor of body positivity.  It’s both specifying the deviation from the “norm” and also deriding it through eroticism obsession.

But, I’m sorry.  The entire issue here is that dark characters exist to be, well, disgustingly perverse to social norms.  I understand that people want to show “badass” characters, but the more “badass” and scarred, the more the skin begins to darken.  This is, I believe, a subconscious aspect of what we view in characters: that there is something inherently dangerous, virile, and wild when it comes to darker complexions.  

So how does this tie back into elves? Well, show me some elegant black elves.

Elegance and refinement, typically, describe an elf.  Outside of any “racial” view, so long as the character has this [traditionalist] allure of an essential beauty and grace and has long ears, then yeah.  You have an elf. Simple as. No doubt about it.  So why do black elves need to be fat, having missing ears, be angry, etc? Because what the writer subconsciously feels is that these traits are more authentic to the black experience, and that is terrible and dangerous.  

When writing a character outside of yourself (which I strongly sugegst people do), I think that you need to be aware of your design choices (research and respect).  

So we can use World of Warcraft’s denizens as an example.  WoW’s always had a “world is white” standard to it. That’s problematic, I guess, but whatever.  Racial representation wasn’t big in the 90′s and still isn’t really that important to most people.  Yet even with that being said, players began trying to explain where their characters came from that weren’t white.  “Blacks come from Stranglethorn!” “Browns come from Tanaris!” on and on, and yeah, there are problems there, but the more pressing matter is that WoW just dropped the ball on different races of people.

Here’s the thing: there’s nothing wrong with people coming from different places.  You don’t need to go all Conan on it and say they came from Iraqistan and Zembabwe, but it’s worth noting that we all come from somewhere and end up where we do. I’d rather authors put more effort into examining that than they do in making up monsters and animals to represent these same groups of people in exoticisized and disturbing portrayals.

There’s also the option that race just doesn’t matter in your world.  It’s fantasy, why not?  We became so obessed with GRRM reminding us that “fantasy” means “imagine a world where white men have all the power and it’s okay!” and forgot that it can also mean “imagine a world where this problem just doesn’t exist.”   So if you do that, then it’s fine.  Code everyone together.  But make their representation reflect that.  If, say, in WOW race just didn’t matter then the breakdown of heroes would reflect that.  It doesn’t obviously.

So if you want to theme something like Zulu, then I guess I’d say do your research on it and know it beyond surface level considerations.  If you do that, then really do whatever.

And I’ll say, I don’t find people racist for not including non-whites in their stories, to an extent. But when it’s a glaring omission based purely on the desire to “keep Albion pure,” then it’s like, alright.  You’re being a racist and that’s your call. 

That’s all.  A lot of words.  Hope whoever sent this even sees it, lmao.