#writing skin tones

[tacticalprincess]

pervy!könig being absolutely crazy about reader sunbathing/tanning. no thoughts. that’s it.

anon #2: i saw a tiktok about like guys loving tanlines and i feel like that is SO pervy!konig like i know he has a thing for them

pervy!könig who blushes when you catch him hovering over you, smiling with your eyes closed while you teasingly complain about him blocking the sun. he can’t tear his gaze away from the sight of your soft body glistening under the bright rays of light, your little bikini clinging to your curves while his own pants begin to cling to the one he has filling up in his boxers. you’re blissfully unaware of his perverse gaze, eyes closed in content as you soak up the sun, ignorant to the fact that könig is trying to imprint the image into his memory to jerk off to later. which is why when he asks to reapply your sunscreen for you, you don’t think much of it… and he promises the hard thing nudging your ass is just the bottle in his pocket, häschen.

if you’re someone who gets tanlines, he doesn’t know what to do with himself around you until they go away. eyes constantly honed in on the temporary outline of your bikini straps that are exposed through your strapless top, disappearing into your cleavage. it’s art — the way the tanned skin dips into a lighter shade, it’s like your body is teasing him, taunting him with what he can’t see. and his mouth waters when he pictures how cute you must look without any clothes on, your breasts and pussy highlighted so prettily, stroking his cock to the image until his vision goes blurry, the silky material of your bathing suit bottoms wrapped in his fist. he tries not to be greedy when he thumbs at the outline on your shoulder during conversation, hoping you’ll take pity on his yearning gaze and let him see underneath.

[physalian]

Describing skin tones with food!

I am 100% not any authority on how you should describe non-white skin-tones, disclaimer.

I remember reading in a few places when writing my various diverse casts on ways to describe traits that are culturally specific here, but can’t really be called the same in fantasy settings (like dreadlocks).

I had a sensitivity reader for a Black-coded character who called me out on accidentally saying she was “white-knuckling” something. Honest mistake, I didn’t think twice about what “white-knuckling” literally means, it’s always been shorthand to convey fear and stress. Whoops.

But the other thing I remember seeing in quite a few places was avoiding using food to describe darker skin tones, and the one food I saw everywhere was, of course “chocolate”.

Majority consensus was that using food as a descriptor can look derogatory, especially something like chocolate that tends to also pop up in fiction that fetishizes darker skin tones, it’s always chocolate. Food is something you consume for pleasure, not something that denotes respect and autonomy of a person.

It's a small, small thing, and I don't think one instance of 'chocolate' is going to earn you a spot on a pyre, but it is cliche, and we can do better!

Issue then being that when you think of brown things, the immediate options you think of aren’t the same caliber as pale things. Wood types, and even then those are… eh? Mud is brown, dirt is brown, clay can be brown. Most woods aren't a perfect match-up for the wide range of darker skin tones and saying "her skin was black like black wood" is ridiculous and "her skin was black as soil" is insulting.

I think nuts and other natural materials are okay? (not the authority, not the authority at all) But it does then come down to which similes you use dependant on the story you're writing. If we're writing about a nature sprite and say their skin is the color of an acorn... yeah that tracks. If I'm writing a CEO of a major coporation, and describing their skin as the color of acorns, that's weird.

Whiteness on the other hand gets things like snow, paper, milky, creamy, alabaster, ivory, lily, daisy, etc. Even when whiteness is described with food, ‘milky’ doesn’t carry the same undertones as ‘chocolatey’.

I do go out of my way, for characters where it fits, to deliberately describe white skin tones with food just to shake up the balance a little bit and see if anybody notices.

So! Some pale-skinned food comparisons if anyone else wants to try with varying levels of cheekiness, and also to emphasize just why ‘chocolate’ can be a little bit insulting:

Cream

Milk

Eggshell

Powder

Banana

Yoghurt

Pear

Mozzarella

Cauliflower

Mushroom

Potato

Butter

Macadamia

Cashew

Parsnip

Water chestnut

Coconut

Truffle

Tofu

Wonder Bread

Sushi rice

In all seriousness, I used this post as part of my research way back when. At the end of the day, you don’t usually have to get that specific, certainly not every time mentioning their skin pops up in the narrative.

I can imagine using the above words if a character is either joking or insulting someone else ("that cauliflower fuck"), but not in any casual context, much less romantic or as a means to describe attractiveness. It’s just for fun plz see the satire.

[vivziestop]

Engie x Medic should not be called Science Party ok. It's just the two of them. It's not a science party unless you have the other science nerd in there. Demoman. Ok stop excluding him. Demo is a scientist too he's super smart guys ple ase I'm begging

[m4ggotm0ld]

Natlan is literally the worst thing Hoyoverse has ever created, and for so many reasons, but they somehow made it worse by k!lling off the only good character from it

[whimsimmortal]

~~~

“Thirsty?” She spouted spontaneously, holding out her arm to him with all the grace and charm of a plank of wood. - You Mocha Me Blush, Paulina POV Pink Astronaut oneshot on AO3

~~~

“Ghost boy,” Paulina wheedled, trying to get his attention. “It’s not going to hurt you.” 

“Phantom,” he corrected, lighting a hand with his signature, green magic. It blazed like an alien sun. “And I appreciate the thought, but if being trapped counted as self-care, do you think I would look like this? Don’t answer that. I’m going.” - The Summoner's Sleepover, Paulina. POV Pink Astronaut multi chap fic on AO3

[crabussy]

fionna and cake comic I was enjoying had dark/complicated lighting for the first few chapters and then in the most recent chapter the lighting changed to super neutral normal lighting and. dude.

canon simon skintone colourpicked directly from his reference image vs the colour the artist chose for him in their comic.

is it really that tricky to see that he has brown skin? how can you watch every episode and somehow go ah yes. he is white. how does this even happen I do not understand!!! I'm genuinely just perplexed!

he spends 90% of the show standing next to fionna, who isn't even that pale but is still VERY pale in comparison to him!! I just can't wrap my head around it.

[ageless-aislynn]

"15 Minutes - a John x Reader mini playlist"

(for my fic of the same name)

"Someone To You" - Banners I just want to be somebody to someone I never had nobody and no road home I wanna be somebody to someone

"Love Me Like You Do" - Tanner Patrick Yeah, I'll let you set the pace 'Cause I'm not thinking straight My head's spinning around, I can't see clear no more What are you waiting for?

"Silhouette" - Aquilo The devil's on your shoulder, the stranger's in your head As if you don't remember, as if you can forget It's only been a moment, it's only been a lifetime But tonight you're a stranger Some silhouette

"Don't Give Up On Me" - Andy Grammer I'll reach my hands out in the dark And wait for yours to interlock I'll wait for you

"Here With Me" - Robot Koch ft Susie Suh Caught in the riptide I was searching for the truth There was a reason I collided into you

~💖~

[scribs-dibs]

sumeru makes me so mad cus so many of the designs would eat down with darker skin but nooooo at most we got coffee with extra extra extra extra cream for the playable characters. i truly hate it here

[opens-up-4-nobody]

The burden of traditional art is that sometimes my pens run out of ink 😭

[orpheusilver]

can i be critical of black sails' writing for a second. for a show thats typically very very good at creating depth for even minor characters, 90% of the black characters are super fucking shallow

[eye-of-yelough]

his ass is NOT having a good day. -> picrew

[the-whispers-of-death]

I'm looking up skin color names to describe this character's brown skin and like everything for a darker brown color is calling it espresso. God, I'm making this man a little lighter to golden brown because I can't find another word for the darker brown skin tone than espresso.

[terrified-spider]

For some reason, whenever I try to push myself with a piece it always ends up covered in blood. Sorry, Tatyana. Or reincarnation of her. Not quite sure which.

The Sketch

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

so recently i decided to roll the 'what will my human!pericles look like This Time' roulette again, only this time in color for once! it's always itched at me how his design looks like a totally different person before and after the timeskip, having been through the wringer aside, so i thought i'd take a shot at combining my interpretation of the two. (the creators pretty obviously took cues from his voice actor for his present-day design, and it's been fun to draw on that too while still keeping the design my own.)

i mostly like how it's turned out, as far into it as i managed to get before i had to take a break and my executive function stalled out; i kept putting off posting it, meaning to come back and finish it later, but i finally decided to go ah fuck it i'd rather it be out there unfinished than disappear into my sketch folder forever. or get fucked up by my trying to continue it while Not in the Groove, especially given how difficult the painting tools i've got available are to wrangle with. Sometimes You Just Gotta Call It

there's a lot of things i'm eyeing to hammer out more next time--i can never seem to figure out what the hell to do with his hair, for one; for another they did a great job at getting across 'babyface that has become aged/haggard' with his designs, and that balance can be difficult to nail when the art app i use really brings out the Everyone is Soft and Babyface in my artstyle. it's a real bastard, but i liked drawing him with this brush a lot and i'm looking forward to working it out more if i can.

the upshot of this is Lo, Cunty Grandpa Be Upon Ye

bonus flats, including an early-to-mid-twenties edit, as well as a couple speed doodles from the same page:

[arabian-batboy]

Ugly pink pixie hair and gray skin aside, this might be my favorite Raven’s costume ever??

[defi4nce]

what colour are we feeling more...

or

or