When someone tries to tell you that you have to be pale to be goth, just remember this picture.š
Bringing this back! Someone actually stole this post (as in with my quote, I didnāt make the picture) but took the time to cut my username out and now its being shared all over facebook, ruuude~ So here is the original.:P
Tag Archives: voc
What’s your opinion about the VC lack of PoC characters?
One can criticize a work, create AU fanworks of it, or create an entirely original work. I would encourage everyone to write the story they want to read. Be the change you want to see in the world!
(^Unfortunately, many PoC in VC have unhappy endings. Keep in mind that sheās an evildoer in the book, which wasnāt explicitly stated in the movie. She murdered her clients.)Ā
Iām a straight white lady, but I can understand how frustrating it must be to see one of your favorite authors release novel after novel in one of your favorite series and feel left out of the story bc your race/gender/etc. is not represented (or itās fetishized, or represented negatively). I can understand how it might feel like the author is saying that you donāt exist (or matter enough) to them to place someone like you on their stage. It may be that they would love to write about a character like you but donāt have the knowledge/confidence/etc. to do the character the justice they need.Ā
However, in my opinion, an author is not a vending machine. No matter how successful they are, an author is not required to cater to their readership.Ā Sometimes they make an effort to do so, as in the case with J.K. Rowling supporting her readers in their headcanon of Hermione Granger as a PoC. (Another concise article on that here:Ā X).
AR has always advised us to write the story we would want to read. Publishing houses turned her work down for years until she found one that chose her story for what it was. Knopf felt her story would sell really well so they took the gamble on it. A publishing house doesnāt want to invest huge sums of money in something unless they think the odds are very good that theyāll make a worthwhile profit. I would ask that the criticism be leveled more towards publishers than the authors of stories which lack representation.
In this day and age it is easier than ever before to self-publish and get your story out there. Anna Todd did that with her One Direction fan fiction, āAfterā, and hereās a quote from AR (w/ my underlines) about it bc I feel itās relevant here: [X]Ā
In the same post, AR writes:Ā āAnd in this great world in which we live, no writer is really in direct competition with any other writer. Thereās room for us all. We can each try our personal best to write the books of our dreams and to become the writers of our dreams. And Iām really glad Fifty Shades came along. I am happy for E.L. James. And Iām happy for all the people who like āFifty Shades.ā ā
āā¦The amazing thing about the writing world is that there has always been a lot of room in it, and a lot of heartbreak. Weāre never directly in competition with some one who makes it big; there are so many avenues, so many spots on the bestseller lists of the worldā¦ā¦ Weāre really in competition with ourselves, driven to outdo ourselves. Thatās how I see it anyway.ā
So, write the story you want to see in the world! If itās compelling, others will want to read it, too.
List of more VC PoC under the cut.Ā
(Not including PL characters bc there are so many! And some ppl do not recognize PL as canon.Ā Go to wiki for those.)
David Talbot – he becomes Anglo-Indian
Davis – from the Fang Gang, not explicitly stated other than āblack,ā so African American, possibly.
Merrick Mayfair – mixed raceĀ
Tarquin Blackwood (I think he is, canāt remember specifically), and other supporting characters in Blackwood Farm.
Akasha – from Egypt
Enkil – from Egypt
Khayman – from Egypt
Avicus – from Egypt
Azim –Ā
Himalayan? Maybe? He has bronze skin. Thatās where his temple is.Ā
Benji – Arab, BedouinĀ
Eudoxia – Canāt remember specifically, but I think she is a VoC. She is described as having white skin, but that may be due to her age (centuries old already when Marius meets her).
Benji was a Vampire of Color too! I’m pretty sure that he’s Arabian, “Beduin,” but he’s definitely Middle Eastern/Western Asian.
Yes, there are other VoCs in the series! I was trying to only mention a few so as not to spoil that anon, who is new in the fandom and has not read all the books yet!
I should have double-checked re: Benjiās race before posting. Pardon the error š
But I still disapprove of his unhealthy attachment to fedoras.
To the anon: David Talbot/The Body Thief whose name I can’t remember now are described as anglo indian with caramel skin.
Yes, there are definitely more VoC (vampires of color!) in VC, I only made an example of one, so as not to spoil that anon too much, as they are just starting the series š
Decided to compile more facts here about Davidās appearance for future reference, bolded mentions of his skin.
In
Tale of the Body Thief, David describes him:
ā āMother an Anglo-Indian, which may
explain the exceptionally beautiful complexion youāre describing, and which I can see here plainly enough.
Father a London cabbie who died in jail.āĀ ā
Lestat describes him AT LENGTH in TOBT so I just picked a few relevant bits:Ā
āā¦thick, wavy brown hair.ā ā¦Ā āā¦brown eyes and smooth youthful mouth.ā
āThe thick glossy hair, the
uncommonly smooth and satin like skin. The exceptional beauty.āāHe was a little taller than I am, six feet two, I
figured, and he was extremely well built, as Iād seen before. Iād been right about the age. The body couldnāt
have been more than twenty-five years old.āāā¦ The fabric of the
turtleneck shirt showed his muscles to great advantage, and the clean white cotton made his skin seem all
the more richly colored, almost a dark golden brown.āāā¦ Indeed, late adolescence had only just completed itself in this young male form, though I hadnāt
thought about it before. It was in every sense only just finished, like a coin with the first clear impression
stamped upon it and not a single tiny scratch of true wear.ā
Hello! :) So I’m /very/ new to the VC fanbase and I was wondering, are there any vampires whom are PoC? If not, have you ever imagined what they looked like? Usually one describes vampires as having porcelain white skin, very pale, but if vampires really exist, then there has got be at least one vampire out there who is a person of color, right?
Welcome! Get ready for a Wall of Textā¢!
The short answer is: Yes, there are PoC vampires in VC (āVoC,ā right? Vampires of Color?). There arenāt many in the recurring character cast but theyāre in the series! Hereās one in
Queen of the Damned:
āDavis was a black Dead guy and one damned good-looking black Dead guy,ā¦ His skin had a gold glow to it, the Dead glow which in the case of white Dead guys made them look like they were standing in a fluorescent light all the time.ā
Have I ever imagined what they looked like? I think that was a pretty good description, because other than theĀ āgold glow,ā I would describe a PoC vampire like I would a PoC person, with the features that they have!
[^X]Ā Akasha is an Egyptian VoC, described in the novels as having porcelain white skin, and this is a point of contention in the VC fandom, that AR has whitewashed her. I donāt have a stand on this but I very much like the way that it was handled in movie!QOTD.Ā
Itās worth noting that there is a debate as to what color the Ancient Egyptiansā skin really was, and I added a bit from 2 articles under the cut which might be of interest to you.Ā
Akasha is also very old, and Ricean vampire physiology involves the lightening of the skin over time. This is another point of contention in the VC fandom, again, it appears on the surface to be AR whitewashing a PoC.Ā
I would suggest that the draining of pigmentation is due to the lack of exposure to sunlight, as we can see in examples in nature of subterranean animals who have evolved over time to be light-colored.Ā
^LOOKIT THIS CUTIE A Namib desert golden mole [X]
From Wiki:
Subterranean fauna are animals that have adapted to live undergroundā¦ troglofauna are associated with caves and spaces above the water table ā¦ Adaptations to the subterranean environment include a heightened sense of hearing, touch and smell[1]ā¦ and loss of under-used or unnecessary senses, apparent in the lack of pigmentation and eyesight of most subterranean fauna.
^So maybe AR drew a little from there. Why a lack of pigmentation? I found an interesting study/article (In the Light of Evolution: Volume IV: The Human Condition) on that, too, which points to the lack of sunlight as the cause:
Observers beginning with Hippocrates in the fifth century associated human traits and temperament with the environment and recognized that skin color was part of this package (Isaac, 2004). The association of dark skin pigmentation with intense sunshine and heat was further developed by Aristotle and his followers as part of a comprehensive āclimatic theory,ā which related human features, dispositions, and cultures to the environment.
ā¦The evolution of light pigmentation at high latitudes has long been related to the significance of production of vitamin D in the skin under conditions of reduced sunlight (Murray, 1934; Loomis, 1967).
^I would suggest that the vampiric parasite is always working on converting its host into a better vampire (and less of a mortal) cell by cell, and the process is accelerated too much by the UV rays in sunlight, which causes their skin to burn. Being unable to tolerate the discomfort, the vampire skin gradually drains of color due to lack of exposure to sunlight.Ā
The rate at which they lose pigmentation and how much pigment is lost varies by individual. Itās also possible that some vampires retain a skin color that is similar to their mortal skin color. Itās not an exact science.
There are also examples of vampire skin becoming darker after surviving exposure to sunlight.
Hope that helped!Ā Hit the jump for stuff about Egyptian skin color.
From an Observation Deck article:
ā¦ancient Egyptians didnāt really perceive themselves as either āblackā or āwhite.ā Just look at the above painting from Pharaoh Seti Iās tomb. The top right group, with the palest skin are Libyans (Berbers), the next one over to the left are Nubians, followed by āAsiaticsā (Mesopotamians). The bottom central group are Egyptians. By their own perception Egyptians were neither particularly dark nor particularly pale, and given their xenophobic attitude towards outside cultures (which was fairly common for most ancient peoples) they would probably resent being sorted into either ārace.ā
So why does this matter? Why is it important that we acknowledge the Egyptians donāt fit into our constructed dichotomy of black vs. white, of European or African? Well, for one thing many modern Egyptians find it kind of offensive. Despite their modern self-identification as Arabs, most Egyptians still feel a strong claim to the historical legacy of their ancient forebears and find it pretty annoying when American scholars (and, black or white, it is mostly Americans) try to pigeonhole the pharaohs into one racial category or another for political purposes.
From Wiki:
The race and skin color of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of the Greek Ptolomaic dynasty of Egypt, established in 323 BCE, has also caused frequent debate.[46] For example, the article Was Cleopatra Black? was published in Ebony magazine in 2012,[47] and an article about Afrocentrism from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentions the question, too.[48] Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as of Greek and Persian ancestry, based on fact that her Greek Macedonian family had intermingled with the Persian aristocracy of the time. However, her motherās identity is uncertain,[49] and that of her paternal grandmother is also not known for certain.[50]
I-want-my-IWTV 