#south asian character

[katiajewelbox]

Character design for a South Asian Lady

This character design is one I’ve been playing with. This character design may be used in one of my original stories for a character of South Asian origin. I like the ripple-shaped highlights in her hair and the pleasing symmetry of the hairstyle. The idea behind the hairstyle is that her hair is actually very long, but it is cunningly styled to resemble bobbed hair. 

Media: Sharpie and pencil shading on scratch paper

#katia hougaard #Character Design #original character #south asian character #female character #black hair #shoulder length hair #faux bob #highlighted hair #stylised #thick lines #sharpie art #south asian woman #bindi #dark skin #v neck top #middle part #anime #manga #art noveau #art noveau style #black and white art

[crunchycrystals]

this makes me want to cry

#crunchyposts #pjo #pjotv #guys i also have been obsessed with this series for years it means so much to me that the actors are also fans of the book #it doesnt mention it here but i know leah's said that she was so excited to play annabeth to be 'the girl in her brothers books' #since she got his old copies when he left for college (?) #this means absolutely everything to me rep in media means so much to me bc of how little i understood myself as a kid since i never saw #anyone like me and pjo was the first time i saw someone whse brain was kidna like mine and so many things clicked into place after that #and as a queer girl and someone who's south east asian i rarely saw anyone like me on tv and ive still never seen any demiro char on screen #but now they actually have a non white nd character and its /my/ favorite character and its gonna mean so much to younger black girls #100 #150 #200 #300 #400 #500 #1k #1.5k #2k

[ashlenasharma]

Didn’t realize I never shared this on here! Back in 2020 I tried designing what a South Asian inspired Zelda and Link would look like--it was a really fun project that I still hold dear to me.

#legend of zelda #breath of the wild #botw #illustration #character design #south asian #desi

[doodlesnoff]

Remember the five minutes in Oleander Sword where everything was fine, and then nothing devastating ever happened to these characters 🙃

#the burning kingdoms #tbk #the oleander sword #tasha suri #the jasmine throne #priya #malini #malini and priya #bhumika #illustration #character design #character illustration #my doodles #my art #art #procreate #south asian fantasy #tbk fanart

[1eatboys]

I keep seeing the odd post here and there mentioning that Ballister Blackheart is white in the Nimona comic and it hurts my heart a little each time I see somebody say that bc he’s actually not! Ballister Blackheart is canonically Asian in the comic, he is East Asian and simply has light skin.

I just find it saddening and wrong (granted I’m white myself so maybe it’s not my place to have an opinion on) to erase a character who is canonically a poc just because they have light skin :/

This is not a diss to people who didn’t know or people that were mistaken, that’s sort of the reason I’m making this post, so more people can know the truth rather than be misinformed or assume incorrectly.

(Context of the photo attached is that it is from a QnA Nate did on the Nimona comic years ago)

Edit: added alt text of everything written in the photo

#ig ppl default to the idea that a character who had an ethnicity change resulting in them being a poc means they were originally white #and not possibly a different ethnicity that is also nonwhite #but ballister has always been Asian #his ethnicity was just changed so he is East Asian in the comic and South Asian in the movie #(most likely to better resemble his va riz ahmed who is Pakistani) #ig ppl see movie ballister who has darker skin and then assume comic ballister with lighter skin is white #also possibly bc ethnic features are more obscured with the simpler comic artstyle #there were points in the book where he was paper light so I understand the assumption to some extent ig #but there’s still something so…. weird abt assuming that he’s white since some poc have lighter skin #also the more recent the art you can see nates style better develop his skin tone #nimona #nimona movie #nimona comic #nimona book #nimona graphic novel #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #nimona ballister #nd stevenson #nate stevenson #when will my boy beat the white allegations #also lmk if you think anything I’ve said is out of line lol I was debating even posting abt this bc it’s not really my conversation #also pls read the graphic novel if you haven’t already it’s so good !! ok gn

[catpriciousmarjara]

Tell me: Is He Gay or In a Sherwani?

Imposition of western norms in fandom analysis of Asian characters

With the rising popularity of Indian cinema sparked by the recent success of RRR on international platforms as well as the easy availability of multiple streaming services, in addition to the appearance of South Asian characters in prominent roles in western, particularly US media, I've begun to see some concerning 'analysis' posts online. So I thought I'd address something I found common in most of these takes.

Guys, characterizing your blorbos as queer is great and all, love it, but you're making a fundamental mistake by making their clothing choices the foundation for your queer headcanons, especially when it comes to male characters. Do not apply existing western cultural ideas regarding male clothing onto South Asian characters and their dressing please.

The vast majority of the clothes being used by people in various online spaces as 'evidence' of a character being queer(gay or bi mostly) are just normal Indian clothing for men, like daily wear. A top being pink or a character's wardrobe being mostly pastel means absolutely nothing...cos Indian clothing tends to be colourful in general and the tendency to ascribe colours masculine and feminine qualities is considerably less in the subcontinent. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but generally not a concern.

There's also this pervasive idea that colourful clothing = flamboyance = queer and that itself is something many people have already pointed as a deeply flawed way of thinking and a stereotype. Furthermore, even if you do lean into the archetype of queer men being flamboyant, subscribing to the 'stereotypes exist for a reason don't they?' school of thought perhaps, there's also the fact that ideas of what is considered flamboyant change dramatically across different cultures. What is 'flamboyant' for someone might just be normal for others. Like maybe pink or purple or yellow might be considered too much, unmanly, emasculating etc in the US or something but they're just perfectly normal colours for men to wear in many, many cultures.

It's the 'Is he Gay or European?' principle. Did you characterize this Indian character (or any South Asian character really) as queer because of their canonical behaviour and portrayal, or did you just see their clothing and decide they're queer because being well groomed and having a colourful wardrobe is a character trait you exclusively ascribe to being queer?

Like guys, I like Chaipunk like the rest of you, but if you consider Pavitr queer just because his costume is a lot fancier than the others' (An actual take I've seen multiple times) without taking into account his cultural background....¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let me make this clear, I don't think people need a ten page analysis to imagine their fave as queer. Headcanoning a character as queer can have any reason ranging from 'I said so and so it is' to 'this is my light character analysis that makes a masters thesis look shabby' and they're all valid and an integral part of the fandom experience. What I am annoyed at are these so-called 'well-researched' theories that did not make the slightest effort to look into South Asian culture and simply transposed their western bias onto Indian media and confidently make flat out wrong judgements and mislead other people. Clothing based sexual identity determinism is the least of it. That I can at least understand through the lens of a habitual process built through years of analyzing crumbs of queer representation available only through queer coded characters and symbolism such as clothing choices being the only way to see an aspect of yourself portrayed in an aggressively heteronormative media ecosystem. I do that too, because media is tragically heteronormative everywhere. But the rest? Its just straight up misinformation and misrepresentation touted as truth.

Its the same with relationships between men. There are plenty of cultures where skinship between men is not unusual and dynamics and nuances tend to be vastly different from western representations of male friendships. In xianxia and wuxia fandoms you can see this same problem in a different font when outsiders, most often the western side of the fandom, try to apply their own standards and morals onto the original work and try to interpret it through a lens it was never supposed to be interpreted through in the first place, except maybe for comparative analysis. This practice itself isn't a major problem, its natural for people to apply what is familiar to them to try and understand something new. But when this is also accompanied by them foisting their personal interpretation and analysis as the 'correct' one and trying to impose it on the fandom as a whole, it escalates into a powder keg situation as you can imagine.

Again, not saying that western parts of fandoms are the root of all evil or anything like that, gods know how toxic netizens can be. But in this specific situation, where people try to impose western ideals on to non-western content and assumes the universalism of their own principles and value systems? Indeed an issue to be addressed.

#ATSV #South Asian Characters #Desi characters #South Asian culture #Desi Culture #Fandom analysis #LGBTQ+ #Brown culture #Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse #Pavitr Prabhakhar #Hobie Brown #Chaipunk #RRR #Miss Marvel #Tagging Miss Marvel and RRR only because they're in the intro-two pieces of media that are good examples of the increased attention- #on South Asian characters and Indian cinema #Not included in the body of the post except under umbrella terms like South Asian character/South Asian media & other such categories

[archiveofrasa]

that one line about ramy's bangla being rudimentary made me absolutely sob (i'm bengali) and i wanna talk about why

there's so much to it both contextually with ramy's character as well as historically. contextually because ramy is fluent in 6 languages, an insane number of languages for one person but none of which are his mother tongue. he's described as a performer, one who knows he can't blend in so instead he stands out as a means to escape as much of the racism as he can. he gets lost in it that he almost forgets who he is; this is reflected in his language ability too – he gets so lost in his linguistic academics he just barely remembers the native language of his home place that he adores.

and honestly, you can't even really blame ramy for it at all when it was induced. it's the british who saw urdu, arabic and persian as more valuable than bangla, it's the british that make ramy put on this act so he can literally stay alive. and when you know the historical relevancies between urdu and bangla, it hurts so much that ramy was forced to forget bangla

very brief history context: after the partition, where british india was split into india, pakistan and east pakistan (now bangladesh) bangla was seen as inferior to urdu due to its hindu connections. bengalis experienced so much shit because of this (and bengali muslims are still dealing with the internalised cultural racism today honestly). pakistanis tried to make the official language urdu, even though literally everyone in east pakistan were bengali and spoke bangla, so bengalis fought back against it. we still celebrate that day today (feb 21)

so to have ramy be in this position in the 1830s where urdu was seen as superior to bangla, especially when ramy is a bengali muslim, is just extremely accurate?? and maybe it's bc we don't have much western literature where we talk about this but it's just so nice to have it acknowledged

the bangla language movement didn't happen until around the 1950s, over a century after babel's timeline, but the seeds are always there. while i do think it comes with both this islamic superiority tendency a lot of asians have (arabs i'm looking at you) and britian's imperialistic racism, i just love how it all makes sense

#babel rf kuang #ramiz rafi mirza #i'm still learning a lot abt my own culture so don't ask me for a lot of information about this lol #yk when i found out ramy was bengali it set my world off its course and i knew i had to read this book even if no bangla was discussed #i knew i was gonna get attached to him and I DID! #he just means so much to me and while he made me sob multiple times i love what kuang did with his character #also if youre pakistani lol don't try to defend yourself #you don't get to after pakistanis massacred so many bengalis during the bangladesh liberation war #babel an arcane history #babel or the necessity of violence #also i love seeing south asian characters become fandom favourites i know most babel lovers love ramy IKTRRR

[erinmcdowellart]

South Asian Rapunzel concept

#rapunzel #tangled #rapunzel tangled #disney #character design #south asian rapunzel #character redesign #concept art #art #my art #disney fanart

[purpleyin]

Shadow and Bone is such an important show for representation, making people of many types feel seen and like they too could fit in a fantasy setting. For example, nuanced South Asian and East Asian representation that's important to both the actors and the fans. Multiple disabled characters where their disability is only one part of them. Queer characters where their queerness isn't used for tragedy + a rare setting free of homophobia. That's just what I can think of off the top of my head, there's other rep too I'm sure. Also, see this article on queer representation in fantasy for a quote by one of the actors, Jack Wolfe, about how he felt to have a queer role on such a show. Of course, as with many shows including diversity, Netflix cancelled it despite the data showing it was doing well. But we don't want to accept that, we want our rep back! So if you're reading this and haven't seen the show, please please consider signing to help us out (and/or watching the show, new viewers show demand for it to Netflix). We're at nearly 187,000 signatures so far and trying to get to 200,000 signatures this month, ideally by the time the billboard our fandom fundraised for goes up on January 22nd. We want to send a message to Netflix that shows like this are wanted, that they matter to people, and that we won't simply accept cancellation after cancellation of diverse shows

#fantasy #lgbtq characters #grishaverse #poc characters #south asian representation #east asian representation #bisexual characters #gay characters #queer characters #six of crows #disabled representation #disabled characters #south asian characters #east asian characters #queer representation #signal boost #petitions #fan campaigns #third army #save shadow and bone

[eteroutsider]

meet Vivi, another character for patreon :)

#neo sarajevo #y2k #character design #patreon characters #arter #eteroutsider #used 'south-east asian' and not a particular nationality in alt text because technically there are no nationalities in NSverse #it's a dystopian setting where no one has an actual connection to their ancestry #OCs

[batmobilestires]

fun fact: Nanda Parbat is canonically in Pakistan since it’s inspired by Nanga Parbat

and bc of that fact, i loveee head canoning Damian enjoying South Asian foods

(*Damian isn’t ethnically South Asian - he’s Arab - but he did grow up in Pakistan which is good enough for me!!)

#yes im pakistani if u couldn’t tell based on this hc #perhaps there’s an orientalist reason as to why an arab character is from a south asian country since not all brown people r the same #however that discussion is for another day #so lemme enjoy the rep rn!! #damian al ghul #damian wayne #nanda parbat #nanga parbat #the league of assassins #arab damian #oriental #pakistan #south asian #arab #headcanon #robin #batman #dc

[frazzledazzlin]

severe damage to my psyche from sheer excitement + a little observation on their sprites

#i dont think i wrote the right psyche #do you have any idea how long ive had their song in loop #god they make me insanely happy im gonna die #i was losing it ok. had to draw thwir asses #british people taking over my mind #in character cuz im south asian 63;8£63!7_63!!3 #thsc #the henry stickmin collection #impostor v4 #vs impostor v4 #right hand man reborn #reginald copperbottom #rhm #scriboozles

[doodlesnoff]

sometimes siblings fight over their diametrically opposed theories of change

FINALLY finished one of my dozen drafts for The Jasmine Throne and yes it was while rewatching legend of korra on a bus

#the jasmine throne #the burning kingdoms #the oleander sword #tasha suri #priya #bhumika #ashok #ahiranya #illustration #art #procreate #character design #india #fantasy #queer fantasy #south asian fantasy #my doodles #my art #drawing #fanart #the burning kingdoms fanart #Spotify #silambam #bharatanatyam #mudras #tbk #tbk fanart

[emaswanned]

I know there's a bunch of fans who have fallen out of love with the TV adaptation of The Witcher because of it's deviation from the books/games, but I don't think I can explain how wonderful it is to see an Indian Hindu woman, a person of colour, playing a powerful, beautiful female main character that is literally loved by thousands across the globe.

I'm third-generation British Indian and grew up watching shows with main characters that never, ever looked like me. I cannot applaud the casting of Anya Chalotra as Yennefer any more than I already have.

#the witcher #yennefer of vengerberg #anya chalotra #yennefer #character: yennefer #television: the witcher #mine #poc #people of colour #indian representation #south asian representation #poc actors

[st7arlights-side]

new tma and tmagp fans i luv u so much!! welcome!!! only rules are to be as kind & accepting as possible! keep an open mind; the tma fandom is historically home to a diverse array of folks and it does well to listen and be open to learning <3 luv u all!!

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #tmagp #the magnus protocol #jon is canonically ace #jon and martin are achillian #melanie and georgie are sapphic #tim is implied to be bisexual iirc #martin is canonically big #basira is implied to be arab. south asian. or muslim #anabelle is canonically black #oliver is canonically black #adelard dekker is canonically black #this isnt even all of them #just please be willing to learn & grow in this fandom! #listen to people when they talk about characters like them #do research. ask questions. learn

[strategist-scientia]

Just got done watching Nimona and it honestly blows away a lot of animated films created by bigger studios like Disney or Dreamworks. It’s unabashedly queer, heartfelt, gripping, and deeply relatable. I can’t believe it was almost cancelled forever because if it was, we would’ve missed out on such a beautiful gem.

#nimona #netflix #i also LOVE how they changed ambrosius and ballister's looks based on their voice actors #so we have a south asian coded man and an east/southeast asian coded man as the main romance #on top of that they cast real life LGBT actors to voice some of the characters #the movie overall is a massive win for me