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zal-cryptid · 3 years

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🍓 and your Piet?

Piet is a svartálfr (dark elf), but he's also been called a kobold. His main responsibility is looking after Santa's workshop and the other elves, as well as overseeing the Naughty List.

He's also based on the Commedia dell'arte archetype Arlecchino, servant (sometimes to two masters). Not only is he Santa's right hand man, but he's also Krampus'.

Although Pieter is based on the controversial Dutch holiday figure Zwarte Piet, he's mostly influenced by Benard the head elf from the Christmas movie The Santa Clause.

Here's some rapid-fire facts:

Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn taught him how to shapeshift into a bird and collect information.

Prior to working for Santa and Krampus, he was the Elf King's chimney sweep. He still uses those talents when helping to deliver gifts and was even the one to teach Santa how to go down chimneys.

He's the union steward for the elves who work in Santa's Workshop as well as leader of an elite squad called the zwartepieten.

He has a crush on his boss' granddaughter, Snowy. They've been flirting with each other since the late 19th century, but Santa hasn't seem to notice yet.

He has a summer home in northern Spain (specifically in the Otherwold province of Anjaña in the Duende kingdom). He spends some time there every year before returning to the North Pole in the winter. He stops by the Netherlands every Decemeber 5th on his way back.

He has his own magic sack, similar to the one used by Santa and the Bogeyman. It's bigger on the inside and used to carry all sorts of things such as gifts, treats, lumps of coal, and even naughty children to take back to the Krampus' lair.

#ask #tales of the otherfolk #ask meme #zwarte piet #my oc stuff

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franki-lew-yo · 3 years

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The Big Nose in the room

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Be it hooked, long, snarled, or just pointy...I love em! I’m sure you guys can tell when you look at my character designs.

I love them for the same reason LOTS of cartoonists love them: they’re this supposed “imperfection” that just SCREAMS character. Once thought to be a nasty trait that made villain characters uglier, big long schnozes are now seen as an endearing feature to many a cartoon; good, bad or in between. I sorta wish the same could be said with people who have actual big, elongated noses irl, but still! THEY’RE JUST SO WHOLESEOME.

And, they almost certainly have origins in antisemitic caricatures.

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Over on my Oddities blog I WILL be addressing the future of my witch designs - which, like so many others, were def not designed out of any sort of malice - and this will extend to my other works...

For now though, just know that I am deeply conflicted about what to do or how to feel.

NOT that my anxiety is in any way comparable to the billions of Jewish people who’ve had to deal with this for as long as we’ve had printed paper. You are the real victims and I want you all to know that seeing how so many artists throw hissyfits at the mere suggestion that they’re drawings come from something problematic.

((Also, yes, not all large/hooked/beaked noses are harkening back to propaganda. Please try and reference this in support of these designs and not because you want to snuff out the light in this convo. Like, come on, I have eyes Roald Dahl!))

But for the big-nosed characters in media that are certainly the end result of these antisemitic designs, IT’S SO HARD TO UNLEARN. They’re literally EVERYWHERE. It’s one thing to say “okay, no more reptilians! I loved them once but now I know David Icke made them as a modern ‘ICan’tBelieveIt’sNotAntiSemitism’, I won’t be drawing or writing bout them” Totally fair.

It’s another thing to unlearn what literally looks appealing and/or harmless to you as an artist. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to do in the case of all of my OCs. If I were Jewish, that’d be different as I would see this as a chance to reappropriate this stuff kind of stuff away from hate. But I’m not. It’s like with the attempts to redesign Zwarte Piet way from the black-face/slave connotations of his original design. That sounds pretty cool, BUT the ones who have the real say in it are the black Europeans who are victimized by these kinds of characters, not me: the white people who perpetuated it in the first place.

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Jewish-insight much appreciated, ESPECIALLY for reblogs!

Whatever I do, I want actual people to influence my decision. I’m usually bound by what my anxiety tells me and I’m always scared about my work upsetting people (I mean, when it’s NOT SUPPOSED to be upsetting, that is. Ftr, this is why I know I wouldn’t be writing “The Adventures of Spring Heeled Jack and Daughter” myself as it’s supposed to be about a deeply toxic person in a deeply backword time in history - it deserves a more mature and antiquated mindset than the one I’m trying to appeal to now.)

- Franki

#tw: antisemitism #jewish tumblr #jewish insight #please reblog #your fav is problematic

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