While I do tend to gravitate towards drawing tolkien characters as POC, I didn't always (I grew up *very* influenced by PJ films), but when I read the Silmarillion for the first time as a mid-twenties-year-old, some time ago now, it was after a hiatus of not being very immersed in Tolkien's work. I grew up absolutely obsessed, but for various reasons I lost touch with it as I grew up. When i first got to the part where Thingol was introduced, I had a very strong image in my mind of a very tall, dark skinned elf with white dreadlocks. I latched onto that image of him from then on, and then I found out that he was an ancestor of Elrond and Arwen, and i just rolled with it X) Thingol was first time I started imagining Tolkien characters as non-white. And then I started naturally and without forcing myself to, finding myself imagining a lot of characters from Tolkien's work as POC. As a white person, I have found myself embracing this new view of Tolkien's work as a way to unlearn how I visualize characters, especially from sci-fi, fantasy, and fictional stories. Looking back at this evolution i went through over the last few years, I have to say I don't regret any of it, even if it meant having to uncomfortably evaluate myself and my habit as a child and teen for having very Eurocentric headcanons, especially for how characters look. Interestingly as well, I found that around the time I started accepting that, hey, maybe not all my favorite characters have to look like me, I started being more open to reading more diverse stories, and listening to more diverse points of view, and being more invested in unlearning the prejudice and racism that I had, intentionally or no, been projecting into the world in my personal life. I actually think starting to headcanon tolkien characters as poc gave me a safe space in my mind to start challenging the harmful beliefs and racists habits that I grew up with, which probably sounds strange, to say fanart made me less racist, but I do think I'm a better person overall now, not necessarily because I draw characters as non-white, but because of the personal outcome i had of not always requiring or desiring characters and stories to be only from a pov i can personally relate to. It kind of opened my eyes and my world. I have a long ways to go still of course, I'm nowhere near where i should or want to be in these areas, and probably never will be, but still. change is good.
Anyway, I'm not really sure why I'm saying all this, except that I think about this ongoing evolution I've had over the years, and that it all kind of started with Thingol, and me embracing the fact that maybe, just maybe, elves could be black
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