IM AN ADULT. SOMETIMES I POST ADULT THINGS. EVEN THO I DRAW CARTOONS. SORRY. 🔞 Commissions: OPEN Requests: OPEN ________________________________________ SvSS content consumer... big fan of hamsterman. DMCK, Life Series + Hermitcraft, BNHA, Bird posting ________________________________________ [Icon: @valpurgatory , inspired by my previous icon, the aro planet by @voiddvst] [Banner: Me, feat. altered gif by @michaels-two-dads] ________________________________________ Oakskull[he/him] mostly watercolor and digital artist; markers, colored pencils, charcoal, chalk pastels, sculpture, acrylic occassionally 👍 ________________________________________ My Art -> oakskull art
this post is inspired in part by this one by @cheshirepirouette and sponsored in part by convos w @asteriis and @indouscurse here’s to y’all!! this post also goes out to my brothers, who are pale as hell for reasons unbeknownst to all of us (this is a joke).
like any good headcanon, this started as a joke because i thought to myself: Ryland sounds like the type of name that somebody’s Black child would have and only use on church sundays. nobody actually has ever called him that in his whole entire life, except maybe his mama SOMETIMES and that’s why he doesn’t remember it right away. i feel like every Black person knows somebody who is called literally anything except their god given name. people call him lil r, lil grace, gracie, ry, ryry, riri, RG, lando, mr. grace, dr. grace, but nobody calls him Ryland, which is part of why he Can’t Remember for so long.
so of course i went back to the source material to see if he ever actually mentioned being white anywhere and unfortunately it is very much at the beginning of the book. so THEN i started to think about how i could get around that while remaining at least largely canon compliant (as a little treat for myself). what i came up with is what i have affectionately dubbed my “litebrite baby” headcanon.
grace was not particularly dark skinned to begin with, and then spent years in a coma with literally no sunlight. he is downright vampiric by the time that he wakes up, and upon seeing his white ass skin, assumes that he is in his own words, a Caucasian male.
unfortunately for him, this fits in really well with his theme of lack of identity and lack of connection. i think for most Black people it would be extremely hard to forget that we’re Black regardless of how light or dark our skin tone is. but throughout the book, even when Grace is thinking about his old, slowly resurfacing memories, he never thinks about family, he never thinks about friends. except for his students and Project Hail Mary, he is completely unmoored.
i’ve seen a few different headcanons for why this might be: he was an only child whose single parent died young, he was cut off by his parents for some reason or another, he just isn’t ever triggered to remember. but no matter the reason, grace is disconnected from crucial aspects of himself. i think that by making him Black, and his Blackness something he can’t remember, it add an extra heartbreaking layer to his characterization. Blackness is such a communal experience, and when it’s not, it leaves behind an ache. growing up Black in White Suburbia i know well both the experience of clinging to one’s own in a hostile world AND the hurt that comes with being severed from one’s community. grace loses so much of himself with the amnesia, unable to recall who he is at the deepest of levels, and i think if he could remember to grieve it, it would devastate him.
i do think he would remember eventually, either when his hair starts growing out (because in the book Armando shaves him iirc), or when he can finally catch a glimpse of his reflection clearly, or when he has a memory of someone in his family. my personal belief is he has a memory beamed directly into his brain of asking “Mama, am I white?” and his poor, long-suffering mom saying, “Now who the hell told you that?”
and then it still never becomes relevant because he has negative desire to explain the nuances of human racial categories to an alien who quite literally cannot see color.
i tried so hard to come up with a clever or interesting nightwing name for simon but it feels so goofy when his actual name is just. a real name. idk, a two word one with butcher? abysswalker? like something about the navigation aspect? listener goes hard since its the actual meaning of simon, but like i said in the notes, already a canon dragon. butcher is technically valid but i feel like the 1 word names are always positive or at least nonviolent... if anyone has thoughts i want them
also, couldnt fit it in my notes but. huge fan of the irony of simon being the tribe that has star patterns under their wings LMAO… i chose nightwing because of the limited resources and hell world, but thats so perfect
everything about grace being a rainwing was easy and perfect. no notes
i hate what wof did with scavengers in arc 3 HOWEVER… rocky is 100% a scavenger in this au. also hilariously ironic
bonus jerma rainwing from 2 years ago (WTF almost EXACTLY 2 years ago) because WOW how did i get that to look so much like him. i tried doing that with simon and grace but it was wayyyy harder this time??? maybe i’ve just looked at jerma longer. or i picked bad refs lol i really did just grab the first ones i could find this time
Honestly being a secret SchlattBur shipper feels like being in the closet, if I were to out myself i'd experience as much oppression and hatred as the LGBTQIA+ Community (Or even more).
dededos
prguitarman
romaincrisis
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
stormborns
dailybridgerton
theartofmadeline
