what’s the general consensus on black characters who were originally inhuman/extraterrestrial origin? i have a black character who originally was a kind of ‘etheral space terraformer’ being with no real form, and for plot reasons left where she was and gave herself a human form. she did not intend to become attached to her identity, though she ended up loving being a person and considers herself such. (for reference- as of now i have 3 other black characters in my story who are regular people)
i’ve seen some people talking about black peoples portrayals in media, and how a lot of times the humanity of said person is taken out for aesthetic. i was wondering if having a black character with static instead of eyes would rub the wrong way with people? it’s not important to the story and i could probably change it to something else- but i’m just not sure if it would matter or not, since i do think it looks cool.
Black Alien character with static for eyes
Concealing the eyes of Black character gives me a feeling of disconnect. Particularly if no one else has their eyes concealed. The character having static for eyes gives me the same vibes.
Now, this isn’t referring to blind or visually-impaired folks in any way, but rather a creator who makes a conscious choice to cover Black character’s eyes for aesthetic purposes, or to make them feel “cool and mysterious.”
Image above: The character Garnet from Steven Universe. Eyes are concealed by large sunglasses.
Garnet from Steven Universe is an example of this. I’m not sure if they’re candidly a Black character (another topic, but not for this post!), but this character reads as Black coded. Their eyes are almost always covered and from what I could read (spoiler?) it’s to hide a third eye.
There’s no medical reason for it that I can find, and the writers could’ve used other methods to hide it (bangs, a visor, scarf, makeup, magic?! Just saying) I might be missing context with this character but I think the example still stands.
See our tags on Black Aliens & Fantasy Race
Non-human PoC are fine in itself, particularly if you have human Characters of Color & PoC aren’t the only non-humans.
Make sure that is true for the specific races. (i.e. It won’t due to have human & alien Indian characters, but only Alien Black characters. Consider gender and orientation too.)
Those three humans you have in this story might make the static eye thing not as big a deal too, but do consider it food for thought.
Other Black readers, feel free to share your thoughts! How do you feel about a Black character (alien) with static for eyes?
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