🇨🇺🇵🇷|19||SUP FUTTBUCKERS names Sharko and welcome to this halloweeny piss bucket of a blog I have|| LesboDyke||Cartoonist||Multifandom|| Fan of all things creepy and kooky! Mysterious and spooky!!Gross and Grotesque and all the rest||| Wannabe VA | |https://linktr.ee/spookysharko || WATCH YOUR STEP HERE I do post suggestive stuff sometimes
"It's okay for Black characters to have flaws just like everyone else. They don't have to be perfect!"
Hmmm 🤔💭 Are you sure about that? Now, I agree with this sentiment when it's said by other Black people in fandoms. But when white fans start parroting this... I find it rather eyeroll inducing. Sorry, but I can't help but question if they actually believe what they're saying. Btw, I say white people in fandom because they're the main cause of the issue I want to talk about, but that doesn’t mean non-black fans of any ethnicity cannot contribute to it.
So here's my question for white & non-black fans: Is that really what y'all want? Because whenever there is a flawed Black character in a movie, tv show, video game, whatever, y'all crucify them to the highest heaven. God forbid a Black character slips up from time to time, isn't always nice, or has a disagreement with the non-black main character, then suddenly there's a flood of video essays titled Why [Blank] Is The Worst Fucking Character Since The Dawn Of Television. Black characters can't even be a little sarcastic or snippy without people feeling some type of way about it. You can also expect fandoms to respond with even more hostility if the Black character is a woman.
So, again - Are y'all sure? Are y'all sure you want Black characters who are flawed, complex, & three-dimensional? Because we can't even get past "Stage One: Black Character Makes Mistakes", without fandoms erupting into a shitstorm. This means we're in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. A Black character is perfect? Non-black fans will hate them because they're a "flawless token". A Black character has flaws? They're still hated because fandom culture is notoriously racist and anti-black.
Oh, I just know you white fandomites would HATE the story I'm writing (tbh most of y'all would hate it from the jump because all of the characters are Black lol).
All right y'all... The day has finally come... Where I must ask for help, myself 😭🙏🏾
This is NOT mandatory, and of course there are causes that need much more help. So don't feel pressured! But if you happen to have a little to spare, I am getting tooth surgery this Friday and they charged me 2k upfront 😭 and then when I asked if it could be split, they told me I ran the risk of my jaw shifting if so 😭 but I have been in pain with these back molars for months and I've been stalling to pay for other things, so... I gotta just take the L but. Anything helps 🙏🏾 Much appreciated if you do 🙏🏾
It's the way it was a simple, objective statement. White allyship 101. "White trans ppl can be oppressors too." Yes. Because Whiteness brings systemic power over their peers of color, even if you are in some way marginalized yourself. Queerness does not cancel out racism. We've talked about this. We've talked about white privilege and what it does and doesn't mean. These were conversations everyone swore they were having in 2016. 😐 And now a blow up of fragility on par with the conservatives we're supposedly up against together. What even.
Neko said that among the circus performers there are none who have lost limbs, but some have very deep scars. So what if the reason TT dislikes the sea isn't because he's not adapted to salt water, but on the contrary — he used to live in the sea or ocean before?
The point is that scars aren't only physical, but also mental and existential — like the loss of one's true nature. As if Ticket Taker doesn't actually dislike the sea, he simply cannot return to it.
Take a look at his answer regarding the mask's special feature:
(AMA2 21 2/2)
A mask that covers the ears is comfortable for him, but other troupe members don't need that, so their masks are different, right?
So perhaps Ticket Taker could have been an aquatic being with gills or other respiratory organs that allowed him to live underwater. Because of humans or an accident, he lost that ability: perhaps his gills atrophied due to prolonged time on land or were damaged. Then his refusal of the sea isn't just squeamishness or aversion, but rather pain and nostalgia. He cannot look at what was once his home but has become forever inaccessible.
Let's examine Ticket Taker more closely: his human form and his look in the circus costume.
Suppose his mask that covers the entire head doesn't actually conceal his ears, but protects them. Then the ears are a vestige left from the aquatic phase (like those of seals or cetaceans), and they are sensitive to air/noise. As for the nose — in his human form, it persistently can't be seen. Whether in the café or in the mirror reflection. Yes, this could be a quirk of the art style or something similar, but for now let's consider it a key clue.
The nose is an organ for breathing air. If Ticket Taker was an aquatic being, his primary respiratory organs were gills or another suitable organ. When he lost his gills, he had to "learn" to breathe air, but a fully-formed nose never developed or was lost. And then we arrive at the idea that his human appearance is so strange precisely because it's an illusion that cannot recreate something he never fully had.
It's also interesting that Pierrot compared Ticket Taker to a maned wolf. He said it's connected to TT being loyal and a protector, but... If you've read my theory about the circus performers' homelands (link), you'll understand my excitement right now.
The northeastern region of Brazil (Pernambuco, Bahia), which I identified as a potential area where TT grew up — is simultaneously the habitat of the maned wolf and the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
(photos from wikipedia)
The maned wolf is a paradoxical animal. It looks like a fox, but is not a fox; it's a wolf, but hunts alone; it lives on land, but its long legs allow it to move through swampy terrain — on the boundary between water and earth.
This story reminds me of another curious analogy from biology lessons. The evolution of whales is a journey onto land and back into the water. If you study a whale's skeleton, you can find bones confirming that they once had legs. But for some reason, these mammals chose to return to the water, and over time almost completely lost their land limbs.
In that case, Ticket Taker looks like the opposite of that path. He didn't return to the water — he was forced to remain on land. His gills perhaps had to atrophy, and in place of his aquatic past, only vestiges remain: ears that need to be protected, and an absent nose that his illusion cannot recreate.
He is stuck between two elements, like that very maned wolf that wanders through swamps where the earth meets the water. And if for the wolf this is a natural habitat, for Ticket Taker it is a place of forced existence. He truly belongs neither to the sea nor to the land.
His two-tone mask and other dualistic details in his design often hint at a lack of wholeness and a singular essence. So perhaps certain details of his behavior and who he is now are an attempt to hide one single fact. He is a being who lost his home and is forced to pretend to be what he is not.
He is considered the weakest of the monsters, and if before we thought it was because of how close his species is to humans, now it may turn out that it's more a matter of an old trauma than actual physical weakness.
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