#this might be the only extent of how suggestive I'll draw them as | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

txttletale · 1 year

Note

this isnt a defence of dnd but I was hoping to ask for clarification on a couple points you made that I dont fully understand and I'm clearly missing something. Namely that you mentioned racial connotations to the barbarian class and colonial connotations to the ranger class. Like I understand the term barbarian has imperial and xenophobic overtones to it but I can't tell where there are specific native stereotypes in it as it appears in dnd

yeah, i mean, a lot of the forms of racism that are at play here are deeply embedded into cultural norms and popular tropes, so if they're not stereotypes that affect you it can be easy to miss them. i'll be going solely by the DNDBeyond official class description: i've highlighted relevant sections

so, first of all, notice the very telling use of the word 'savage'. this is an extremely racialised term that is used against indigenous people to this day. yes, it's used here as an adjective rather than a noun, but in context it's telling, especially alongside 'tribe'--another very racialised word: europeans have 'ethnic groups' or 'nations', indigenous peoples have 'tribes'. 'savage tribe' is how indigenous people have been described for a long time, especially during the height of colonialism. some easy examples i found with a minute's googling:

note also the 'elk herd'. this class description is going to keep hammering home that barbarians are from nomadic backgrounds. a very common defense of the barbarian class is that it's based on norse berserkers--which is true to an extent, especially wrt 'rage', their headline class ability--but while the norse conducted raids and invasions, they lived in settlements. vast swathes of the conceptual makeup of the fantasy barbarian is derived from the colonialist imaginary of the nomadic, 'warlike', 'savage'.

moving on, we're hit with a barrage of direct comparisons to animals. now, i'm obviously not saying that it's racist to ever compare a character to an animal--but the barbarian class very explicitly represents a group of people with a certain lifestyle, and in the real world, comparing groups of people to animals has been a longstanding method of dehumanization that's been applied especially brutally to indigenous and Black victims of colonialism. and while 'animal spirits' is a fun vulfpeck song, here it's clearly invoked as a caricature of 'primitive' spirituality. why are the spirits 'fierce?' why must they be 'animal spirits?' why do other classes in DND invoke gods and demons, but the barbarian invokes 'spirits?'.

now it gets even more blatant. the barbarian is 'primal' -- they have an 'animal nature' -- they're explicitly contrasted to 'civilization' and associated with 'nature' -- this is a textbook example the 'noble savage' stereotype and it's as old as colonialism. and of course, the barbarian comes from 'tundra, jungle, or grasslands'.

so, here we have a very explicit confirmation of what i was talking here earlier re: barbarians very clearly intended to be nomadic peoples. they live in the 'wild places of the world' -- another colonialist trope rears its head here, the idea of an 'untamed wilderness' that can only be mastered by colonial domination, where the people are also 'wild'.

a 'frontier', huh? the idea of the 'rough frontier' is pure unadulterated colonial fantasy, straight outta manifest destiny. the 'frontier' is the area along which settler-colonialism takes place, where the civilized 'us' meets the savage 'them' in the context of the colonial national myth. and of course, the suggestion that your barbarian character might be a 'prisoner of war, brought in chains to ''civilized'' lands' is pretty clearly founded in the very racialised institution of slavery! (interesting to deploy the scare quotes around 'civilized' now when you were just drawing a fully unironic primal/civilized distiction a paragraph ago, wizards of the coast)

these same ideas about the ‘frontier’, about ‘wild lands’ and ‘the edges of civilization’ (and ‘civilization’ as a geographic notion with ‘borderlands’ that need to be ‘protected’) can incidentally also be seen here in the ranger’s flavour text. again, the idea that ‘civilization’ has a defined endpoint, beyond which there’s only ‘wilderness’ and ‘barbarians’ and ‘savage tribes’ has its origins in the roman empire, grandfather of modern imperialism, and the idea’s hold on the contemporary fantasy genre consciousness has its roots in manifest destiny and the american western frontier, where it serves the ideological purpose of obscuring the bloody and brutal wars of conquest that were waged nonstop against the many people who lived on the ‘uncivilized’ side of that imaginary dividing line in order to push the ‘frontier’ forward.

now, this part isn't on dnd beyond so i’m using a shitty little rulebook scan i found online bc i cba to properly pirate 5e again for this post, but by far the most played barbarian subclass is the path of the totem warrior. with the terms ‘spirit animal’ and ‘totem’, dnd 5e very specifically appropriates the real-world religous beliefs of native peoples. the term’s been beaten into the fucking ground over the last few years but this is some of the most cut-and-dry cultural appropriation i can imagine. and what does the path of the totem do? it gives the barbarian the abilities of animals, of course. Wolf Totems and Bear Totems and Eagle Totems, oh my! right back to the noble savage, the ‘wild man’, the dehumanizing animal comparisons we were talking about earlier.

now some of this, in a different context, could be innocuous and inoffensive. it’s not in a different context, though, it’s in this context--and in this context, it’s pretty clear that the ‘barbarian’ class has both feet planted firmly in the colonialist anti-indigenous imaginary. if you want a little more reading on this, this is a great article on the topic--but tldr: the colonial myth of the ‘wild frontier’ is load-bearing to the concepts of the barbarian and the ranger, and the barbarian in particular has anti-indigenous racist tropes marinating its flavor text.

#ask #dnd #ttrpg #long post #orc discourse

233 notes · View notes

seyaryminamoto · 1 year

Text

Fic-to-Art #26: Azula introduces Sokka to their child

My final artwork of the year... and I think it might be the best one to close things off. It's a scene I haven't written yet, but one that I hope will feel as glorious and bright as possible, once I do.

Small moments can sometimes be the most rewarding ones, whether in life or in stories. After all the hardships these two have faced and will still face... I can only hope that it will be a relief to know that bright moments such as this one await them in the future.

Do I know how to draw children? Honestly, no. References are not enough, I need a lot of help in figuring them out x'D still a work in progress on that front. But for now, I'm happy to show our little girl being dazed and curious about finally getting to know her dad. Sokka's expression probably required even MORE emotion, but this was the full extent of my abilities at the moment x'D As for Azula, as I mentioned in the Patreon post, I actually had to overhaul her entire position and situation in this artwork because it just didn't feel right. Things felt so rigid that it really wouldn't have appeared to be a sort-of screenshot glance into their lives, which is what the prompt would require :'D So I switched things around with her... and I'm honestly so relieved that the outcome was pretty good, basically just what I hoped it would look like.

As for questions like... why is Azula wearing an outfit unlike anything I've made her wear for all these years? Why's her hair down like that? Why is Sokka wounded? Where ARE they...?

... Weeeell, I shall leave you to ponder all those things while I go cry through the writing of the second half of Part 3 (?) I'm powering through, trying to make my way to this moment. Hopefully I'll be there next year! Who knows? Might be possible!

I really hope you guys like it, I'm honestly pretty proud of this one... so happy holidays, everyone, and I hope I'll be able to bring much more art next year, too :D

If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge on Patreon will give you access to prompt suggestion, poll voting and Gladiator snippets, 6 days before the next chapter is released!

#sokkla #sokka #azula #hotaru #gladiator #and here goes!#this little family destroys my weak heart #they deserve every bit of happiness TT_TT #and I know it's rich for me to say that considering what I'm putting them through...#but I hope that when all is said and done #our outcome feels rewarding #*wipes tear*#yeah I'm definitely glad to finish 2022 with this one #couldn't have hoped for a cuter prompt <3

90 notes · View notes