Fandom Talk - Blog Posts

One of my friends on Discord shared this and I think it's important, esp since there r a lot of fanfic writers not just in the tadc fandom but on this website/app in general. Spread the word y'all!

Quick tonks sketch 💜

I have so many feelings about her character, but in general I think she's underrated in the fandom.

Plus, she has one of my favorite designs in the whole hp franchise, so I felt like adding a quick contribution for now

PS: Does anyone remember the scene where they were going to the San Mungo hospital and and she was wearing a little hat with her muggle outfit? I vividly remember the scene, but i can't find it anywhere

Edit: i changed the picture to one with better colors

In a visual medium especially, a large part of a character is how they look. Like, looks can be deceiving and aren’t everything about a character, obviously, but ALSO: by making a character look a certain way (especially in the character’s daily life) the creator is (whether they know it or not) saying that that character is (usually) choosing to look a certain way. 

Clothes, accessories, make-up, and hair can suggest any number of things about a person’s character. It can be a very useful tool in any story. Personal presentation can suggest things about a character’s gender, profession, religion, sexuality, personal wealth, native culture, and personality (and more). 

Which is, I think, why a lot of female characters are sort of… I don’t want to say “broken”… but their execution has ruined their concept? (This isn’t exclusive to female characters, male characters can also suffer from unsupported unrealistic appearances, but female characters definitely suffer more.) 

You have these female characters who are supposed to be relatable, realistic women, right? But you look at their perfectly curled-and-styled, super long hair and you see hours of hair-care. And you look at their perfectly made-up faces and you see at least a dozen different make-up products and at least a half-hour in the bathroom every morning. And you look at their figures and you see a strict diet and hours in the gym every week, and you see shaving or waxing, and you see well-maintained mani-pedis. And you look at their outfits and you see designer names and special tailoring, and an enormous closet somewhere in their apartment to store all this, and someone who has the time and energy for perfectly done, sorted, and ironed laundry (and is obviously not doing anything remotely physical or dangerous in those heels). 

Which would be fine if that was an intentional visual statement about the character! There are women who put that sort of time/energy/money into their appearance! There are magical and non-human characters (male and female and neither) who can just snap their fingers to look perfect, and I buy it no problem! I get that! 

But this gets done even with female characters who are supposed to be absent-minded workaholics, poor working single mothers, nerdy shut-ins, take-no-shit tomboys, post-apocalyptic survivors, and even faux-medieval warriors who shouldn’t have the time or resources for that level of personal grooming! And even with aliens and non-humans who shouldn’t know to decide to care! 

So you have these “everyday” women with busy lives, but who somehow manage to keep an unrealistic level of personal grooming in absurd situations, and they… become visually unreal. Especially when (even if they are canonically said to care about maintaining a certain appearance) they’re often never shown putting in ANY of the time or effort it would take to manage their appearance (show me their skincare routine, show me them at the gym, show me them doing laundry)! They look like they stepped out of a magazine (often so “perfect” that they’re frankly bland, actually), but it’s not factored into their personality or background or their lives? 

“I don’t wear make-up,” says the female character who is played by an actress very obviously done-up with eyeliner. “I don’t wear make-up,” says the female character who is drawn as though she is permanently wearing lipstick. There are no bad hair days and no laundry days and no moments of imperfection. What the character might be saying is immediately invalidated by the visuals. 

These female characters don’t feel like women so much as they feel like impossible creatures the creator has pretending to be pretty women. They feel fake. They feel like their purpose by the creator is to pander to pervs and unrealistic beauty standards. Especially when they’re sent into combat situations with skintight/revealing outfits with no support and loose hair that’s a blatant liability (and the creators even make them bleed prettily sometimes which is related but different conversation). It’s a stark announcement (intentional or not, knowingly done or not) of the creator’s ignorance and apathy towards women and the choices involved in female self-presentation.

And it makes it… difficult… for me personally to relate to certain female characters sometimes, even when I care about these female characters and WANT to care about these female characters. Their character design is, by their visual appearance and lack of narrative support for that appearance, broken. They’re not grounded in any reality. The suspension of disbelief required can be… a lot.