Phire Board

While I do tend to gravitate towards drawing tolkien characters as POC, I didn't always (I grew up *very* influenced by PJ films), but when I read the Silmarillion for the first time as a mid-twenties-year-old, some time ago now, it was after a hiatus of not being very immersed in Tolkien's work. I grew up absolutely obsessed, but for various reasons I lost touch with it as I grew up. When i first got to the part where Thingol was introduced, I had a very strong image in my mind of a very tall, dark skinned elf with white dreadlocks. I latched onto that image of him from then on, and then I found out that he was an ancestor of Elrond and Arwen, and i just rolled with it X) Thingol was first time I started imagining Tolkien characters as non-white. And then I started naturally and without forcing myself to, finding myself imagining a lot of characters from Tolkien's work as POC. As a white person, I have found myself embracing this new view of Tolkien's work as a way to unlearn how I visualize characters, especially from sci-fi, fantasy, and fictional stories. Looking back at this evolution i went through over the last few years, I have to say I don't regret any of it, even if it meant having to uncomfortably evaluate myself and my habit as a child and teen for having very Eurocentric headcanons, especially for how characters look. Interestingly as well, I found that around the time I started accepting that, hey, maybe not all my favorite characters have to look like me, I started being more open to reading more diverse stories, and listening to more diverse points of view, and being more invested in unlearning the prejudice and racism that I had, intentionally or no, been projecting into the world in my personal life. I actually think starting to headcanon tolkien characters as poc gave me a safe space in my mind to start challenging the harmful beliefs and racists habits that I grew up with, which probably sounds strange, to say fanart made me less racist, but I do think I'm a better person overall now, not necessarily because I draw characters as non-white, but because of the personal outcome i had of not always requiring or desiring characters and stories to be only from a pov i can personally relate to. It kind of opened my eyes and my world. I have a long ways to go still of course, I'm nowhere near where i should or want to be in these areas, and probably never will be, but still. change is good.