brightest bulb in the shed was taken

Newbie girlies who cheered

probably art upload for a bit because I don't feel like it and also I have some other things I want to work on so. Like. Isn't this really cute this is reall cute

I think I've been writing this for like . Half an hour. So if it's incoherent. sorry 😔

Okay so for starters I am black and nonbinary which means I have more knowledge on painty than on lightbulb (rare occurrence). With lightbulb I'm going off of the stereotypes I've seen trans women experience. If I'm wrong. Uh. SORRY.

Okay so for paintbrush one thing I see over and over and over and OVER again is them being the one who's always in the masculine position. They are constantly depicted as the "boy" in relationship dynamics (not just lightbrush fanbrush also), always seen as more masculine, always the one who's protecting another character or getting angry on another character's behalf.

TO BE FAIR! this is a canonical character trait of theirs. They have a tendency to lose their temper and they tend to be the first line of defense when it comes to dangerous situations. They're literally on the safety squad yk.

The issue arises though once you realize that the fandom reduces them To Only Being a Protector Or Meat Shield Or Angry. It's a very common stereotype that gets forced on black people that they're violent and dangerous and effortlessly strong. Built to protect, basically, while openly ignoring their other visible character traits such as being smart, creative, whimsical (especially in s3) anxious (also in season 3) and also able to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS AND BE FUCKING RATIONAL!!!!!! WHY DOES NO ONE DISCUSS THAT. THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO TIMES WHERE THEY LOST THEIR TEMPER AND CALMED THEMSELVES DOWN BECUASE THEY KNEW THEY WERE OVERREACTING AND NEEDED TO KEEP A COOL HEAD. AND YET. AND FUCKING YET!!!

That's like a actual racist stereotype. Having a character be either overly sassy (sassy black friend stereotype) or overly aggressive is an actual stereotype that I, AS A BLACK PERSON, have experienced!! It's so clear that it's amplified by racism because literally no other character with a bad temper gets depicted this way (yes their crashouts are a defining character trait, one they are ACTIVELY TRYING TO IMPROVE ON. ONE THE NARRATIVE PRETTY EXPLICITLY STATES DOES NOT DEFINE THEM AS A PERSON. AND YET!!!!), and painty is (one of) the ONLY characters so widely headcanoned to be black to the point where the fandom looks down upon white headcanons for them. This is not a coincidence. This happens to a LOT of angry and aggressive non human fictional characters. Think knuckles. Monty Alligator. Roxy the wolf. Purple Yam Cookie. At least two of these characters are explicitly black coded and THAT IS NOT A COINCIDENCE.

Now lightbulb. Oh my FUCKING GOD LIGHTBULB. lightbulb is in a really weird area because she is either defined by two main character traits in lightbrush media which is: "the paler and therefore more feminine one" or "basically a gu- I mean, a TRANS girl." I hate both of these for so many reasons

For the first one lightbulb tends to be depicted as extremely delicate and kind and overly innocent and for lack of a better word submissive? Think every female isekai protag. Pretty clearly feeding into the widespread fandom idea that she is stupid and childish and irresponsible as well being treated like a child and painty as her caretaker (<- caretaker being another stereotype placed upon black people) She's usually the only one who can calm down painty when they're mad or painty is over possessive of her and it is sooo frustrating because it is so clearly never in good faith of anyone's characters and in fact actively flanderizes BOTH of them for the sake of feeding into soooo many icky stereotypes about black people needing to be civilized by white people or paler characters always being more delicate or more approachable/palatable, and yk just a fuck ton of colorism..makes me very very angry

The second one is the flavor of lightbulb (most commonly seen in fanfiction) that gets defined by the fact that she is trans, and as a result is treated like SHE'S the "boy" in the relationship because she has "boy" parts. She's overly flirty very like. Pursuing. Yes. Always the one that initiates. Always having her body be described in unnecessary detail (<- real thing I keep seeing in fanfic) and, though I won't get superrr explicit about this she's also usually the initiator when it comes to more suggestive content. This is of course not a coincidence. Transphobia and the fetishization of trans people specifically trans women is pervasive literally everywhere. Trans women are near constantly reduced to their bodies and their AGAB and stereotyped as a result, something lightbulb is unfortunately victim to as well.

Both of them are minorities who are over masculinized in different ways and it is sooooo frustrating. It's not that hard to not stereotype them or at the very fucking least GIVE THEM REASONS? TO DO A CERTAIN THING. like say they Know they're defined by a stereotype and feed into it because that's what expected and having them HEAL from that stereotype. Painty being overprotective because that's what's expected of them learning that they don't always need to be the guard and that they deserve protection too. Lightbulb being flirty or forward (NOT IN A HARASSMENT WAY!!! GOD!!!) because she's always been expected to be the one to initiate affection learning that she doesn't always have to initiate and that she shouldn't be expected to!!!!! There are so many ways to write them that could incorporate the fact that they are CANONICALLY CODED TO ACT A CERTAIN WAY AND HAVE THEM BREAK THAT CODE OR THAT PATTERN AND SO MANY PEOPLE JUST!!!! DON'T DO IT!!!!!!

hello. yeah this may explain why so much fanon lightbrush makes me uncomfy

yeah you're very right with the paintbrush's anger being all they're reduced down to and ngl i only recently realised that racism could be why thats just so common. theyre portrayed in gijinkas to be dark and more often than not, darker than the other characters present in the line up. this obviously isn't an issue by itself, dark-skinned pb is beautiful, its just that theres a pattern of them being the most dark skinned ii gijinka many people have and then them also being drawn as grumpy and serious and aggressive and unable to have fun in those same fanarts... i'm sure people aren't doing any of this out of mal intent (and that goes for other things too!) but its a concerning pattern...

and lightbulb being their much more light in comparison (lighter skin, lighter clothes) manic-pixie-dream-girl whose notably more fem than them and acts totally ooc (overly sweet and naive and childlike almost) that they dote on and act all tsundere-like with her . shes the sunshine to their grumpy. why is fanon paintbrush always grumpy??

aaaaand lest we forget the thing that i noticed first. i was always afraid to say it but lightbulb is alwayssssss the one initiating romantic And Such encounters with whoever shes shipped with, oftentimes to the point is comes off as creepy and ignorant of boundaries + the other character (usually paintbrush) looks/acts DISGUSTED??? HELLO,,, i don't really read fanfic but i have seen this in fanart and shes always really pushy as well as a constant weird emphasis on The Fact Shes A Trans Woman Did You Remember This Gijinka Is A Trans Woman . (celebrating trans women through your humanised characters isn't the issue here buuuuuut uhh ykwim)