Welcome to weirdville

I’ve been asked many times what someone should look for when trying to find a good artist. The best way you can do this is to look at their portfolio, whether it’s in a book at their shop or online. If they don’t have good work in their portfolio, they’re probably not good artists.

The shop may be clean, the people there might be nice, and the design they draw up for you might be exactly what you want, but if your artist doesn’t stand up to the points listed above, then you’re going to get a bad tattoo.

I would love to help with this! 

Colorism is everywhere within Black and Non-Black POC communities. We’re talking from courtrooms to pornos. It’s everywhere. There was a restaurant in Atlanta that was hiring lightskinned Black women only at one point (I had a screenshot of the ad but I have no idea where it is on my external hard drive.) An interesting research point is the crimes of Black women and how darker Black women are sentenced harsher than lightskinned Black women (I was once in court for a speeding ticket, going 7mph OVER the limit, they put me on drug testing probation for a year and I got slapped with a $2500 fine. This lightskinned girl had a 2nd DUI and caused a bodily injury accident, they gave her a $200 fine with no probation. Can I call colorism here? Not quite but what else could it be??) The prosecutor was flirting with her and everything. 

https://thegrio.com/2011/06/23/is-justice-colorblind-in-post-racial-america/

https://www.theroot.com/the-lighter-the-skin-the-shorter-the-prison-term-1790864659

That link discusses the colorism in the courtroom and scans the research that lightskinned women are more likely to get married.

I got dragged on here for saying this but I’ll say it again. Look at our Civil Rights movement. Fighting racism with colorism. Look at the wives of our leaders from that era. Rosa Parks RECREATED the bus movement because leaders of the movement did not want a dark skinned poor girl (She got pregnant AFTER the incident so y’all can shut the fuck up) as the face of the bus movement. Her name is Claudette Colvin. She was the first Black girl to not give up her seat. Rosa was chosen to recreate it because they felt White people would relate to her more because she was “middle” class, lightskinned and pretty. (Source: https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin) cause I don’t say anything I can’t back up. 

Black Media? Whewwwww. Black people love to bring up the “Willie Lynch” letter and how colorism is a distraction tactic by White people:

Of course, Essence has had plenty of dark skinned women on the cover but look at the majority of our representation; dark skinned men and lightskinned women. Let’s dive into film and television.

Typing this I just noticed, that in Girl’s Trip, the only woman that was darker than a paper bag was the homewrecker. What is that? Dark skinned women are portrayed as anger, bitter and jealous. Thank God for Issa Rae and Black Panther because until this VERY recent era, all we saw was (after the 70s-90s):

Looks just like Martin and Gina. 

Black film whether consciously or subconsciously has taught the Black community that lightskinned women are made to be lovers, wives, crushes and the ultimate goal. While dark skinned women are angry, masculine and unfriendly. 

How many Black shows and movies between 2007-2015 had a dark skinned Black woman as the lead?? Think about that.

Look at our music industry; Beyonce, Rihanna, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj (if you say any of these women are “brown”, you will be blocked. No questions asked.)

Last point: the general public’s perspective of dark skinned women (including other Black women, SMH):

I have a lot of post on colorism. You can check out my colorism tag (#colorism). 

I was inspired by @zamnwilson and @unclesteeb, who made a list of women in the MCU recast as women of color. So here’s my list!

Sofia Boutella as Natasha Romanoff

Lucy Lui as Pepper Potts

Stephanie Beatriz as Maria Hill

Aishwarya Rai as Carol Danvers

Janelle Monae as Sharon Carter

Angel Coulby as Peggy Carter

Diane Guerrero as Jane Foster

Tatiana Eva Marie as Wanda Maximoff (I wanted to use Alina Serban but I found this great picture that just scremed Scarlet Witch)

Gabrielle Union as Hope van Dyne

Jaime Chung as Lady Sif

Aja Naomi King as Jessica Jones

Sanam Saeed as Trish Walker

Gina Rodriguez as Karen Page

Q’Oriaka Kilcher as Bobbi Morse

Alexandra Grey as Jemma Simmons

Fan BingBing as Angie Martinelli

Genesis Rodriguez as Dottie Underwood

Michaela Coel as Darcy Lewis

Star Wars a New Hope came out the same year as the last execution in France by Guillotine. 

Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allen Poe were friends in their early 20′s. 

But then one night they wake up in the middle of the night because something is in their closet. And the door starts to creak open so Stitch tackles whoever (whatever) is in there. They fall back into the closet, the door slams shut… and when Lilo runs over and opens it there’s nothing but an empty closet.

Then Boo tells Lilo all about this weird thing that happened to her when she was a kid, and how no one ever believed her but she knows it was real. 

“Meadowalker.”

“…”

Many more women dressed as men to fight.

Long before female nurses were officially considered to be a part of the military, they were already on the battlefield. They merely didn’t get written into official reports because they were “invisible women”, “not supposed to be there”. Usually they would be local women running a makeshift care center out of their homes.

Movies involving ancient societies? Guess how many had female fighters?

Spies? Mostly female. Yeah, only the men were caught, usually (because nobody suspected the servant woman), but historians believe most cases had more women spies than men. Most cases meaning across time and continents.

Giving me a movie on samurai? Women were trained as well to avoid being captured and raped, and often fought just as hard as men. One woman notably survived multiple battles, and became a hero alongside her sisters after taking out 7 men before dying in her last fight (usually in sword fighting you’d be lucky to take out 2 enemy soldiers. 7 is fucking insane, but because she was a woman it was shoved under the records how the lord managed to survive).

Women have ALWAYS been on battlefields. Women have an intense history in driving victories and losses alike. They were supply runners, fighters, spies, assassins, prostitutes (look up how prostitutes essentially ran the western world, or even the social status of harem members. They literally fucking ruled), even underground activists.

There are fences around London made from WWII medical stretchers. During the war, Great Britain tore down fences and used the metal for the war effort, then they repurposed the stretchers back into fences after the war ended. You can tell which fences used to be stretchers, because they are black wire mesh and still have the curved handholds. Source Source 2 Source 3

Photo: Museum of St John

and she’s expecting this horrifying dark fortress but it’s actually sort of just a normal castle with big rose bushes and furniture that’s sometimes alive

and she thinks, i can work with this

and the beast comes out and he’s like don’t look at me i am a hideous monster and beauty’s like dude you’re like a talking tiger in a cape are you kidding you’re AWESOME can i pet you can i stroke your paws can you give me a ride

and he’s like what and she goes around the castle like okay we’ll put curtains here and expand the kitchen and this could be a really cute breakfast nook

and the beast is confused because isn’t she supposed to be terrified and hate him and he had all these intimidating speeches planned and he’s like uh aren’t you going to try to run away

and beauty’s all are you kidding this is a magic castle i’m going to live here forever

so they just sort of settle in together and one day beauty goes home for the weekend to visit her family and they’re all amazed that she’s alive and her sisters go WHY DIDN’T THE HUGE MONSTER EAT YOU TO DEATH and she’s like nahhh he’s basically just a big cat he’s kind of cute actually sometimes he plays with yarn when he thinks i’m not looking

and she explains how it’s really not that bad, all the dishes wash themselves and i get all these gorgeous dresses for free because the castle doesn’t know what else to do with them and yeah there are flowers everywhere but hey that’s his hobby y’know i’m not gonna discourage that man

and then one day while beauty’s re-alphabetizing her magic library and trying to decide where to put that enchanted mirror the beast comes up and he’s like hey so this is awkward but are you like………………………………..in love with me……?????????

and beauty’s like oh uh wow haha um sorry no you’re…sort of a tiger

and the beast is like thank goodness because if you were i’d have to turn back into a human and i’ve kind of gotten used to being a big lion thing with horns and the ability to speak english for some reason like why would i want to go back to being a spindly little man and then beauty laughs and she’s like okay well can you go catch us a wild boar for dinner, dear

and they end up getting married in the end just because it’s easier to explain that way, you know, a single lady ~~living alone with a man~~ even if he’s not actually a man, and that’s fine with them because beauty was never really into the whole boys and sex thing and the beast (whose name is jeff) is honestly more interested in his flowers

and whenever any of the other ladies in the village give her any shit beauty is just like, oh, you don’t like my crepes? well you know my husband, who is literally a tiger, loves them and then everyone leaves her alone, which is really all she ever wanted

and she goes back to her magic castle and sits down with a book in front of the fire and rests her feet on her cat husband and nobody bothers her ever again

oh?

Oh??

OH??

OH???