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sapphicdalliances:

ok immm sorry but im gonna have a taz discourse moment. bear w/ me.

ive been trying to like keep a lid on it but like i havent seen anyone point out that the mcelroys aren’t the right people to tell a story starring a POC where their racial identity becomes an important part of their character. like straight up im gonna say it? taako shouldn’t be brown – not in the sense that it’s wrong to draw taako brown, but that the mcelroys don’t have the right to make that artistic decision or canonically make him latino. taako’s the player character of a white dude and was developed with no racial identity in mind at all. making him brown at this point would be thoughtless lip service, not meaningful representation – and making him latino in particular would actually be horrifically racist. stop demanding tokenism from the mcelroys and acting like that’s something all POC fans want, it’s honestly embarrassing to see by now.

the nature of TAZ is that the creative team is and always will be four white guys. they’re a nerdy family doing a nerd activity and recording it as a free internet radio show. their team cannot be expanded to include more diverse creators; that’s just not how this story is set up, and that’s okay. there is more than one story in the world – that’s the point of diversity. progressive storytelling happens when many people tell their own stories, not when one person tells the stories of many people. that second one is shallow at best and downright appropriative at worst. stop demanding the mcelroys do that second one, and go support some more diverse creators.

this isn’t a pessimistic “how can you expect better from white dudes they’ll always fail us” spiel, but “you should not ask white dude creators to tick every representation box because even if they succeed it will be an inauthentic and meaningless achievement”. and that doesn’t mean white men should only make stories about white men, and i’m very glad that griffin has put in an effort to make a diverse cast of NPCs, but this demand to change one of the leads into a specific ethnicity and cultural background won’t work because it has not been considered from the start and it’s not something that justin is ready, willing, or able to do.

there’s been a lot of back-and-forth about how Criticism Is Good and you have to help the mcelroys Do Better but tbh? there is nothing wrong with the taz graphic novel designs. there’s literally nothing wrong with them because the point is that they are one single individual interpretation drawn by one person – a queer woman, no less – and are not the official designs, and don’t actually matter. like even if you want to argue that any green skin is antisemitic (which is a poorly-sourced, self-referential knot of yarn to begin with), taako’s skin is blue. merle being brown while also not being a perfect person is not tokenism or racist because there’s a diverse cast of NPCs, many of whom have dark skin. everything beyond that is up to personal preference.

not all criticisms are created equal. not every criticism is valid or useful in every situation. at some point, you have to accept that taz is not your story and you cannot demand a certain type of representation from the creators just to make yourself happy, and you can’t act like all POC fans feel the same because we certainly do not. like, if taz does something and you’re upset by it, that’s okay, and your emotions matter, but you need to realise that they are not the only emotions that matter, and also it’s not the creators’ job to fix your emotions for you.

i am a big advocate for critiquing media you enjoy and as a creator myself i do seek to learn more and better myself but part of that is also filtering out entitled white noise, like the racist asses trying to convince us that taako is “coded” as mexican and jewish just because his name sounds like taco and he likes money. so, like, whatever, good luck to mcelroys and carey on this front, but part of creating is accepting that you’ll never please everybody so hopefully they’re okay.

(“reblog this post to make taako brown” is just “sign this petition to make sterek canon” all over again and it’s still garbage, guys, after all these years it’s still bad.)

p.s. can everyone stop acting like the only two races are white and black. super would appreciate that thanks.