Did you ever misgender/misrace/etc a character and not realize it until after the book...

A persons race shapes their entire life. Even without the cultural background, how other people view them and how they see others they associate as like themselves structures your perspective on the world like little else.

eh, not really.
I'm half black/half Asian and I've been blessed with a life mostly free of turbulence, being American. Even when i was a child I would empathize more with characters who shared my interests of science and sports than if they were black and looked like me because I saw race as a superficial trait.

My sister, although living a life in conditions parallel to my own, is more deeply affected by racial matters, but I see that as more of a personal problem, probably rooted in empathy. Being more empathetic could compel a person to relate or identify more heavily with those who share skin color or cultural background, while also taking social injustices more personally. Could also be that she's female and timid- being an athletic black male with a deep voice the only racial sleights against me happen here, by those who are too inconsequential to reach me personally.

Point being, racial background affects the individual in proportion to other immeasurably complex factors. It could be a defining characteristic, it could just be a detail in passing.

Reading To the Lighthouse I realized it's in Scotland not England and now all the characters sound like the goddamn Braveheart

Larry Underwood in The Stand by Stephen King. For some reason I was positive he was black. I don't think they ever really mention his ethnicity though

I thought Heathcliffe was black. Really puzzled me, I couldn't understand why the female characters kept falling in love with a vagrant negro.

In fact i often assume most derelict characters are negroes. Huckleberry Finn really confused me. He must be mixed race, right?

probably intentional

i clearly remember he stating that near the beginning

It can be irritating when you picture a character in your mind one way, then find out they're actually a different race. If the character's race isn't mentioned early on, I'll assume it doesn't really matter and just choose one. When you're forced to change that picture by an explicit description later on in the book, it becomes difficult to identify the character from that point on with the one from earlier. Of course it's possible to imagine characters mostly abstractly without picturing their appearance at all, in which case this wouldn't be a problem, but I'd say that's only something you should do if you don't care about becoming invested in the book.

I didn't know where Malta was at the time so I assumed Paola in V. looked like a filipina.

When he's described as dark it's suggested he has gypsy heritage, so he's not a nigger. And no white person back then would bring a straight up nigger into their homes, even if the guy wanted to save an orphan, it definitely would not be a nigger orphan, nawmsaying?

>like Iron man or Jesus
Are you talking about making Jesus white when he would have been brownish? Or making him black? The closest thing I can think of is the Jesus Christ Superstar movie where Judas is black, but he's probably the strongest singer/actor in the whole thing

A lot of filipinas could pass themselves off as a Maltin woman if they had enough Spanish rapist ancestry. After all, Malta has received more than just a touch of the tar brush over the centuries.

If there's a female character I just make them look like a pornstar in my head. They're usually black.

Hermione Granger

I used to imagine characters in Franz Kafka stories differently and I imagined them looking like American Men from the 1940s but then I realized all his novels are probably based in a prague setting so I readjusted my view of these characters as more looking very similar to Kafka himself with the occasional blonde haired blue eyed character popping in and out.

Jesus wasn't white you brainwashed cumskin.

He didn't say he was shit for brains.

I don't have shit for brains which why I know implication of his tone you cumskin.

The representations of Christ and the Virgin differ from culture to culture, he's white in Europe, latino in latin America, Asian in China and Filipino on the Philippines.
It's pretty interesting going to certain churches in Jerusalem which contain representations from many countries from around the world.

Not when you and I both know I can just call you a nigger and dismiss your entire post, nigger

I thought Quick Ben from Malazan was white

I imagine his main characters all as clean shaven germans with brown suits, and every other character as bespectacled wisemen with intricate facial hair.

Me too, I only realized it after seeing the trailer. Even his name is Shadow Moon, what else could he be

IIRC Heinlein does that pretty often, to make a point.

You can do that with any race, user. You're not dismissing his post any more than you're dismissing your own

I pictured him as part Indian (native not paki)

Also, colonel korn (aka Blacky)

Happened a few times, but didn't change my mental image of the character much. Probably because I am European and have never really encounter black culture. So every race is basically the same in my mind. Besides mudslimes, fuck mudslimes

Good post