(((Digimon Is Forever)))

critical thinking while consuming media is important but some of you really are like "if you enjoy a cartoon with flaws you will never achieve happiness"

oh hey so. saying a Black character is “a perfect sunshine boy!!” or “a Goddess!! she doesn’t need no man!!” can also be a form of dehumanization. 

when Black characters become such “pure cinnamon rolls” you can’t ship them, when they “deserve so much better” you refuse to pair them with any white fave, when they’re “just so flawless” they become boring, when you insist they’re “perfect” but then utterly and completely stop there, you’re reducing them to one dimension. 

they become props for white character development, cos you’re not letting them have any character of their own.

when the only characters that are flawed, relatable, interesting, complex, shippable, deserving of pages of meta for a 0.02 second glance ~just so happen to be~ white you’re indicating that they’re the only characters you see as fully human. 

Character development doesn't refer to character improvement in a moral or ethical respect. It refers to broadening the audience's understanding of that character, giving the character a deeper background, clearer motivations, a unique voice.

Developing a character is about making them seem more like a real person, and real people are flawed. Real people make mistakes. They repeat mistakes. They do things other people don't agree with. Real people are more than just 'good' or 'bad' and character development is about showing all of those other aspects of them.

Their interests and hobbies. The song that gets stuck in their head. The fact that their vacuum broke 3 months ago and they haven't gotten it fixed yet. All of those details help build out the character and develop them more.

And yes, characters change as stories progress but that doesn't mean they get 'better' in a strict moral sense. It means that their experiences change the way they interact in the world you've written for them. Just like real people do.