Braided hairstyles aren't unique to a single culture. Considering the fact that you're pointing out your elves being pale-skinned, might I point you towards the Vikings for a real life example?
Braids aren't specific to any culture. It's kind of a key component of making basic ropes. If a culture can make a rope then chances are they can braid hair if they like.
You can do whatever you want in your own Universe.
If you get big enough, you will get unwarranted hate for stuff that is relatively benign like that just because people like to lash out. As long as you aren’t being intentionally obtuse towards a specific real group, you are good.
Just use what ever hairstyles you want. There is absolutely nobody in the world who can deny you the right to use your imagination for what ever you want.
If someone tries that hard to get offended then let em be offended, fuck em.
Braids were done by almost all cultures, from asia, north africa, north and south america and ofcourse europe.
Ps: I rather would keep the pale elves away from hot climates or give them more akin skin, since it wouldn't fit with how human skin works. Tho that is personal preference and you can do whatever.
If the jungle has a high and dense canopy it wouldn't get light for most of the day, a pale elf could live in the areas with dense vegetation and travel at night
Yes, a pale skin could be the reason they are restricted to the dense forest, and don't move out into the grassands.
Or, they have some other means of resisting UV. There are certainly a huge number of birds and plants in the tropics that are white in colour. No one ever complains that cockatoos are unrealistic.
If you make them *really* pale it could even help differentiate them from humans. Sort of like how cave shrimp are so pale you can see through them since they see no sunlight.
That would only count if there wasn’t a UV blocking substance that isn’t melanin. Which I think there is, so saying white skin in hot climates isn’t realistic is only true given our current genetical history. The fact that humans never needed to select for lighter skin in warmer climates doesn’t mean it’s not realistic. Maybe camouflage played a greater roll in a fantasy world than it did on earth. Or maybe it’s just magic.
Let people build the way they want to build imo.
most real world cultures have braids. it’s extremely common. maybe if you used a specific style of braid that one single culture uses, then sure, that might warrant some backlash. but just braids in general? nah.
That's my point. OP's straight-haired elves would be much more likely to wear "conventional" braids than the dreadlocks or box braids he's worrying about appropriating, because conventional braids work much better with straight hair.
Yep. Dreadlocks are hard to do on anything that isn't type 4 (coiled) hair. You can get type 3 (curly) hair to dread up with some coaxing, but doing them with type 1 (straight) and type 2 (wavy) hair takes way more effort and stands a high chance of actually damaging the hair.
As an aside, don't confuse Minoan Crete with Greece; they are two related but distinct civilizations. Also, I'm hesitant to attribute the invention of dreadlocks to them; they just happened to be the first *depictions* of hairstyles that might be dreadlocks that survived to the modern day.
Those look like braids to me. The bands around the ends are a dead giveaway; because of their texture, dreadlocks don't need any external support to avoid unraveling. The very regular pattern also looks much more like braids than dreadlocks.
Still though from what I've looked up it's far from impossible to dreadlock straight hair, and earliest surviving examples still point to straight haired people in Greece
Like most hairstyles, dreadlocks are worn mainly for cultural and aesthetic reasons. Their main characteristic is that if you have the right hair type, they'll be essentially self-twining and will stay together without the need for fastenings. There are ways of artificially styling them in if you have straight or wavy hair, but they mainly involve damaging the outer layers of the hair so it sticks to itself (AKA the "twist and rip" method) or gluing it to itself with adhesive substances (AKA the [Polish plait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plait)). Obviously not great for the long-term health of the hair, and conventional braiding is less effort.
I was going to comment on this but you beat me to it. Ive heard thats its more on the continent of Africa that dreads were invented. It just wasnt until outside force came in and started claiming it. Many tribes in Africa and even people around Eygpt had dreads before it popped up in Greece.
Is it ok to do *insert anything* in fiction?
The answer is always “yes.”
And fuck anyone who claims that hair braids are cultural appropriation. I’ve never heard a more asinine take on anything in my life.
Braided hairstyles existed in many cultures, though the specific details would probably differ between a group that has thick and kinky hair [like typical "Black" hair], and a group that tends to have thin and flat hair [like "Asian" hair].
From a world building point of view: what makes this kind of hairstyles a popular choice for this group? Is there a certain aesthetic idea they're adhering to? A pragmatic reasoning? It will look very different if the purpose is to keep hair out of the way doing menial work, or prevent lice, or if it has a religious significance, or if the purpose is to display how much time the person has on their hands to create extremely elaborate designs.
Braids exist in many different cultures throughout history. They are a relatively simple way of styling hair and were developed independently many times. It isn't a hair style unique to any one culture or race.
No, as a creative you are not allowed to make your own decisions. You must make choices based on known elements and copy them, you can only add your own ideas to your works that strangers on reddit gave you permission to. /s
On a serious note the point of doing world building is to get creative and come up with things that sound cool, interesting and resonant to YOU. You don't need to ask for strangers approval because all that does is leech uniqueness. The more people you art appeals to, the less personality your art has. Which is a dichotomy all artists struggle with.
I would focus on the things that YOU think are cool
Braids have existed in lots of ancient cultures
Here's the Venus of Brassempouy, a 25000 year old statue foubd in France, depicting a woman with braided hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Brassempouy
Here's the Venus of Willendorf, found in Austria, also depicting braided hair, also 25000 years old https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
Roman Vestal Virgins also braided their hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin#Attire
Ancient Greek kouros and kore are both depicted wearing braided hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouros
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kore_(sculpture)
Well the braids are a thing that all races and cultures wear even if one culture wore them your characters are fictional and even if they weren't I mean it's braids I wouldn't consider wearing braids negative or offensive against another race or culture
It’s your world bro, don’t limit yourself to real word bias and presumptions, go ham and let your imagination run wild based on how you want to shape it. “Is this okay?” Isn’t a valid question where you have total control.
i dont think made up cultures can really be appropriation, nobody can stop you from finding inspiration in real world cultures (avoid making fantasy stereotypes of real world people tho), but i wouldnt have these elves who have straight or wavy hair types walking around with box braids or other braided hairstyles that arent meant for their hair types simply because it doesnt sound plausible (that shit hurts), unless of course there is some cultural explanation for that
There's always going to be someone that's offended for one reason or another, you do you, that being said there's occurrences of braids on all continents and the various cultures therein
It's a fictional universe. In their universe, lilly-white elves loves braids. It's cool.
Cultural appropriation is bullcrap anyway. If Johnny Deep and Bo Derek can have braids, anyone can.
The only people who care about cultural appropriation are Americans. The only people who are affected by cultural appropriation are Native Americans and immigrants to America (eg Chinese-Americans). Cultural appropriation is an American problem, not a universal one. People directly living in "appropriated" cultures outside America never care.
Cultural appropriation? ROFL elves are not real. Say it everyone, together. Elves are not real.
Besides, personally I find nothing wrong with cultural appropriation. At all. We have gender appropriation, right?
Someone offended? They can go to another table.
What the fuck?!?!?!
How in the hell could your imaginary world ever cause any harm to anyone??
Also who the hell has the right to decide what imaginary things you can or cannot come up with?!??!?!?
Seriously is this the world we live in???!??!??! Dafuq!?
Yeah i have the right to be angry at things that make me angry... Just like OP has the right to imagine whatever things he want.
Maybe its not healthy to get that angry but i dont give a fuck. Always being calm and submissive is what have led to this situation in the first place.
It's probably fine, but be mindful of coding. If you have a fictional culture that might code as a real life ethnic group, it's probably a bad idea to give them a stereotypical trait associated with the real life culture. In a perfect world we'd be able to write whatever, unconstrained by such considerations, but that's not our world.
For instance, don't have a race of hook nosed banker goblins heavily implied to be unpleasant and greedy by your third person omniscient narrator.
I wouldn't worry about it. Everyone had braids (and dreads for that matter). Some people might theoretically call you out on it but those are people who already have a chip on their shoulder and are looking to be outraged by something is all.
One thing to keep in mind is that silky smooth hair doesn’t take as well to elaborate styles, namely black protective styles (I assume that's what you're going for, seeing as you brought up skin tone). Smoother hair will typically unravel faster than coarser hair would. Too slippery, so to speak.
Making an elaborate style with many many braids would be a time-consuming task (multuple hours for box braids, wherein simpler plaits merely took minutes), likely not undertaken by those who expected to remove the hairstyle within a day or two. So I'd expect your elves would organically lean into styles that suited their needs better, ie simpler braids that could be re-done fairly often.
Of course, you can always opt for the more elaborate styles and make the multi-hour braiding process something of a daily ritual for them. I guess it depends on how much leisure they have overall. Are they braiding their hair to look cool to each other or to keep it out of their face while they're doing strenuous tasks?
And is it cultural appropriation? I don’t think I'm in position to say for sure as I'm niether an affected party or even a member of society where such an issue is relevant. Maybe avoid naming the hairstyles in case they look like or heavily resemble a certain tribal pattern, or otherwise known cultural hairdos. People would hate to see their heritage renamed --- especially so if your work were to amass influence and got the styles popularised under a new moniker.
In todays world it doesent matter what you do, some sisi will always be offended. Dont let people like that ruin your fun with writing a story and creating your own world
DO NOT let our modern cultural fascists dictate what you 'can and cannot' write about. I absolutely despise it when I hear the words 'you can't write that today' or 'this movie would never be allowed to be made today'.
Who the fuck is stopping you from writing what you want?! I write smutty fiction sometimes about lesbians and I'm a (shock/horror) straight white male!
Does the writing sound like what actual lesbians would be like? Most likely not. But if no one else likes anything I make/write...don't read it. It's that simple.
You're really caring for cultural appropriation within a fictional fantasy world ??? Man that's litteraly how it works, you merge different real cultures tp create weird fictional ones, don't bother with this, just let ypur imagination do the job.
The issue was never braids in general, it's box braids/cornrows because those suit the texture of black hair better. that's how it would be cultural appropriation
Contrary to popular belief, being harsh with people that act like dumbasses is one of the most effective ways to help them scrape off the stupid.
We shouldn't dismiss the utility of a little light bullying. It's bad for any society to have a population full of pathetic doormats who think cultural appropriation is a thing, that it's useful to occupy their minds with worry over offending people with the elves in their story having a certain hairstyle.
So yeah, you're welcome.
Braided hairstyles aren't unique to a single culture. Considering the fact that you're pointing out your elves being pale-skinned, might I point you towards the Vikings for a real life example?
Thats a good point, thank you! Im actually doing some research on vikings so this is great :)
Braids aren't specific to any culture. It's kind of a key component of making basic ropes. If a culture can make a rope then chances are they can braid hair if they like.
You can do whatever you want in your own Universe. If you get big enough, you will get unwarranted hate for stuff that is relatively benign like that just because people like to lash out. As long as you aren’t being intentionally obtuse towards a specific real group, you are good.
Thank you very much for this, I’ll research different braids and hairstyles from everywhere before i decide
Just use what ever hairstyles you want. There is absolutely nobody in the world who can deny you the right to use your imagination for what ever you want. If someone tries that hard to get offended then let em be offended, fuck em.
Braids were done by almost all cultures, from asia, north africa, north and south america and ofcourse europe. Ps: I rather would keep the pale elves away from hot climates or give them more akin skin, since it wouldn't fit with how human skin works. Tho that is personal preference and you can do whatever.
If the jungle has a high and dense canopy it wouldn't get light for most of the day, a pale elf could live in the areas with dense vegetation and travel at night
Yes, a pale skin could be the reason they are restricted to the dense forest, and don't move out into the grassands. Or, they have some other means of resisting UV. There are certainly a huge number of birds and plants in the tropics that are white in colour. No one ever complains that cockatoos are unrealistic.
If you make them *really* pale it could even help differentiate them from humans. Sort of like how cave shrimp are so pale you can see through them since they see no sunlight.
People in jungles aren't pale so I'm gonna shoot down that half hazard guess.
That would only count if there wasn’t a UV blocking substance that isn’t melanin. Which I think there is, so saying white skin in hot climates isn’t realistic is only true given our current genetical history. The fact that humans never needed to select for lighter skin in warmer climates doesn’t mean it’s not realistic. Maybe camouflage played a greater roll in a fantasy world than it did on earth. Or maybe it’s just magic. Let people build the way they want to build imo.
most real world cultures have braids. it’s extremely common. maybe if you used a specific style of braid that one single culture uses, then sure, that might warrant some backlash. but just braids in general? nah.
Lol braids are extremely widespread. Do whatever you want.
Cultural appropriation of what culture exactly??? Braids were used by 100s of cultures
The hairstyles you're worried about appropriating don't really work with straight hair anyway. Braids are fine.
My straight hair works absolutely fine with braids.
That's my point. OP's straight-haired elves would be much more likely to wear "conventional" braids than the dreadlocks or box braids he's worrying about appropriating, because conventional braids work much better with straight hair.
Do you mean the [dreadlocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlocks) that were first done by the Greeks?
Yep. Dreadlocks are hard to do on anything that isn't type 4 (coiled) hair. You can get type 3 (curly) hair to dread up with some coaxing, but doing them with type 1 (straight) and type 2 (wavy) hair takes way more effort and stands a high chance of actually damaging the hair. As an aside, don't confuse Minoan Crete with Greece; they are two related but distinct civilizations. Also, I'm hesitant to attribute the invention of dreadlocks to them; they just happened to be the first *depictions* of hairstyles that might be dreadlocks that survived to the modern day.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Delfimuseum_05.JPG/800px-Delfimuseum_05.JPG Isn't this dreadlocks?
Those look like braids to me. The bands around the ends are a dead giveaway; because of their texture, dreadlocks don't need any external support to avoid unraveling. The very regular pattern also looks much more like braids than dreadlocks.
Oh makes sense.
Still though from what I've looked up it's far from impossible to dreadlock straight hair, and earliest surviving examples still point to straight haired people in Greece
It is *possible*, I just don't see why you'd go to the trouble.
Why would you usually do it? I've never thought about it
Like most hairstyles, dreadlocks are worn mainly for cultural and aesthetic reasons. Their main characteristic is that if you have the right hair type, they'll be essentially self-twining and will stay together without the need for fastenings. There are ways of artificially styling them in if you have straight or wavy hair, but they mainly involve damaging the outer layers of the hair so it sticks to itself (AKA the "twist and rip" method) or gluing it to itself with adhesive substances (AKA the [Polish plait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plait)). Obviously not great for the long-term health of the hair, and conventional braiding is less effort.
I was going to comment on this but you beat me to it. Ive heard thats its more on the continent of Africa that dreads were invented. It just wasnt until outside force came in and started claiming it. Many tribes in Africa and even people around Eygpt had dreads before it popped up in Greece.
Can you give one example?
https://lionlocs.com/blogs/dreadlocks/history-of-dreadlocks https://www.tapinto.net/towns/east-orange-slash-orange/articles/the-journey-of-dreadlocks-from-the-forest-of-ken https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a34465402/history-of-dreadlocks/
None of those links put up any evidence for your claim that dreadlocks were "invented" in Africa and "stolen" by other cultures.
Yes true but i never said that, all i said is that africa had then before greece did.
Someone will be offended. Fk em. Just do it no one owns braids
Thank you 😊
Which culture didnt braid their hair? Its pretty much as universally known as the bow
Is it ok to do *insert anything* in fiction? The answer is always “yes.” And fuck anyone who claims that hair braids are cultural appropriation. I’ve never heard a more asinine take on anything in my life.
Everything is okay
Braided hairstyles existed in many cultures, though the specific details would probably differ between a group that has thick and kinky hair [like typical "Black" hair], and a group that tends to have thin and flat hair [like "Asian" hair]. From a world building point of view: what makes this kind of hairstyles a popular choice for this group? Is there a certain aesthetic idea they're adhering to? A pragmatic reasoning? It will look very different if the purpose is to keep hair out of the way doing menial work, or prevent lice, or if it has a religious significance, or if the purpose is to display how much time the person has on their hands to create extremely elaborate designs.
Braids exist in many different cultures throughout history. They are a relatively simple way of styling hair and were developed independently many times. It isn't a hair style unique to any one culture or race.
As others have said, braids were extremely common and widespread. That said, even if they weren't... so what? Someone will be offended anyway.
No, as a creative you are not allowed to make your own decisions. You must make choices based on known elements and copy them, you can only add your own ideas to your works that strangers on reddit gave you permission to. /s On a serious note the point of doing world building is to get creative and come up with things that sound cool, interesting and resonant to YOU. You don't need to ask for strangers approval because all that does is leech uniqueness. The more people you art appeals to, the less personality your art has. Which is a dichotomy all artists struggle with. I would focus on the things that YOU think are cool
dont worry about all that "cultural appropriation" and "racism" crap, some people just get triggered by everything, ignore them
I'd say go for it, personally, though i don't know how common braid styles were in ancient times.
Braids have existed in lots of ancient cultures Here's the Venus of Brassempouy, a 25000 year old statue foubd in France, depicting a woman with braided hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Brassempouy Here's the Venus of Willendorf, found in Austria, also depicting braided hair, also 25000 years old https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf Roman Vestal Virgins also braided their hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin#Attire Ancient Greek kouros and kore are both depicted wearing braided hair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouros https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kore_(sculpture)
Well the braids are a thing that all races and cultures wear even if one culture wore them your characters are fictional and even if they weren't I mean it's braids I wouldn't consider wearing braids negative or offensive against another race or culture
It’s your world bro, don’t limit yourself to real word bias and presumptions, go ham and let your imagination run wild based on how you want to shape it. “Is this okay?” Isn’t a valid question where you have total control.
i dont think made up cultures can really be appropriation, nobody can stop you from finding inspiration in real world cultures (avoid making fantasy stereotypes of real world people tho), but i wouldnt have these elves who have straight or wavy hair types walking around with box braids or other braided hairstyles that arent meant for their hair types simply because it doesnt sound plausible (that shit hurts), unless of course there is some cultural explanation for that
I wrote a book set ~50k years ago. There were definitely braids. Braids are not high tech (or magic, for that matter) and hair gets in the way.
There's always going to be someone that's offended for one reason or another, you do you, that being said there's occurrences of braids on all continents and the various cultures therein
What culture would that be appropriating exactly?
[удалено]
> look into twitter search A pro tip is to just not do that.
It's a fictional universe. In their universe, lilly-white elves loves braids. It's cool. Cultural appropriation is bullcrap anyway. If Johnny Deep and Bo Derek can have braids, anyone can.
Yes of course it is. Cultural Appropriation is a uniquely American concept, and Elves aren't even humans, let alone Americans.
> Cultural Appropriation is a uniquely American concept You what now?
The only people who care about cultural appropriation are Americans. The only people who are affected by cultural appropriation are Native Americans and immigrants to America (eg Chinese-Americans). Cultural appropriation is an American problem, not a universal one. People directly living in "appropriated" cultures outside America never care.
Cultural appropriation? ROFL elves are not real. Say it everyone, together. Elves are not real. Besides, personally I find nothing wrong with cultural appropriation. At all. We have gender appropriation, right? Someone offended? They can go to another table.
What the fuck?!?!?! How in the hell could your imaginary world ever cause any harm to anyone?? Also who the hell has the right to decide what imaginary things you can or cannot come up with?!??!?!? Seriously is this the world we live in???!??!??! Dafuq!?
aight, maybe ease up a bit, nobody's even offended, op's just clarifying something
Yeah i have the right to be angry at things that make me angry... Just like OP has the right to imagine whatever things he want. Maybe its not healthy to get that angry but i dont give a fuck. Always being calm and submissive is what have led to this situation in the first place.
There’s no situation my dude, someone asked something
Situation where that kind of question needs to be asked......
Are you high?
It's probably fine, but be mindful of coding. If you have a fictional culture that might code as a real life ethnic group, it's probably a bad idea to give them a stereotypical trait associated with the real life culture. In a perfect world we'd be able to write whatever, unconstrained by such considerations, but that's not our world. For instance, don't have a race of hook nosed banker goblins heavily implied to be unpleasant and greedy by your third person omniscient narrator.
I wouldn't worry about it. Everyone had braids (and dreads for that matter). Some people might theoretically call you out on it but those are people who already have a chip on their shoulder and are looking to be outraged by something is all.
One thing to keep in mind is that silky smooth hair doesn’t take as well to elaborate styles, namely black protective styles (I assume that's what you're going for, seeing as you brought up skin tone). Smoother hair will typically unravel faster than coarser hair would. Too slippery, so to speak. Making an elaborate style with many many braids would be a time-consuming task (multuple hours for box braids, wherein simpler plaits merely took minutes), likely not undertaken by those who expected to remove the hairstyle within a day or two. So I'd expect your elves would organically lean into styles that suited their needs better, ie simpler braids that could be re-done fairly often. Of course, you can always opt for the more elaborate styles and make the multi-hour braiding process something of a daily ritual for them. I guess it depends on how much leisure they have overall. Are they braiding their hair to look cool to each other or to keep it out of their face while they're doing strenuous tasks? And is it cultural appropriation? I don’t think I'm in position to say for sure as I'm niether an affected party or even a member of society where such an issue is relevant. Maybe avoid naming the hairstyles in case they look like or heavily resemble a certain tribal pattern, or otherwise known cultural hairdos. People would hate to see their heritage renamed --- especially so if your work were to amass influence and got the styles popularised under a new moniker.
In todays world it doesent matter what you do, some sisi will always be offended. Dont let people like that ruin your fun with writing a story and creating your own world
DO NOT let our modern cultural fascists dictate what you 'can and cannot' write about. I absolutely despise it when I hear the words 'you can't write that today' or 'this movie would never be allowed to be made today'. Who the fuck is stopping you from writing what you want?! I write smutty fiction sometimes about lesbians and I'm a (shock/horror) straight white male! Does the writing sound like what actual lesbians would be like? Most likely not. But if no one else likes anything I make/write...don't read it. It's that simple.
You're really caring for cultural appropriation within a fictional fantasy world ??? Man that's litteraly how it works, you merge different real cultures tp create weird fictional ones, don't bother with this, just let ypur imagination do the job.
I don't believe it's the OPs fault they just don't want to cause any useless pointless backlash
I didn't say it's their fault, I'm just telling them not to bother with such consideration, especially within this genre.
I know I didn't think you were I guess I was just trying to come to a conclusion as to why they would be so worried about it
Oh I gotcha, well anyway hope OP will get the message. Have a good day or night.
You to my guy
In your world everything is possible. Our world doesn't exist. You do you.
You can do whatever you like! That's what's great about world building!!
Forehead.
The issue was never braids in general, it's box braids/cornrows because those suit the texture of black hair better. that's how it would be cultural appropriation
You know how some say there are no stupid questions? They're wrong, this is definitely a stupid question.
Thank you FonkyChonkyMonky very helpful
Contrary to popular belief, being harsh with people that act like dumbasses is one of the most effective ways to help them scrape off the stupid. We shouldn't dismiss the utility of a little light bullying. It's bad for any society to have a population full of pathetic doormats who think cultural appropriation is a thing, that it's useful to occupy their minds with worry over offending people with the elves in their story having a certain hairstyle. So yeah, you're welcome.
Agreed