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They may not have had very many lines but their presence in a whitewashed world was enough to get my imagination going.

Angelina Johnson from Harry Potter

You know how when you're young and you really, really love a movie? Only there are little to no black people in it and so you cling to the one character in the background who looks like you and imagine this totally detailed world in your head for them?

As a pre-teen, I was utterly obsessed with Harry Potter. The whiteness of the wizarding world wasn't lost on me, which is why I loved any mention of characters like Dean Thomas and Lee Jordan. They were reminders that black people – people like me – existed in the world I was so crazy about. One character I especially came to like was Angelina Johnson, to the point where I couldn't help but make up complicated storylines for her in my head. Just picture it: The Adventures of Angelina Johnson. While trying to avoid whatever fatal threat Hogwarts attracts each year, star Quidditch player Angelina Johnson struggles to keep family drama at bay, as her recently divorced muggle mother and wizard father butt heads over the safest environment for their only daughter. As the difficulty of her classes increases, the pressure is also on to find a career path that suits her. Will she decide to start her new adult life in a wizarding world that can be as painfully oblivious to its own prejudices as the muggle one she grew up in? Will she ever manage to get some quality alone time with her favorite Weasley twin? Can't any year at Hogwarts ever just run smoothly?

Honestly, you don't know how badly I wanted this story to exist. I still do.

Missandei from Game of Thrones

I've never been a fan of the 'person who is freed then decides to serve as a choice' narrative. It's never struck me as genuine, or even realistic. Rather, it's a way for the (usually white) protagonist to continue to oppress people while still getting to keep their Good Guy title.

Ever since her introduction, I've been waiting to learn more about Missandei. There's got to be something underneath that veneer of polite devotion. How does she really feel about Daenerys? What was her life like before Westeros's favorite white savior showed up? What does she really want to do, now that she's free?

At this point in Game of Thrones, I'm so annoyed with so many of the plotlines that I'm really tuning in for the little things. I want to find out when Missandei and Grey Worm are going to start going steady. After that intense scene in the lake and the conversation that followed, they're officially my Game of Thrones OTP (One True Pairing). Here's hoping that Missandei can disentangle herself from Daenerys and whatever is about to go down with her next season. Does anyone else have the feeling that it's not going to be good?

Jacqui from The Walking Dead

A part of me knows that I should not have had high expectations for a show where a black man called T-Dog managed to exist for nearly 3 seasons as a sort-of main character without the viewer ever learning anything about his motivations or backstory. Still, I cringed watching the season 1 finale, when the group was content to let Jacqui stay at the CDC and end her own life through an explosion, but God forbid we lose Andrea. We never even got a hint of who Jacqui might be as a person. We couldn't take a break from Lori's messy love life or Andrea and Amy's boring fishing metaphors to learn how Jacqui came to be all alone?

In an interview with AMC TV, actress Jeryl Prescott (who is a former university professor and seems like the coolest woman ever) shared her theory that Jacqui was rescued by Morgan and together they raised his adorable son.

Head canon accepted!

Tamara, that one black female hunter on Supernatural

Being a hunter in the Supernatural universe is so dependent on not only being able to lie effectively, but to get other people to believe you. Thanks to the magic of being a white male, Sam and Dean are able to put on a Good Will suit and convince just about anyone that they're supposed to be wherever it is they're sneaking into. Would a black person impersonating law enforcement or the FBI have the same results? What about a black woman?

On top of that, a lot of hunters seem like, well, rednecks. At least the ones Sam and Dean are exposed to. Being country doesn't mean you're racist, but there's bound to be some overlap, and I would love to see how things would play out for a black female hunter navigating two very different worlds that, unfortunately both suffer from similar problems.

Are there any black female characters who you saw in the background of