Something I definitely want to see more of are queer characters who are vocal about their queerness, but are also super supportive of other people’s experiences. Like I feel like there’s so much of a divide between groups and between the queer and non-queer community that just…. doesn’t always need to be there? People can be proud of themself without tearing others down.
Like it would be cool to see more aro characters who have no interest in a relationship for themself, but are super happy for their friends who had a really successful first date.
Nonbinary characters who really don’t feel a strong connection to either binary gender, but will absolutely help a trans friend figure out what outfits and hairstyles best help them pass.
Ace characters playing wingman for their allo friends cause they think it’s fun, and cause they’re not gonna rope themselves into anything they don’t wanna do.
Just because a character doesn’t feel attracted to certain genders (or anyone) doesn’t mean they have to go around talking about how Horrible it must be to be attracted to those people. Just because a character falls under the trans umbrella doesn’t mean they have to go around talking about how Awful it is that someone’s “trapped” as the same gender they were assigned at birth. Characters can have understanding.
i really really mean it please write muslim characters, it’s really not that daunting literally all you have to do is throw in a few casual qualities.
have them squint uncertainly at the meat options in a restaurant and ask if there’s pork in the sandwich. have them mention on the phone “oh, i’m gonna stop by the mosque first for prayer but i’ll be there soon.” have your hijabi girls squeal over cute scarves in mall store windows and swoon over sparkly pins. have them kindly reject a glass of water and say “oh, i’m fasting today.”
just don’t make their religion their only defining aspect. like??
for most women, wearing hijab is about as casual as wearing a shirt or pants. give me a badass woman on a mission to save the world just like you’d write literally any other badass woman on a mission to save the world— this one just happens to keep her hair in a headscarf and is careful not to eat certain foods?
and not all muslim women wear scarves, a lot of them just choose not to or they decide not right now but they’ll do it later? like, give me a girl who’s absolutely determined to break a world record and halfway through the story she shows up in a headscarf for the first time and it’s no big deal.
give me a kid who’s on the search for an ancient magical artifact and also they get anxious at some point cause they’re busy but prayer’s gonna start soon and they don’t wanna miss it. have them whip out their phone and search for the nearest mosque. have them find some quiet place to pray alone, like in the corner of a hotel room they just booked while their travel companion’s watching TV with the volume turned down low.
just?? do a bit of research (when are the prayer times, when is ramadan, what are halal foods, mosques in texas, etc.) and write!!! muslim!!! characters!!!
author: so in this world there are immortal fire-breathing dragons
everybody:cool!
author: also half the army is female
everybody: um, isn’t that a bit unrealistic? :/
author: there are a dozen+ sentient species including orcs, elves, and entities that should be dead but somehow aren’t
everybody:cool!
author: and a lot of them are poc
everybody: how does that? make sense?
author: alright, so people can pretty much rewrite the laws of reality by thinking about it hard enough, so anything is possible
everybody: makes sense
author: also several of the characters are not straight
everybody: what else even is there?
author: so, people can travel faster than the speed of light, in their spaceships full of aliens who are always human-sized, human-shaped, and able to speak fluent English
everybody:great!
author: and disabled people can come on the spaceships too
Also now that I’m thinking about the “I’m not like other girls” rhetoric?
So all these YA novels and girls who had that idealogy would paint ‘other girls’ as always clustering together to talk about nothing but boys, malls, and make-up. Like, all their conversations would be “x is soooo hot!” or “Ewwww, did you see that lipstick on y?”/”Ewwww, loser!” and like
Maybe I went to a weird high school or something, but I never saw girls doing what the YA books have them do? Like, yeah, they’d talk about guys sometimes, but it didn’t dominate the conversation. Yeah, they’d talk about make-up, but it was always more of “I think red is too dark for your skintone, did you try coral?” or “Oh, great, I overdid my smoky eye and now I look like I got punched.” Heck, the reason I wear pinks is because a kind “pore-clogger” suggested it once at a sleepover, saying it’d add rosiness to my pale face.
Or boy talk would just be “Who do you like?” or “I can talk to him for you if you want,” or alternatively “Ew, no, he’s a total creep, trust me, I’m his neighbor.”
Like. Have these people actually meta group of girls before?
I’m thinking no
This is useful for writers like me who have no experience being in a typical group of girls.
I’m putting it out there that using round wide eyes to implicitly state innocence and purity in a character; and small “slanty” eyes to convey dishonesty and deceit in your antagonist is actually racist lmfao.
I see some of you bring out this concept in you character designs over and over and yeah it’s not a conscious thought process but thinking “this is the evil character who is morally decrepit - how should I really bring that out in their image?” And then linking that immediately to drawing smaller eyes is racist yellow peril derived stereotyping.
I’m sure most of us have been guilty of this at some stage including myself so can we all just grow up and leave this bullshit behind in this year? 谢谢
Other “evil” looks based in bigotry:
- dark/heavy/thick eyebrows (racism/antisemitism)
- hooked noses vs “cute”/button/patrician (ditto)
- faces described as angular (as opposed to like strong-boned or whatever)
- “swarthy” complexion (thanks tolkien)
- blonde hair/blue eyes = hero/ine
- accents.
- “shifty eyes” iirc, I remember learning they just indicate a lot of thinking, which could be lying, yes, orrr dealing with a second language/unfamiliar dialect, or dealing with NTs as someone who’s not, or trying to figure out if the authority figure is trying to get you to agree to something they can use against you, or…
Bigotry around disability that often intersects with racism includes making villains or “shifty” characters dramatically scarred and/or having acne/acne scars, missing eyes or limbs/digits, walking with a limp and/or cane, missing and/or crooked teeth (this one can also be pretty classist, and “buck teeth” and a gap between the front teeth have a history of anti-Asian and anti-Black caricature behind them, respectively), overweight in a way that’s portrayed as “disgusting” proof of their “greed” or like moral decay or whatever, etc!
These visual markers often get layered on top of the above racist stereotypes to make a character’s design seem more “untrustworthy” or “creepy” or “unsettling,” hypersexualized/fetishized/desexualized, “aggressive” or “passive”, “mean and “scary” or “cowardly and despicable”, and so on and so on - always ask yourself and your subconscious WHY they do these things! And ABSOLUTELY hold yourself accountable for this, (my fellow white artists especially!!!)! Fighting the racist messages we’ve taken in our entire lives takes work, and it takes time, and it’s always worth doing.
I feel like there needs to be some kind of post for MCU fans on How To Write About Africa because I feel like there’s a lot of people out there who want to write about Wakanda and T'Challa but are worried about being problematic and that makes me sad because there’s SO MUCH GREAT meta to be had about T'Challa and Wakanda but at the same time there’s a lot of legitimate concerns about perpetuating racist stereotypes and yeah.
T'Challa and Wakanda could be such a great way to introduce people to amazing sci-fi concepts that people should know
This is SO needed.
It’s so easy to be like ‘just try it!’ but the problem with this website is that people don’t think its okay for people to make mistakes. I’ve gotten messages from people who want to write about T’Challa/Wakanda but are nervous about how their work will be perceived and its sosad.
We really need to gather some people who’d be interested in writing a nice little info post!
seriously though it would be an enormous help if more people understood that autistic brains/bodies (and some other conditions too) very VERY frequently don’t process sensations and emotions in normal ways and INSTEAD replace them with bodily and emotional responses that are total nonsense in an NT context
like i have chronic pain, i have an always-on headache that used to be around a 2-3 on the pain scale and is now a 6-7 most days. but periodically i find that instead of actually feeling a level of pain i can rate, i have a series of puzzling physical sensations like nausea that miraculously get better when i take painkillers and go lie down in the dark. because they were actually pain signals. pain signals that got turned into something else at some point in my body. so i have days where i feel GREAT and pumped to do stuff and then i’m like WHY AM I NOT FUNCTIONING WELL and i go lie down in the dark for a while and it gets better?? because i was actually at an 8 which is Can’t Function levels for me, but 90% of that pain was invisible to me, turned into nausea and manic energy and weird sudden mood shifts instead of “pain”.
I don’t experience normal thirst signals most of the time, either. I get cravings for ice cream and lime popsicles and watermelon instead of being thirsty. I had to learn that “i suddenly desperately want ice cream” is my body’s way of saying “put some water in this bitch”.
I also get nausea instead of hunger signals a lot of the time. nausea is one of my body’s favorite go-to signals to send, in general, so it can mean almost anything. when my stomach turns i have to go through a checklist of possibilities to figure out what i’m actually feeling. this is a big reason i eat a lot of snacks. it’s step number 3 or 4 on my “why do i feel sick” list and happens at least once a day.
and anyway this shit is important for non autistic people to know because we can’t always tell you what we’re experiencing, but also sometimes we can get really upset and overwhelmed with trying to even understand what we’re feeling. doctors especially need to know this. how can i tell you what’s wrong with my body when my body doesn’t know how to use its own language for communicating what’s wrong? when it routinely sends me a mishmash of signals that are totally useless for figuring out the problem? it’s not impossible but it requires an understanding of just how different the place i’m coming from really is. you can’t get anywhere by treating me just like an NT patient.
but most people aren’t even aware that “body signals” are a real tangible thing that can be effected and “go wrong” when your brain and body are built weirdly. literally any process in your body can be broken, that should be obvious, but people are so oblivious to the things their body does automatically that they aren’t aware they exist, and therefore don’t know they can break. it’s really important to make people aware of these functions. there are so many disabilities that happen when a hidden function breaks and it’s impossible for abled people to grasp those disabilities without comprehending that that’s an actual thing their body does for them.
I can relate. My body doesn’t like to experience hunger always, and will instead go for “stomach hurts for some unknown reason” or, if I have gone without food for a while, nausea. It’s weird.
At the start of the story she’s only a few weeks along, and it’ll follow her at least until the baby’s birth. What issues might affect her as a pregnant autistic woman?
Some people love being pregnant, they feel really healthy and love their bodies. Other people really struggle, feeling unwell and in pain.
Pregnancy will come with changes to your character’s body. This includes changes in hormones which can lead to fluctuations in her emotions and sensory needs. She will also have physical changes (abdomen gets bigger) which can cause pain and issues with proprioception.
She might experience nausea/morning sickness. Any pre-existing hypersensitivites, combined with hormonal changes to her sense of smell and taste, might her extra susceptible to nausea.
Pregnancy can lead to tiredness, aches, and pains. If this is the case, it may impact her ability to cope with difficult social situations, and may lower her threshold for withstanding difficult sensory environments.
Of course, some people feel really healthy when they are pregnant, so she might really enjoy herself! Part of it seems to be down to luck.
Pregnancy comes with lots of things to organise. Less than once the baby arrives, but there are still many medical appointments to attend, arrangements to be made for the baby’s arrival, and changes to diets to manage.
Of course, your character is likely to have co-occurring physical or mental issues which might be complicate by pregnancy. For example, if she already experiences anxiety and cognitive distortions, common worries about her child’s health are likely to present more of a problem than in a neurotypical mother.
Pregnancy also means that she might have to adjust any medications she is on. If the character takes anti-epileptics to manage seizures and mood-stabilisers to manage hypomania, then she will be affected by changes to her meds as well as by hormonal changes. She might need to have more frequent check-ups with her doctor to make sure that she stays healthy during these changes.
If she was previously a drinker/smoker then pregnancy might give her the impetus to give up, but changes to non-prescription drugs can also have an impact.
Your character may find pleasure from doing research related to the pregnancy. There is lots to read about, and she might enjoy planning the birth, researching how foetuses develop, or looking into the origins of various names. In this post a mother talks about using routines and schedules to help manage changes to her body and hormones.
As her pregnancy progresses, your character may find that others begin to treat her differently. This might be differences in people’s expectations for how she behaves as they try to accommodate the changes she is experiencing. On the other hand, there may also be times when she has to tell other characters that she needs accommodations like changes to dress code or seating with more back support.
She might also find that she has to adapt the social scripts that she uses because people might start asking new questions like “when are you due?” or making jokes about her belly.
I don’t think that it is relevant to your story, but as this post will be shared with other writers I feel that it would be remiss not to mention the discrimination that disabled parents face, which I talked about in more detail in this post about obstacles for an autistic parent raising a baby (eugenics cw).
It is worth looking for autistic people’s accounts of their pregnancies. Here are a few examples:
• ‘golden skin’ • ‘almond-shaped/tilted/slanted/ch*nky eyes’ • a strong accent despite being born in or growing up in an English-speaking country • helicopter parents/a tiger mom • scrawny, short genius stereotype • for Chinese characters: (especially older ones) loud in public stereotype • cheap for no reason • research your food… we don’t live off of noodles and dumplings • girls who are quiet and submissive • also east asian kids/teens who have a chunk of dyed hair and rebel against their family for no reason • ABGs are people too, your one dimensional caricatures of girls who like makeup and clothes ain’t cute • stop fetishizing east asian women and making them prostitutes in fantasy • e asians playing lackey/sidekick to the All Powerful Whitey is ugly • Asian Americans grow up with a weird blend of their family’s traditional values and the values of America (or whatever country they grew up in. I know Koreans who grew up in Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, Greenland, the Netherlands, France, China, and more). That cultural and personal dichotomy is really interesting to me, but I rarely see it discussed in any media because y’all are too hellbent on sweeping us under one big stereotypical rug… Cool I guess • also forget that Asia is a massive continent containing nearly 50 countries!! There are so many cultural differences between China, Taiwan, and Singapore ALONE, Japan and Korea should never be conflated because there’s bad juju there, the fucking L/unar C/hronicles were such a mESS, I could go on but it’s lunch time.
thanks for coming to my ted talk, note that these aren’t necessarily automatic do alls/end alls, but they are really really gross, and if ‘short, nerdy and awkward’ is the only characterization you can come up with for your east asian characters, if any at all, maybe try again. Representation matters.
I see this a lot, no one has actual names, or any reference for names, that are legit Native American, varying among the tribes, for their characters.
Babynames.com and shit like that will give you names made up by white people.
However, I’ve got your solution.
Native-Languages is a good website to turn to for knowledge on a lot of native things, including native names. If you’re unsure about the names you’ve picked, they even have a list of made up nameshere!
Please don’t trust names like babynames.com for native names, they’re made up and often quite offensive to the cultures themselves.
Literally everyone will ask if you broke your leg(s). Everyone. Even people you don’t know. Theyll ask a lot and think you’re extremely fragile.
bruises show up within the first day of rolling around, and they can really suck
people will try to grab your chair if they think you’re struggling and it can be hard not to snap at them for it
static electricity is a huge issue. You will probably either continuously shock your leg when you’re rolling around or do what I did today and zap someone so hard as you pass that both of you nearly keel over
people will call you out as a faker if you do anything even remotely fun ever on your wheelchair. Wheelies? Obviously your legs are fine lol not like you have to go down fucking curbs /s
puddles are the worst and if there’s a curb with a puddle all around and you have some ability to walk its a better idea to just stand up and navigate the chair than to fall backwards into said puddle
weird looks from people are inevitable, especially from people who don’t like you
bus drivers will often push your chair and give you advise you don’t want to hear, even if you tell them nicely you can push yourself. Its really hard not to get mad at them for it
no wheelies in school. Though if you do it in the elevator when no one else is with you you can’t really get caught.
speaking of wheelies, always be ready to throw at least one arm behind you in case you fall. They say tuck your chin in but its easier and more reliable to throw your hands back and keep your neck up so you don’t hit the floor. Sore arms are way easier to put up with than head injuries
don’t even bother to try and roll back up curbs. You will either be there for an hour or fall backwards. I managed to do both.
90% of classrooms that aren’t special ed are not very wheelchair accessible.
people will automatically assume you’re faking something if you’re not considered dumb enough in their standards to fit in with disabled students (aka high class ableism at its finest)
people are going to give you weird looks if you don’t suddenly start sitting with the other disabled kids
standard backpacks usually dangle way too much to keep on you easily, so try to pack light
built in storage on wheelchairs cannot sufficiently carry books
don’t try to hold an umbrella. Period. Especially not with your teeth. It doesn’t work.
don’t try to give the bus driver your ticket while you’re stuck on the ramp. And speaking of, its easy to start falling down the bus ramp so be careful, and when in doubt throw on the breaks
and finally if you’re like me pray to god you don’t go nonverbal when someone is trying to push you and you don’t want them to because it is hard to get them to stop if you can’t speak
able-bodied people can and should 1000% reblog this, some of these things I’ve seen on tips about using a wheelchair but a lot of these weren’t things I’ve seen
Oh hey– here’s a list ranked by Writing With Color’s most popular posts since opening in 2014 up till now, the start of 2017. Pulled together for the interest and usefulness for readers like you. Thank you.
Top 7 Popular Original Posts
Words for Skin Tone- This two part guide offers an array of words for describing skin color. Part I focuses on the problems with food descriptors. Part II provides alternatives. (68k+ Notes)
more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl
- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)
- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet -five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)
- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” - Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) - when i say we use them casually, i really mean it - teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah - our version of “amen” is “ameen” - muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi - the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”
As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.
My story includes 2 Muslim sisters. This is so helpful. Thank you for making this.
If you’re writing something that involves an aspect of life that you have not experienced, you obviously have to do research on it. You have to find other examples of it in order to accurately incorporate it into your story realistically.
But don’t just look at professional write ups. Don’t stop at wikepedia or webMD. Look up first person accounts.
I wrote a fic once where a character has frequent seizures. Naturally, I was all over the wikipedia page for seizures, the related pages, other medical websites, etc.
But I also looked at Yahoo asks where people where asking more obscure questions, sometimes asked by people who were experiencing seizures, sometimes answered by people who have had seizures.
I looked to YouTube. Found a few individual videos of people detailing how their seizures usually played out. So found a few channels that were mostly dedicated to displaying the daily habits of someone who was epileptic.
I looked at blogs and articles written by people who have had seizures regularly for as long as they can remember. But I also read the frantic posts from people who were newly diagnosed or had only had one and were worried about another.
When I wrote that fic, I got a comment from someone saying that I had touched upon aspects of movement disorders that they had never seen portrayed in media and that they had found representation in my art that they just never had before. And I think it’s because of the details. The little things.
The wiki page for seizures tells you the technicalities of it all, the terminology. It tells you what can cause them and what the symptoms are. It tells you how to deal with them, how to prevent them.
But it doesn’t tell you how some people with seizures are wary of holding sharp objects or hot liquids. It doesn’t tell you how epileptics feel when they’ve just found out that they’re prone to fits. It doesn’t tell you how their friends and family react to the news.
This applies to any and all writing. And any and all subjects. Disabilities. Sexualities. Ethnicities. Cultures. Professions. Hobbies. Traumas. If you haven’t experienced something first hand, talk to people that have. Listen to people that have. Don’t stop at the scholarly sources. They don’t always have all that you need.
