#Characters of Color

[elumish]

Maybe it's a Reddit vs Tumblr thing, and maybe it's just that I don't spend time on those parts of Tumblr anymore, but i feel like I haven't seen handwringing like that in five to ten years.

(And really? The most common response is "don't diversify your cast of characters"?)

So a few thoughts, if this helps:

"I realized I have no diversity and would like to change that." Fine thought. Have a sticker.

"I am white and deliberately only write white characters because POC are way too mysterious and I'm not going to pretend I can understand their experiences." Yep that's racist.

Women or POC or any set of marginalized people aren't a monolith. One of the points I was trying to make in my original post is that people tend to approach writing men as individuals but women as part of the monolith that is womanhood, and so while men are written as people (as individuals) women are written as part of that monolith. Their actions, feelings, decisions, choices, and personality are driven by their gender rather than by who they are as an individual, because they're not written as an individual, they're written as a gender with a hat on top.

"I can write about this" and "I have to do some research" are not at all mutually exclusive, whether you're talking about characters or identities or trains. In one of my books, a love interest is from Singapore, and I am writing about that character--but I've also done research into Singapore to do my best to get it right.

The amount of research you need to do (whether that research is reading first person accounts, looking up facts, talking to people, going somewhere, etc.) is going to differ a lot depending on what you're trying to write. My life as a woman in the US is much more similar to a man's life in the US than a woman's life in Herat, Afghanistan--so I do a lot less research to write about a man in the US than I would to write about a woman in Herat.

One of the things that I think got super muddled up around the #OwnVoices stuff and all of that is that there is a difference between writing a character and claiming that you are representing the Experience Of That Group. If you are not in a group, it's very unlikely that you are the best person to write a book that is solely about what it is like to be a member of that group (like how Jeanine Cummins got panned for American Dirt being touted as the great immigrant story). That doesn't mean that you can't write a character in that group, even as your protagonist/POV character.

If you're thinking about writing women as writing aliens, that is a problem. Point blank, no questions asked. Because it means you don't see women as people. Your first step to being a good writer is understanding that people who aren't male or white or from your country or ablebodied or cis or straight are people.

Everything else, every other piece of writing advice, every other technique, that all comes later.

Hope that helps!

A thing to consider: when you're writing male characters, do you think of it as writing people, or as writing men?

When you're writing female characters, do you think of it as writing people, or as writing women?

In a lot of stories, men are written as people, but women are written as women. Men are written neutrally, with little to no explicit attention paid to their gender, while women are written with a lot of explicit attention paid to their gender. Women's gender becomes part of the story, while the fact that men are men is rarely lingered upon.

So if you're ever struggling to write female characters, or you're wondering why it feels harder, or if they seem less interesting or more annoying than your male characters, consider this: is it because you're focused on writing them as women, while you're used to just writing men as people?

[uhhrellys]

anyway she ate this look

[shyjusticewarrior]

Duke: You're very white today, Bruce.

Bruce: I'm white everyday, Duke.

Duke: That's true.

[buttdumplin]

this is an open letter from a poc to folks who are writing characters of color

if you're going to write a scene/interaction in which the character of color is confronting a white character about their racism, do not, i repeat DO NOT, center the white character. not their feelings, not their reactions. because it is never about the white character, nor should it ever be. white tears and white guilt have never fucking done dick for us, and they never fucking will. a response only matters when it is to make amends and change behaviors.

[hey-its-sybarite]

“Let's tell more stories. Let's be monsters and enjoy it. Let's be problematic. Give us the space to be a problem.”

[shiranuieditorial]

20 inspirational names for a super summer!

List summary: 新夏、夏向、夏涼、夏艷/夏艶、琉夏、夏樂、夏怡、夏悅、夏嬉、夏歡/夏懽、梨夏、夏梅、夏蓮、莽夏、青夏、勇夏、承夏、平夏、峰夏、and 夏緒！ (Keep reading ’til the end to discover their meanings, readings, pronunciations, guide to etymology and history, and more linguistic knowledge!)

Is it just me or has this summer been unnervingly chilling for us tropical islanders? 🌞🥶

Check out this summer-inspired name bank I’ve been working on for the past 5 months!

Each name was…

→ meticulously hand-picked like exotic cherries 🍒

→ carefully translated to the best of my ability 🉑

→ and then packed with a mini beginner’s guide to 夏 (the Han character/Chinese character for “summer”, used throughout the Sinosphere) 📖

→ which contains its standard readings in many languages: Mandarin Chinese, Dungan Tili, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, Wu, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese! 🀄

(If you need info on any other topolect, dialect, or time-specific variant not mentioned here, just ask away! I’ll see what I can do for ya!)

👉🏼 An incredibly versatile character, it’s impossible to run out of given names containing/based on 夏!

The possibilities are endless, and the only limit is our imagination! 💡

👉🏼 If we visit the Wiktionary entry for 夏, we’ll see a whole lot more linguistic variants & historical hypotheses on this ancient grapheme dating back to 2070 BC, and even a reconstruction of its Middle Chinese & Old Chinese pronunciations based on recovered millennia-old scripts! 😱

👇🏼 Comment “Wiktionary” and I’ll send you the link to read further. It’s very interesting to read, whether you’re a curious beginner or a veteran Sinologist.

❓ QOTD 1: Which name stood out to you in particular? 🤔

❓ QOTD 2: Do you know what the difference is between “reading” and “pronunciation”? 🗣️

👇🏼 Also also also, let me know what you think of this list! 📜

Is it interesting enough? Are the tables mathematical enough? Are my font choices weird enough? Have I managed to convince you that I’m secretly an omniscient Taoist immortal from the 16th century BCE here to steal all the trees off your backyards, or should I try harder? If so, what other attempts at floor-length grocery lists should I make to satisfy your most honourable expectations?

Remember—your plants are at stake here! 🧚🏼‍♀️🌲🌳🌴

[uncelebratedjuvenescence]

Two more exe gfs of Rynee

The blonde is Delilah and the redhead is Robin

They’re also redesigns of ocs I’ve had for a very very long time 💞

Delilah is a surfer + skater girl from California who spent a little time in Florida and is currently a server at a trendy beach themed restaurant

Robin is a biker Rocker chick who also works as a bartender

[doesnotloveyou]

not maximus clearly having high Luck in his SPECIAL lmao there's no way you oneshot a yao guai with a 10mm without high Luck, m'boy blessed!

[pinklikeroses-artonly]

Need more masc lesbian vampires instead of werewolves…..

[leeibydeeby]

Reintroducing Beyond the Pursuit; A Queer, Vampire, Romance Visual Novel!

What is it about?

Beyond the Pursuit follows Rory, pictured at the top of the images below, as he navigates his relationships with two vampires; Hero (Middle) and Nicky (Bottom).

Waking up in a strange apartment, Rory finds himself being manipulated into feeding the charismatic Nicky. As Nicky and Hero meet, however, it's soon revealed that the two have a shared past. On top of that, Hero does not take kindly to Nicky's treatment of Rory, and wishes to rescue him from his predicament.

Beyond the Pursuit is fundamentally a queer novel. The characters are queer, sure, but on top of that, the themes of transphobia, survival, and victim-hood are made with a queer perspective in mind.

How far is it to completion?

The dialogue and prose is complete, the script directions and assets, however, need time. For now, I can share with you a couple backgrounds.

How long is Beyond the Pursuit?

30000 words and two acts. Not terribly long, but enough for a slow-burn.

Why did you delete the original post?

Perfectionism OCD. I also wanted to have more stuff to show before I announced it again.

Where can I follow this game?

I will be posting art and updates right on this blog! And when the demo is ready, hopefully in a couple months, I will release it on my Itch.io.

[ink-flavored]

A Beginner’s Guide to: The Local Gay Book Club

Did another PowerPoint because after doing Pride and Justice, I realized I will never ever stop doing these. I put the descriptions of the slides in the alt text again, let me know how I did!

Pride & Justice Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze @zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales @stesierra @noblebs @thelaughingstag @ceph-the-ghost-writer @damageinkorporated

[fyeahwebnovels]

Okay, I didn’t realize the substack was mostly paid posts. Here’s the free version I’ve been reading: https://ofgeography.com/2024/04/30/the-chilliad-hour-one/

Title: The Chilliad Author: Molly OfGeography Status: Abandoned. For clarity, the first 7-8 chapters are up, but the author is rewriting it entirely and has a paid substack for the new version. Some new chapters may end up being free, but personally I’d say this particular version seems to be abandoned.

Genre: College AU of the Iliad. Comedy, I suppose.

[elentarial]

@tolkienofcolourweek

Day 3: Men-> Eomer, Eowyn, and the Rohirrim

[elvensemi]

Okay you've just had the worst day of your life, now to finish it off you just have to fall asleep alone with a terrifying spider man. Easy, right? 

The Demon Isles is a erotic, second-person monsterfucking romp through the dangerous Demon Isles. The second person character is referred to by  gender neutral terminology and they/them pronouns, physical appearance left ambiguous. Sex scenes have two versions with  different sets of genitalia for the main character. Tags and content warnings are available for each chapter.

[Monsterloving] [Stranded on an Island] [Humanoid Monsters] [Fantasy Australia] [Gender neutral main character]

Parts 1-3 available on Patreon now!

Hi, I'm ElvenSemi and I write webnovels online through Patreon (available monthly) and Ko-fi (available for one-time purchase)! Two updates (SFW and NSFW) every month, plus bonus and behind the scenes content, polls, and more.

Interested in what I'm hawking but no $$$? I'm also on Ao3! There are two works there set in Oceanside, the same setting as this story.

[soultheorywebnovel]

Chapter 3. The "Coworker"

Verise angled her face into the sun. The wind ripped through her hair. 80 miles per hour on wide, empty road was a treat coming from bottleneck city streets.  She nudged her passenger princess for the lighter. He was, for all Minjung knew, Verise’s “coworker”, but it did not elude Verise (ever) that Kenny was her longtime boss. Given that her last shift was last week, was he now just… Kenny? She would pout at hardly seeing him anymore and grin at all the memories. Kenny being the manager had made everything better. Hotter. More useful. He never scheduled her in any way she didn’t want, and he was always great to look at. And that endless game…of cat and mouse.

Ao3

Wattpad

Title: Soul Theory Author: hardsoo Rating: Mature CW: See Tags on Ao3/Wattpad

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

the golden hour (stay gold)