#I'm stressing I AM STRESSING about posting but I had to

[physalian]

Describing skin tones with food!

I am 100% not any authority on how you should describe non-white skin-tones, disclaimer.

I remember reading in a few places when writing my various diverse casts on ways to describe traits that are culturally specific here, but can’t really be called the same in fantasy settings (like dreadlocks).

I had a sensitivity reader for a Black-coded character who called me out on accidentally saying she was “white-knuckling” something. Honest mistake, I didn’t think twice about what “white-knuckling” literally means, it’s always been shorthand to convey fear and stress. Whoops.

But the other thing I remember seeing in quite a few places was avoiding using food to describe darker skin tones, and the one food I saw everywhere was, of course “chocolate”.

Majority consensus was that using food as a descriptor can look derogatory, especially something like chocolate that tends to also pop up in fiction that fetishizes darker skin tones, it’s always chocolate. Food is something you consume for pleasure, not something that denotes respect and autonomy of a person.

It's a small, small thing, and I don't think one instance of 'chocolate' is going to earn you a spot on a pyre, but it is cliche, and we can do better!

Issue then being that when you think of brown things, the immediate options you think of aren’t the same caliber as pale things. Wood types, and even then those are… eh? Mud is brown, dirt is brown, clay can be brown. Most woods aren't a perfect match-up for the wide range of darker skin tones and saying "her skin was black like black wood" is ridiculous and "her skin was black as soil" is insulting.

I think nuts and other natural materials are okay? (not the authority, not the authority at all) But it does then come down to which similes you use dependant on the story you're writing. If we're writing about a nature sprite and say their skin is the color of an acorn... yeah that tracks. If I'm writing a CEO of a major coporation, and describing their skin as the color of acorns, that's weird.

Whiteness on the other hand gets things like snow, paper, milky, creamy, alabaster, ivory, lily, daisy, etc. Even when whiteness is described with food, ‘milky’ doesn’t carry the same undertones as ‘chocolatey’.

I do go out of my way, for characters where it fits, to deliberately describe white skin tones with food just to shake up the balance a little bit and see if anybody notices.

So! Some pale-skinned food comparisons if anyone else wants to try with varying levels of cheekiness, and also to emphasize just why ‘chocolate’ can be a little bit insulting:

Cream

Milk

Eggshell

Powder

Banana

Yoghurt

Pear

Mozzarella

Cauliflower

Mushroom

Potato

Butter

Macadamia

Cashew

Parsnip

Water chestnut

Coconut

Truffle

Tofu

Wonder Bread

Sushi rice

In all seriousness, I used this post as part of my research way back when. At the end of the day, you don’t usually have to get that specific, certainly not every time mentioning their skin pops up in the narrative.

I can imagine using the above words if a character is either joking or insulting someone else ("that cauliflower fuck"), but not in any casual context, much less romantic or as a means to describe attractiveness. It’s just for fun plz see the satire.

[okeydokiescribbles]

When you're Bakugou Katsuki, in @ofmermaidstories's surrender (whenever you're ready), and you have to do this dumbass photoshoot with your old class and Round Face (in your 20,000¥ aerodynamic pants), but you don't know Weeds is going to buy this magazine and sit on a train thinking about how your world is by appointment only 😔

[to-boldly-escape]

Data in Gold <3

Expand for higher qualityy

[starmonsterrr]

[ * hey hello quick announcement I vibe with proshippers now (I have sorta nuanced views but I'm closer to being proship and I'm comfy hanging out with them so. If you don't vibe with that there's the three dots in the top right corner of this post, click that and it should give you the option to block me) ]

Edit 2: [ * HEY WHY DO I HAVE MORE FOLLOWERS NOW. THAT AIN'T RIGHT. THAT DOESN'T ADD UP. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT. I THOUGHT MORE PEOPLE WOULD UNFOLLOW AND MAYBE BLOCK. ]

[residentialsinyomakai]

Yokai to Human Form Tidbit

Ok so there's human designs/ forms for Caspian's yokai friends 1, for fun, and 2, cause there's some situations where it's convenient/just better to have some in human forms (EX: Whisper coming to Caspian's choir concerts and conferences bc his parents are. fairly absent). Everyone has their own opinions on it and stuff and in this post I'ma talk about Baddinyan's!!

So fun little fact he does Not Like being human. This is mostly for body dysphoria adjacent feelings, like all of a sudden he has different hair, no fur, different ear placement, etc. The 'phantom limb' thing tends to happen with his tails, too, which is trippy and kinda uncomfortable. He also hates that a lot of his senses are dulled. smell, hearing, sight (especially in the dark), it makes everything feel kinda hazy and causes him to be a lot more stressed about everything.

Idk maybe I just think it's kinda funny to see a character thrown into a whole new form and reasonably be like. what. the hell this sucks. His easygoing (nice way of me saying his lazy ahh) and usually pretty chill/surprisingly level-headed mood is def worsened when he's constantly feeling skin that doesn't technically belong to him. A form he shouldn't really have.

As a result, he's oftentimes irritable and anxious in this form, with some days being better than others. He typically avoids having to use it unless he needs to though, and refuses to take his glasses off for anything. Has to be bribed with a Chocobar to enma forbid go out in public. He's also less used to it than most due to his extreme aversion to it. He just hates it and everything is physically gross and cloudy and nothing's in the right place and he can't explain why.

Badude, on the other hand, doesn't mind being human! It feels more similar to his body than it does for Baddinyan, and is kind of a fun change of pace every now and then. He's Baddinyan's like. closest friend besides Caspian in this AU, so he's typically who's convincing him to not kill everyone in the room and/or take off the stupid leaf in public lol. Their convos can sometimes go like

"C'mon, it's just until we get outta the store. Don't get your non-existent tails in a twist-"

"Shut up and do nyot remind me right nyeow."

"(Oh it's like. that kind of day whoopsies) Mbmb, we can ditch these nerds and go look at the candy isle or somethin' for a bit..?"

He stinks at comforting people or anything like that but tries. Sometimes. idiots

I'm working on references, but all I have to say about their designs for now is vitiligo Black-Mexican Baddinyan and Mexican-Japanese Badude CANON!!! See you for now! :) Have a radtastical day out there, don't implode or get rocks thrown into your inbox!! (again for some of you...)

[coquelicoq]

i fucking love prereading. getting documents about what's going to be discussed in a meeting and reading them and then going to the meeting and having context for all the things that are happening. if i could do this in all areas of life i would. send me a list of the words i'm going to need the definition of in order to understand what you will be talking about. give me a rundown of what topics might come up during this social encounter. provide detailed documentation of what to expect in a new setting. i will read the fuck out of that shit.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao

[cxpperhead]

Due to the nature of his work, Copperhead isn't active every night. He may spend a week hunting somebody down before delivering the coup de grâce, leaving him with a little free time before picking up his next contract. Copperhead often spends his free time caring for the various snakes and other reptile species that come into his care; sometimes these are animals belonging to former victims but often they are creatures which have been neglected or improperly cared for in some way, the serpent metahuman carefully nursing them back to health before making sure they end up in good hands.

[scissorcraft]

man... i won't be able to finish my Big Pride Art this month :(((

[brittlebutch]

forgive any incomprehensibility but the notion that the world can be cleanly split between the two immutable categories of 'the neurotypical' and 'the neurodiverse' ignores the reality that any person can at any point for any reason be arbitrarily 'diagnosed' by a 'professional' and shuttled between categories with no regard for the notions of 'accurate traits' or 'specific symptoms'. nice dichotomy what lies outside of it? you understand me?

[deeisace]

..

[todayisafridaynight]

brother was talking to me about how if you almost die from an extreme-temperature-related incident then your body is just forever fucked towards that temperature and that's why i think kiryu and saejima are weak to ice. i dont know why aoki isn't like that too but ignore that statistic everything else tracks.

[rolandkaros]

election thoughts

calling trump voters 'dumb' is ignorant. some of these people are dumb but a lot of them are just selfish.

blaming third-party voters is ignoring the issue re: over half the country was willing to vote for trump anyway. likewise, pointing out that trump won the popular vote and that third-party votes wouldn't have made a difference is ignoring the voting system. conversations about third-party voters in general are not fruitful. some people are just going to vote third-party and expecting them to suddenly not do so is naïve. there is no scenario where third-party voters should have been the 'tie-breaker' to begin with.

a lot of people (americans and non-americans) don't understand how the electoral college system works and in general i'd advise you to do some research before you share your take. americans you should know this anyway and don't use the excuse of "i wasn't taught" if you have tumblr then you have the internet so look it up and start reading. i don't expect non-americans to know a foreign country's voting system but if you want to share an opinion please take a bit of time to learn about it before you do. i'm tired of seeing the same dialogues by people who clearly just don't understand the actual structure of the voting system.

pointing fingers at different demographics you think are to blame is useless. if you're going to find a group to blame, then blame the majority, i.e. white men and white women. otherwise your blame is completely unhelpful and misplaced.

saying she only lost because she's a woman or a poc (or both) is also misguided. its not entirely wrong but once again you are misunderstanding some fundamentals of how extremist politicians find success, and likewise are ignoring some obvious issues re: the democratic party and their campaign strategies.

equating education to intelligence to voting preferences in general is ignorant. you are forgetting how many factors go into someone actually receiving formal education. you are forgetting how many factors go into someone's state of residence. i was going to explain this further but i think no one cares so i'm not going to bother because the explanation got too long. also, see point 1. there are plenty of very smart people who vote for trump anyway.

talking about abandoning the south or red states is pointless and if i hear or see anybody suggest such measure i am automatically assuming you are a foul person. equating democratic states to morally or inherently good and republican states to morally or inherently bad is such an unbelievably superficial and foolhardy judgement and goes against all principles of unity and community that we should be fostering at a time like this.

americans ignorant to the effect that us politics has on the world need to wake up.

i don't blame non-americans for their resentment against the sphere of influence of us politics but i wish they would be less dismissive of the genuine effects this election will also have within america.

acting as though anybody doesn't have the right to be scared about the implications of this result is shortsighted at best. my concern goes beyond my own afflictions – how can you say that concern is misplaced?

i have more but i think that's it for now bc its kind of exhausting to talk about. and i guess what's done is done. idk. i'm not hopeless at all. but i'm fearing more and more than the hope i insist on having is childish. but the alternative is complete self-destruction and i have no intention of going down that road again. so childish hope it is.

[kyofsonder]

Life, aiming a loaded crossbow at me: I'm sorry. You were involved in the decisions that led to this, but you can't know whether they're worth it until everything is done. This is the first step. Endure it as best you can.

Me, shot with the crossbow bolt: [looks down and sees a label tied to the bolt that reads "metaphor for stressful situation"] Ow. Thanks for the warning, I guess? At least it's the only thing I'm getting shot with for a good while.

Life, reloading several bolts into the crossbow at once: Have you ever heard of speed shooting?

Me: I want it to be known that I resent this.

Life: Noted. [shoots me multiple times in quick succession]

Me, on the floor and stuck full of crossbow bolts all over my body: Recovering from this is gonna suck.

[shinysteph]

WHERE has vyvanse been all my life I actually feel like a human being

[ihamtmus]

i heard so many nice things about myself from my boss and manager today, it feels good ☺️