#and an ask is more appropriate for the communication than a reply or rb

[pronouncingitwang]

hey, i saw your post on how to make asian american ocs without adding stereotypical shit and it was very helpful. but im not sure if you can help me make ocs of other cultures like a hispanic oc without being racist?

also, how do i make a fanfiction of my chinese american oc celebrating lunar new year without being racist? do i include the dancing dragons and things, and the rice as well, but some people might say that rice is a stereotype...?

short answers first:

i haven't made any posts like that as far as i remember. did you send this ask to the wrong person?

no, i can't. asian americans and hispanics aren't interchangeable.

i would not classify "the rice" (by which you mean eating rice?) as a stereotype

long answer:

I may sound annoyed at points in the following paragraphs. If you need to prepare yourself emotionally for that, please do so before continuing.

-

I think a lot of people come into online spaces that discuss racism in writing before they develop within themselves a solid understanding of discrimination, how creative works can reflect and perpetuate prejudice, and what their own beliefs and responsibilities regarding that are. In reading posts, they just pick up "racism is what bad people do" and "I don't want to be a bad person because then strangers will yell at me on the internet." This is my advice for these kinds of people.

Get in the right mindset:

Wanting to learn is a good thing, but your intentions need to be in order so you can receive and use the information you receive most effectively. Think about the actual material harm people face in the world because of systemic and interpersonal racism. Be open to criticism. Don't shut down as soon as you think someone's calling you racist. Don't expect PoC to have the time and patience to answer your questions unless they explicitly say they do. Don't wallow in guilt. Don't beg PoC to absolve you.

Your ultimate goal should never be "how do I make an X OC without being racist"? Characters who are different from you aren't walking landmines ready to go off as soon as you attach a slightly stereotypical trait to them, nor are they a great moral burden to bear. You should instead ask, "how do I see X people as people?"

Read more:

Consume articles, videos, posts, and books about the everyday lives of real people with identities your OCs have. Talk to people in real life. Connect with them like the fellow human beings they are rather than research subjects. Don't assume that their lifestyle or opinions are shared by every person of their ethnicity.

Regarding writing specifically, there are many easily-accessible articles, videos, posts, and books out there that can answer your questions. I may not agree with everything that's out there, but I'm just one person. Read a lot of different sources. You can find common ideas between different thinkers, exercise your own judgment when two disagree, and develop a better understanding on this topic in general.

You can also read existing books or watch existing shows/movies that feature characters of color. Make sure some of them have writers who share that character's identity, though that's not a prerequisite for greatness.

I would also advise you to do all of this reading before sending anyone else an ask. I'm generally open to answering questions, but this answer took me hours to think over and write, but your questions read as slapdash and naive. You're asking people to put in a lot of work for some queries that could instead be answered or illuminated through a combination of web searches and your own judgment. If you still have concerns after a lot of independent research, try a resource like the writingwithcolor tumblr (also a good - but not the definite - source for reading material).

Base reality:

Do research to ensure you're 1. being factually correct and 2. accurate to your setting.

For your Lunar New Year fanfiction (assuming it's set in the present day), instead of wondering if rice is stereotypical, look at some recipe blogs written by Chinese people and describe the ingredients and flavor profile during a meal scene. Think about where your character realistically would've first eaten this food or learned to make it. If your OC would think about certain aspects of the holiday in Chinese instead of English, check if you have the correct Chinese characters/pinyin for lion dancers, red envelopes, or anything else they'd partake in. What city does your OC live in? Look up what kinds of Lunar New Year events get put on there each year. Would they go there, do something more intimate at home, or not give a shit about LNY at all? Is there a parade/restaurant/variety show/etc. in another city they would go to instead?

Race-blind casting has been more popular of late, which isn't a bad thing. It gives actors of color more career opportunities and allows kids to see more people who "look like them" on screen. However, some characters of color who were cast race-blind come across as repainted white people, and that's often because the writers are ignoring base reality. For example, in the Doctor Who episode "Rogue," set in 1813 England, alien characters refer to wanting to "cosplay" the ongoing British colonization of the time. At the same time, there's an Asian woman at the ball and the Doctor, a Black man, dances with a white woman without facing ire. The established setting of racist 1813 England is in conflict with how characters of color are treated in the episode, and it makes for a jarring watch.

Of course, being accurate to your setting looks different based on factors like genre, time period, and location. If you're in a fantasy world or writing a children's book with a certain tone, race-blind casting might be appropriate, or discrimination could be drawn along different lines. If you're writing realistic fiction, a character's race/ethnicity likely affects their barriers to education, income, immigration status, neighborhood of residence, food, etc. Check out laws and attitudes of that time to understand the various kinds of treatment and lifestyles your OC could be experiencing.

Your character doesn't have to conform to expectations, but you - and they - should be aware of them. If your character doesn't face period-typical racism, think about why. Do they have a lot of money or the right friends? Are they in an exceptionally accepting area, and if so, why is that area that way? What are the precautions your character takes if they go somewhere else? If your Chinese-American character doesn't eat Chinese food, why? Did their parents prefer cooking something else? Do the grocery stores in their area cater to a different audience?

Add to, don't subtract from:

Chinese-Americans aren't a monolith. For pretty much every stereotype, trope, or piece of racist propaganda, there will be a person for whom that is true. There are Chinese people whose parents forced them to be doctors, a la Tiger Mom stereotype. There are Chinese men who have raped white women, a la Yellow Peril sexual fears. However, these people are still people. They have pasts that they lived and thoughts and motivations that they act on now. The issue with stereotypes is that they flatten and dehumanize. If you make a character 3D, you can worry about "being racist" a lot less.

There's not just one approach to writing an Asian character. Jason Mendoza (The Good Place) is set up as a direct subversion of Asian stereotypes while Joan Watson (Elementary) is a former surgeon who can speak some Mandarin, knows a bit about Chinese medicine, and goes to dim sum with her mom. Both of them are fleshed-out characters who have a lot more going on than Being An Asian Character.

Why did those "tiger parents" want their kid to be a doctor? If it's prestige so they can brag to their friends, why does that matter to them and what do they find respectable about doctors? If it's for their kid's financial security, what was their experience with poverty growing up and when raising their child? Outside of their parenting style, what are their hobbies? How is their marriage? What's the kid's relationship to medicine? to their parents? How do their parents' communication and discipline styles affect how they navigate relationships today? Who are their friends at school? What's their favorite childhood memory? What's their favorite career memory? Can they ride a bike? What's their go-to karaoke song? What does their dream house look like?

That being said, some stereotypes - such as my Yellow Peril example - carry much more weight than others because of how they've been used historically to suppress civil rights or stir up sentiment against a group. In those cases, it's important to avoid phrasing or framing that plays into these narratives. Your Asian rapist should not be fueled by ~dangerous, exotic sexual desires~ or seek to ~despoil white purity.~ Also, in these cases, get some second opinions from a sensitivity reader.

It's also nice to have multiple Asian-American characters in a story instead of just one, but don't treat it like a "if this Asian character is good at math, which is a stereotype, I'll balance them out with this Asian character who's bad at math" game. Asian-Americans are just likely to know other Asian-Americans, and having those peers can help you flesh out your main character and setting.

Panic less:

No matter what you do, you can still receive criticism. There's no amount of research that guarantees 100% factual accuracy, and there's no bulletproof list of rules that guarantees that every single person will be happy with your writing. What makes one person feel seen or empowered may deeply piss off another person. Learn to accept that.

[madd-information]

Hi, I just found out that there is an entire community for maladaptive daydreamers here and it’s so relieving.!! Bc I feel less alone. I just created a blog to rb and interact with everyone but I’m not sure how the community works at all. Like the tags, and the names used like paras and so. Could u give me an explanation how things work around here? Like things I should keep in mind and how to inset myself in the community:) thank u so much by the way

I’ll do my best!

@babydollsmadd has a good list of MD tags HERE.  Avoid using #MDD, that’s the major depressive community and were well established before we ever showed up. If you want your posts to be seen you should always use tags, people often search specific tags rather than rely on their home feed to show them what’s new in the community. #actuallymadd and #maladaptive daydreaming seem to be the most active.

I have a post detailing some of the common terms HERE and many other blogs have their own glossaries, HERE’S one by @chaosdreamchronicles.

Overall the MD community is very welcoming.  You’ll see a mix of posts, some focus on positivity, some are vent posts, some informative, some detail their struggle or treatment and some focus on creativity by posting art of their characters/paras and some offer their blog space as an anonymous outlet for others. 

You will come across some blogs that dislike their posts being shared outside of the MD community, they will usually announce this in the post in some way using a banner or the tagging system; read the tags of posts, they very often add supplemental information or context about what you’re reading. If there are no tags keep in mind it may be a post they did not intend to reach any further than their followers and reconsider if it’s appropriate to reblog. 

Read bios and descriptions, people will often detail who they a comfortable interacting with.  Things like not being comfortable interacting with bloggers of a certain age or blogs who often post material they are not comfortable seeing on their feed. 

People also appreciate trigger warnings if you’re going to be posting material that may warrant one.  I’m really not the best person to ask about Tumblr etiquette when it comes to this topic though, being what I am I almost never use trigger warnings.  Followers might request that you tag certain material, some might even ask you if there’s anything they should tag, how you handle it is up to you, sometimes people may have to block you for their own mental health, sometimes you may have to block others, it’s just what needs to be done sometimes and there’s no shame in it. 

As far as following/interacting, here’s what I’ve done;  I like and reblog a lot of posts, anything that seems relevant to the direction of my blog. I reply to whatever I am able to and I ask my followers to weigh in with their experiences and opinions. And I follow a lot of people.  I follow back anyone who follows me but when I’m following someone cold I check their blog and only hit that button if MD is specifically mentioned in their name, description or bio or if they have specifically reblogged a post titled something like “reblog if you’re a madd blog” (I don’t want to accidentally ‘out’ anyone). On a side note, try not to get too upset if someone asks you to unfollow them, I’m a little lax with my follows and people have to DM me to unfollow them sometimes when I’ve hit that button blind. It happens and it’s not personal. 

And I use asks! A lot.  Ah, I see a few followers out there thinking “hmm, do you? I’ve never gotten an ask from madd-information”.  Yes, you probably have.  Asks are wonderful because you and click the little anonymous button and no one will know who sent it. I don’t have a personal blog so when I feel like sharing those things I do it anonymously through other blogs. And sometimes I just send fan mail, don’t be afraid to show support or appreciation for a blog you’ve been stalking, asks are almost always welcome in our tightknit little community. 

Submissions are a little different, not everyone will have button turned on and they can be used in a few different ways.  You can use them to create content somewhere when it’s not particularly relevant to your own blog, particularly for blogs more focused on curating content for the community rather than chronicling the experiences of the blog owner, like a few of the ones linked above. And on some blogs you can use them to advertise, I’ll let those people make themselves known in the notes.  

My blog is one of those you can advertise on;  If you have links to an MD resources or information you can use the submissions button to write your own post about it and have it shared here, which can be helpful for smaller blogs who may not otherwise be seen very widely. I’ll approve requests for MD information as well, you may need the aid of the wider community rather than just me and can use submissions for that rather than asks. If you want to plug your MD community, Youtube channel, website or art, I also approve those or, as the case is here, if you’re a new blog you can also submit an introduction post and pick up a few followers that way. I do reblog introduction posts when I see them, but I don’t always see them and this can help if you’re one who fell through the cracks. 

As wonderful as this community is we do disagree and argue.  The content reflected here may not always be what you need.  You may be using creativity and positivity to cope with your MD and find vent posts pull you down to a dark unhelpful place.  You may be someone who needs to vent and distance yourself from daydream content and find posts with a more positive spin enable problematic behavior in you.  Sometimes we get frustrated and lash out at one another. It’s important to remember that we are a community of all different ages, sexes, nationalities, genders, cultures, socio-economic status’ etc and within that we are a community of people with very different experiences of MD, different in the severity, different in the causes and different in our approaches to dealing with it. Be considerate, try to forgive, everyone here is your future best friend and we’re very glad you found us. 

[my-autistic-things]

Okay guys, since this post is suddenly blowing up in the past couple days, I thought I'd rb and add a few comments esp replying to these two people @ti-bae-rius @our-planet-is-going-to-explode

You guys are 100% right in the facts that 1. Lack of empathy does not equal autism and 2. These online tests are neither accurate nor even can be used to diagnose anyone with anything. And, I'm not toooo familiar with the DSM at my very tired brains moment, but yeah, lack of empathy isn't going to be a key part of you getting an autism dx and having empathy (hyper or an average level) wouldn't prevent you from a dx either.

I wanna explain a bit about why [lack of] empathy and autism is linked together in so many perspectives. Empathy requires theory of mind, and that's something autistic people have a lot of trouble with. Theory of mind, simply, is taking on someone else's perspectives. This can be interpreting motive, others feelings, predicting others behaviors/actions/responses/words/etc., and interpreting how others view yourself. If you have difficulties with theory of mind, it's very difficult to know how others are feeling because you just don't understand the situation.

Secondly, people with autism (and ADHD too) feel emotions very intensly. That's how we get extreme traits like hyper empathy and low empathy, and also why BPD and autism are very similar. When we get happy, we get Happy. When we get sad/depressed, we get Sad. So, when we feel empathy torwards someone/something else, if tends to also be very extreme too. If we can take on that person's perspective for that situation and understand their pain, then we will feel that A Lot. That's how we get hyper empathy. If we can't take on the other person's feelings, then we get low empathy. It's not even that you're incapable of feeling anything torwards another person, it's that you can't understand their perspective from your perspective. It's very very difficult thing to do and neurotypicals don't do this easily either (even tho they claim to). We're talking about this pretty in depth in my linguistics class rn and it takes so much cognitive ability to have theory of mind, plus cultural and communication barriers occur, plus on top of that just pure miscommunication, and then there's also the issue of just not being familiar with the context/person/situation/your distracted/you've been primed with another situation/etc etc etc. Basically, it's a lot and it's very hard and my class can't theorize how humans are (theoretically) so good at it.

My point is, this is a fun test to take to see how low/high your score is on these specific questions. It doesn't mean you have low empathy necessarily, but it does ask questions about empathy so if you have a low score it is likely you do have generally lower empathy. Again, having low empathy doesn't mean you're autistic, and being autistic doesn't mean you're going to score low on empathy tests.

Lastly, I'd like to remind everyone, empathy, sympathy, and compassion are three different things. Having sympathy (feeling bad for someone, ex: staying up at night to talk to your sad friend, comforting someone crying) is much more important than empathy (feeling what someone else is feeling, ex: seeing someone cry makes you sad and cry too). Having human compassion and sympathy are things every human is capable of, and it's also a part of being a nice person. You don't need to feel someone else's pain not to be a dick to them. It helps to understand others and respond in appropriate ways, but you can still care deeply about others and be an amazing friend with low empathy.

Bored at the laundromat so I took the Empathy Quotient test impulsively bc I saw a post about it and...

(my score is 20 our of 80, indicating lack of empathy)

Hm yeah that seems accurate.

Here is the link: https://psychology-tools.com/test/empathy-quotient