#face guide

[hansoeii]

let time pass.

[fell-contract]

Best of ‘23 Unwrapped

[cripplecharacters]

Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?

[large text: Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?]

(TLDR: no. literally no.)

A frequent topic that shows up around facial differences is the self-hatred, self-disgust, self-insert-negative-emotion that we must surely experience. I want to ask* writers without FDs - why? Why do you feel about us in such a way that that's the most common way of depicting us?

*- rhetorical question. I promise I know the answers, but I'm not sure if writers do.

It's frankly worrying to me. Is it really that common to assume that disabled people have this internal, never-ending hatred for themselves? The overwhelming majority of us don't. We hate inaccessibility, when people stare, or some symptoms when they get in the way, or how expensive being disabled is, but I find the concept of us being so completely disturbed by our own disabilities extremely strange. It’s “tragedy porn” intersecting “most basic ableism”.

“But trauma!”

[large text: “But trauma!”]

Trauma of what! People with facial differences don't have some sort of default trauma that we come with like it’s a factory setting. We are a group of people with tens of thousands of stories and experiences!

“Trauma of experiencing ableism/disfiguremisia” - that's better, at least this means something. If you're writing a story about this, please get a sensitivity reader with a facial difference. You can assume how we feel all you want, but in my experience these assumptions are often bizarre and unrealistic. Or just end up writing the same “disability so sad” sob story that everyone has seen a billion times. If you want to write about disfiguremisia, you need to understand the nuance and have more than just the basic level knowledge (which 99% of people don’t have either). If you can’t do that, don’t write about it. Simple as that.

“Trauma of the accident” - thankfully, the accident is an event and a facial difference is a disability. If you want to connect these two like they're one and the same, you're almost surely going to demonize disability. People with traumatic spinal cord injuries, acquired amputees, people with TBI, people with acquired facial differences - we participate in our communities, we have hobbies, we date, we play with our dogs. Disability isn't a death sentence. Media who make it feel like it is certainly don't help people who do suddenly become disabled, don't you think?

Here's a post by @blindbeta about blind characters becoming blind through trauma that’s better made than anything I could hope to write here. I heavily recommend giving it a read.

And, I can't stress this enough - most of us didn't have “the accident”, most of us are born like this! "Traumatic scars" isn't the only facial difference that exists, far from it, it's only one of thousands. It's 99% of our representation and "representation". If you want to make a character with FD - please consider that we aren't a monolith. Just like not all physical disabilities are "wheelchair user with paralysis", not all facial differences are "traumatic scar with somehow no nerve damage".

The overrepresentation of it is incredibly telling, and sometimes - or very frequently - feels like the writer doesn’t actually even want to deal with us. They want to use our disability as a way to cheap drama, moral metaphors, tragic backstories. Not to represent us as living people who are much more similar to you than you apparently think.

Now, I do have enough awareness to know that that's a big part of the appeal. “Horrific Thing #2456 happens” and boom, instant drama! Of course, it's a reasonable response that they would hide their disability for years, avoid talking about it in any way, and magically change their personality to be mean and reclusive, or at least be constantly soooo sad about how much it sucks to be disabled, right?

Do I really need to say that having your character becoming disabled be the worst thing ever is ableism 101? We have been talking about this for so long at this point. Writing about the process of adapting to a specific disability is better left to people who have actual experience in it.

To give an example that will hopefully resonate more with Tumblr users, I will use the fact that I'm also gay. It's not perfect by any means but probably much more familiar territory.

Imagine, let's say, a character. He's gay. The story he's in is supposedly progressive, certainly not trying to be homophobic. The character has experienced an incident, maybe an act of aggression or a hate crime, that happened because he’s gay, which was traumatic. Happens IRL, sure. So of course the character starts hating being gay. He talks about how gross and disgusting it is, he never lets anyone know that he could be “one of them”, certainly not take a stance against homophobia. You can't mention him without mentioning the accident, they're seemingly fused together. No gay love, joy, even basic happiness, he would actually choose to be straight in a heartbeat if given the option to and complains that he can't. This is shown as a neutral, obvious thing that a gay man would do, no one comments on it. He stays like this the whole time, unless there’s a plot twist in the last 10 pages where the world is now magically perfect ("we fixed discrimination, yay!"). This is the only LGBT character in the story.

Keep in mind that there are people similar to this in real life, living with extreme internalized homophobia.

Is this, in your opinion, realistic and thoughtful representation? How does it feel when written by a cishet writer, versus a gay writer who is recalling his experiences? Do you think that it's reasonable for the majority of media representation to be like this, or very close to it? How would it affect younger gay people who might already be uncomfortable with being queer? Are gay men the target audience, or are they not even considered as a group of people who read books? Is this helping or damaging the general public's idea of how it is to be gay? Why or why not?

The Masterpiece

[large text: The Masterpiece]

From 13 to 19 of May, we are celebrating Face Equality week (what a coincidence!). It’s important to me in general - and I wish it was more important to abled people, but I digress - especially its theme for this year.

“My Face is a Masterpiece”

Great statement, it represents the community well, I do enjoy how bold it is. Very cool stuff, I love the work our advocates are doing!

But why do I bring this up?

Well, to very non-subtly show that we aren’t a self-hating group of people. We are a community, a community saying “our faces are beautiful, look!”, we are saying “treat us equally, and do it now!”. Our activism isn’t about self-disgust. It’s about fighting your-disgust. 

Why can’t writers keep up? Why are you still stuck decades behind?

Is this the only reason I bring it up?

The Call to Celebration

[large text: The Call to Celebration]

FEI, the org behind organizing it, asks a very simple question (emphasis mine):

“Why do we so often see stories about facial difference as a ‘tragedy’, when they should be about triumph?” “Calling all artists, allies, creatives, galleries.  You can rewrite the story to bring about #FaceEquality and celebrate the unique artistry found in every face. Your participation this #FaceEqualityWeek will help to tell the real story, that there is a masterpiece in every face.”

Here. We are calling for you to stop. Directly from the biggest international advocacy alliance group that's out there. If you create, this is for you.

The last argument to not have your character with a facial difference hate themselves? Because we don’t want this. We are tired and frustrated. For me personally, I’m also offended by this kind of assumption. We aren’t tragedies or cheap entertainment for abled people to pity or be horrified by. We are people, and if you can’t internalize that, you have no reason to write about us.

For once, celebrate us. Happy Face Equality Week!

mod Sasza

[allastoredeer]

Vox Drawing Guides!

I think I'm going to do one more expression page for him because, despite having the simplest shaped head, I have such a hard time drawing him T.T

[hinamie]

congrats on your recovery n all yuuji but unfortunately for you I thought the scars were cool >:/

[licollisa]

Chara have partly made peace with what had happened. And the last part's going around in the form of a golden flower.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 167

Honestly, Danny is having such a good time right now. He gets to travel with Ellie, explore space, just have fun. Plus his secondary protector-instincts are having soothed despite him not technically doing any hero-ing anymore. Really his sister had the right idea when she decided she wanted to become a doctor, this is honestly a blast.

And if someone does end up passing away, well, Ellie is always happy to help soothe their spirit and guide them to the Realms where they can reach their respective afterlife. Or become a ghost. 

They are completely oblivious to the fact that there are now legends and entire temples dedicated to them now. Apparently accidental ascension is in fact a thing, as Dan later laughs at them about. 

[afterthelambs]

i adore Maruki as a character because he's simultaneously the most relatable depressing character that will make you cry with empathy, and the goofiest wettest cat loser in the game like what do you mean youre a licensed therapist and your first response to trauma is to brainwash a girl, project ur relationship issues onto a 17 yr old boy, and then rule the world in a golden leotard? bro went from 0 to 100 so fast??? anyway he's like 30% of the reason why p5r works as well as it does

[bluerosefox]

Same As The Day I Lost You

I...

This came to me as I'm making dinner so I'll be quick.

What if we mix deaged Danny and twin/older sibling (either one works) Damian, AND he gets tossed to his sibling in a last minute escape.

Like what if he was fighting Vlad who was doing his whole "denounce your father and join me as my son Daniel!" Thing while in the Zone and knocks Danny into something that's floating in the Zone with the ability to deage or was hit by a new Fenton or Plasmius invention while fighting in town that accidentally deages him.

Danny, who in this was adopted, gets put back to the age of six. The same age he had been found by Jazz in a 'haunted' forest Jack and Maddie were visiting/investigating while also using that time as a family vacation. (They were shocked to see a little boy with a stab wound bleeding out and rushed him to the nearby town, almost completely forgetting about the glowing green tiny puddle they found nearby and bagged most of it as evidence when they heard Jazz's scream of terror over finding the hurt little boy)

The sudden revert into that traumatized age, along with the child response to a fight or flight scenario, and add Danny's deepest need/wish to be protected his child fogged mind wishes to go to the one person who always made him feel safe.

His twin/older brother.

Just as quick as it was with Danny being turned into a child, his ghost powers ripped open a portal and sent Danny to the person he wants to be with...

Only he didn't know that right at that moment his seventeen year old twin/older brother is currently fighting the League with his family's help (his mother was trying to convince him to return to the League and be it's heir) in Nanda Parbat (the very place Damian lost the last/only person he knew loved him without any strings attached.)

So imagine everyone's face when a portal opened up, some muttering its a new pit being formed before them or something, and crawling out of it is a very scared and confused six year old Danny.

[fluffyartbl0g]

Someone get this man a younger sibling that ISNT like. Twice his height.

[introspect-la]

OCTOBER 1994 TROCADERO SCHEDULE

[wyfy-meltdown]

The apple scene between Kyoko and Sayaka feels both like "a proper introduction between enemies who no longer wish to fight" and "a final invitation to connect with someone and pull yourself back from the edge".

Sayaka tossing aside Kyoko's gifted apple feels like her making a conscious choice to fully go crazy and a denial of Kyoko's attempt to reach out to her.

Additionally, Kyoko giving away to Sayaka something that holds significance for her (food, which she considers incredibly precious) without any expectation of something in return aside from "connection" is an interesting moment for a character previously depicted as "selfish" and constantly against Sayaka.

Kyoko sharing her story TO Sayaka is a moment of vulnerability, later matched by her sharing her story WITH Sayaka by sacrificing herself when she likely could've defeated Oktavia without dying in a effort to ensure Sayaka wouldn't be alone anymore.

[cripplecharacters]

Facial Differences that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More

[large text: Facial Differences that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More]

As it has been said many times on this blog before, facial differences are a very wide spectrum - there’s thousands of conditions that cause it, and they’re often extremely different from each other! It’s an incredibly diverse category almost by definition. But…

In books, movies, and our inbox, it seems that a traumatic battle scar is the only facial difference that exists. I find this rather frustrating because I would like to see the real life diversity to be actually considered by writers when creating characters - and that’s exactly what this post is for. I hope that by making people just aware of the myriad of options they have, I can help a bit. 

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t write characters with scars, it’s to say that there’s more for you to consider. Just like not every physically disabled person has hip dysplasia and not every neurodivergent person has epilepsy, not every person with a facial difference has scars! 

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive - no such list exists, it would be like “list of every disability ever”, it simply can’t be done. This is just a dozen random facial differences that I would like to see incorporated into characters more often!

Facial paralysis Exactly what the name implies. There are many types of facial paralysis - complete, partial, bilateral, unilateral, chronic, acute, and it can affect the whole face, or only part of it.  Sometimes it can cause problems with speech or dry eyes (mostly the latter), but it’s frequently just primarily a visual difference. A person with facial paralysis might be completely unable to make facial expressions at all if it’s severe, or have a lop-sided smile and inability to raise an eyebrow or control an eyelid like me. Causes include cranial nerve damage (especially the 7th nerve, which is called facial palsy), Bell’s palsy, Möbius syndrome, or multiple sclerosis! It can be congenital, like in my case, or acquired, like in most cases - mostly due to stroke. Here I would write something about the current media representation being good, bad, or what tropes to look out for but I don’t know a single character with it. So :-)

Anotia/microtia Microtia is a congenital facial difference that affects the outer ear(s) - as the name implies, they’re smaller than average; anotia means a complete lack of them. This usually will also result in being d/Deaf or hard of hearing in that ear, as the ear canal can be smaller or closed (depending on the “grade”). People with microtia who decide on using hearing aids will usually wear a bone-anchored hearing aid, which looks very differently from the “regular” HA; it’s worn with a headband. Microtia can be the only facial difference that a person has, but it can also be a part of Goldenhar syndrome, Treacher Collins syndrome (mentioned below!), or hemifacial microsomia.

Congenital Trochlear Nerve palsy I have a subtype of this, and because it happens to have the most boring name in existence I have never seen anyone talk about it, certainly not see a character with it. So! CNIV palsy (again, an incredibly catchy name) is a disorder of one of the very-easy-to-damage nerves that allow eyes to move. It causes constant double vision, severe strabismus, and progressive facial asymmetry. A person with CNIV palsy will have a 24/7 head tilt to the side and will have their chin tucked in, which causes said asymmetry - facial features on the side of the tilt will sag down, the eye will “sunk” in, and because it’s congenital, the jaw can grow to be misaligned (like mine!). Over time, it causes neck pain and kyphosis, so add chronic pain to that. Trochlear nerve palsy can be congenital, acquired, traumatic, and even extremely rarely genetic (that’s me! allegedly <1 in a million). However, most acquired cases are only temporary, and “fix themselves” with the passage of time. Again, I would love to write something about CNIV palsy representation, but I’m fairy confident it doesn’t exist : )

Sturge-Weber syndrome The most visible part of SWS - that you might be familiar with - are port wine stains! In this syndrome, they tend to be large and generally cover the forehead-eye area. Around 15% of people with any kind of port wine stain on their face have Sturge-Weber syndrome, and even more when it comes to larger ones. Most people with SWS will have epilepsy since childhood, and many will develop glaucoma (which causes blindness) if the PWS is around that eye. Hemiparesis (one-sided weakness) can also sometimes happen on the opposite side of the PWS. Here is a short article about media representation from a person with SWS!

Cystic Hygroma Also known as lymphangioma, it is a bump that mostly happens on a person’s lower face and/or neck. It’s almost always congenital and a result of a blockage in the lymphatic system (thus lymphangioma). Sometimes, if it affects the mouth or jaw, it may cause a speech disability where the person’s speech might not be fully understandable, or cause an airway obstruction; this generally means that the person has to have a trach tube in their neck to breathe. Here is a short article about living and growing up with cystic hygroma by Atholl Mills!

Congenital melanocytic nevus A complicated name for a specific kind of birthmark! Melanocytic means related to melanin, so it’s a black or brown birthmark that can show up on any part of the body and be of almost any size. Sometimes it can be hairy as well. While CMN doesn’t usually cause any problems, people who have it have a higher risk of skin cancer, epilepsy, and brain tumors. Here is a short article on representation - among other things - by a person with CMN!

Ptosis Ptosis is actually really common - I can almost guarantee that you have seen someone with it - but for some reason it never shows up in media, unless it’s to show that a character is under the influence or vaguely creepy. Ptosis is simply a drooped eyelid. It’s caused by damage to the third cranial nerve, which can be congenital, acquired, traumatic, etc. It’s very common in myasthenia gravis and CHARGE syndrome. In most cases ptosis is a visual thing, but it can sometimes cause problems - for me, it partially obstructs my vision and for some people who acquired it later in life that can cause pain (due to having to constantly lift the eyebrow). Ptosis is often misunderstood, and people tend to make bizarre assumptions about those of us who have it - even Wikipedia cites “looking sinister” as a symptom (not that I particularly trust Wikipedia as a source, but it shows the general public’s view quite well). In real life, we are normal people and all these “drunk/high/rude/evil” associations aren’t true at all.

Treacher Collins syndrome You have probably seen a person with TCS at some point, as it’s not that rare. This is a genetic, congenital disability that affects the development of the face. The bones of the jaw and cheeks are underdeveloped, eyes have a downturned shape, and microtia/anotia is often present as well. A lot of people with Treacher Collins are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. Sometimes, the small jaw might cause problems with breathing, which is why a lot of people with TCS will have a permanent tracheostomy tube in their neck. Similar to ptosis, eyes in TCS are often seen as “looking sad”, but that’s an incorrect assumption - that’s just how they look like. The main and only big representation of TCS in media is that one awful movie from a few years ago, that was literally just inspiration porn featuring an able-bodied actor based on a shitty book, made by an author with some sort of abled-person guilt. Very cool, don’t do that.

Crouzon syndrome Crouzon syndrome is a type of craniosynostosis; a congenital condition where a person’s skull fuses too early. There are other disabilities that can look somewhat similar, like Pfeiffer or Apert syndrome, but they are different!  CS will affect the person's skull - it will be taller than usual, eyes - they will be large and bulging, midface - it's often smaller than average and can look sunk in comparison to the jaw and forehead, and more! Sometimes people with Crouzon syndrome are d/Deaf or hard of hearing (very common with craniofacial differences), or experience long term effects of hydrocephalus, which happens fairly often. Here is a short article by Mikaela Moody about movie representation - and her piece on how it to be trans while having a facial difference, which I relate to a lot and wanted to share:-)

Phthisis bulbi Phthisis bulbi is something that I have mentioned on this blog before, as it logistically should be represented way more often in fiction than it currently is. It's also known as the “end-stage eye” which is a pretty metal name. This is an ocular difference that can result after trauma to the eye. It can also result from a million other things, but trauma is apparently the most common thing to happen to an eye in fiction, so. With phthisis bulbi, the eye shrinks, sinks, and everything inside becomes stiff; this is permanent, and the eye isn't functional anymore - it's blind and unable to move. The only treatment is to have the eye removed, especially if it causes pain. If you're writing a character who got a Hot Sexy Scar over their eye and still has that eye, they probably should have this (and yes, the “shrunk and sunk” part is mandatory, you can't just make the eye lighter and call it a day).

Frontonasal dysplasia Frontonasal dysplasia is a congenital facial difference that affects the structure of the face. While it's a spectrum with a lot of variety, most people with FND will have hypertelorism (eyes spread widely apart), a flat and broad nose, and a cleft going through the middle of the nose. Other facial clefts (not necessarily just cleft lip) are also common. Sometimes, someone with it can also have cranium bifidum (meaning a brain/meninges that protrude through the skull, similar to how spina bifida works), or intellectual disability related to the potential absence of corpus callosum. Rarely, limb differences can also be a part of it; absent tibia, extra toes, or clubfoot. Again, I’m unaware of any representation of FND outside of “scary birth deformity” on medical shows :--)

Parry–Romberg syndrome PRS is also known as progressive hemifacial atrophy, which is a much more descriptive name. It’s an acquired facial difference that people just get for unknown reasons, mostly before the age of 20 and usually between 5 and 15. Generally, PRS is considered to be slowly-progressing, but this can vary pretty widely between different people. As the name implies, it causes atrophy in the face, which affects everything from skin to fat and muscles to sometimes even bones. Some people will also experience skin darkening, alopecia (hair loss), or trigeminal neuralgia (very severe nerve pain) on the atrophied side. The difference between the two sides can be very pronounced, with a visible line between the halves showing up on the forehead. Again, no existing rep that I know of :-)

And as always, I recommend this short PDF that in my opinion any writer who wants to include a character with an FD has to read. Additionally, you can also check our #face difference tag, this primer on facial difference, or this piece on making sure you’re not contributing to disfiguremisia.

Also apologies for the amount of “idk what to say about already existing rep because it literally doesn’t exist afaik” but I hope it illustrates the problem :-)

Happy Face Equality Week!

mod Sasza

[spaceyderg]

Tried making a hair guide for Comic Miguel, confused myself after making a ref board and just gave up. I did write down some stuff I noticed while making this. Both ATSV and Comic Miguel's hair is a lot easier to draw with the lasso tool

[whaliiwatching]

sparks fly

cleared the smoke for you