vitiligo-is-not-a-trend

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

does vitiligo make you tired or fatigued or anything like that?

vitiligo itself doesn't but you do have a slightly higher chance of developing a co-morbidity which can cause tiredness and/or fatigue

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Hey, I was wondering how a kid would react to being diagnosed with vitiligo at first especially one with a neglectful family?

I'mma be so real that's such a specific and individualized circumstance that I'm not sure I can answer that

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Hey, I want to apologize if my previous ask had made you uncomfortable, I didn’t intend for it to be that way but if it did then I’m sorry.

No you're fine!! <3

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Hey, I was wondering if I should a post about my oc and how their vitiligo affects them and makes them feel? I don’t tend to make it like they hate it, more like how they grew to love themself despite having people being weird out by them because of it or otherwise and express that by using makeup and creating their own makeup because they love it. But I still, I want to know what can go wrong, what should I avoid, what should I do or tips I should be concerned about and implement them in my character, and if I should avoid making the post overall, tell me what you think and you can be honest with me as possible, I’ll understand.

I think you should be fine to make the post! While vitiligo is mostly just "a skin thing" a lot of people over look the societal and personal (especially when it comes to things like how colorism can intertwine with it) effects that it can have on a person, especially in terms of self-worth and confidence, so it's nice to see those things get touched on in terms of characterizations.

As long as it's given respect and understanding in it's depiction you should be good.

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Hey ! Hope you’re having a nice week , I’m dropping by to ask for your opinion as I’ve been working on a webcomic project for a while now and one of the main characters has vitiligo!

My character is a middle aged man who is a monster hunting mercenary , with quite a religious background . He basically becomes the baby sitter/ mentor (and then father figure) of a half something half human girl .

He was born and grew up in the us in the 80s and started developing vitiligo patches (non segmental acrofacial 🤓) around the age seven .My guy didn’t have a great childhood already ,given how vitiligo wasn’t as understood in the 80s and 90s as now it was the excuse for people his age treating him poorly .

In the present day he isn’t disgusted or ashamed of it as when he was younger he himself know why his skin is this way now but still doesn’t like when people point it out , which is a long term after effect of the bullying he went through as a kid .

In his line of work it’s better to not get noticed and he feels like that’s a detail that most people don’t forget . He always wears gloves to cover his hands , wears long clothing most of the time but that also more his personality not just to hide.

Overall he’s a big though guy who looks scary and a girl dad, writing their whole story here would be way too carpel tunnel inducing and way too long 😔

Still I sometimes wonder if I could/should add something more , so I’d like to know if with that summary I made there’s something weird ?

Most importantly I’d like to know what you wish you could see more in medias for characters with vitiligo ! Thank u

I love this man already; I'm a sucker for this type of character <3 LMAO.

I think as long as there's a least one little clarifying conversation that he's covering it for practical reasons and not for shame you should be good to go :D!

Truly, I wish I could give out a list of things I would love to see more in media but the fact of the matter is that there's so little of it in actual media, let alone in popular media, that it feels nearly impossible to think of anything other than "needs a bigger sample size" </3

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Thanks for running this blog, my cousin and my dad’s friend both have vitiligo and it’s always weird to me when ppl say it’s a trend. It’s not THAT rare. It’s like 1% of the population, the same as intersex people, trans people, and plural people. If you’ve ever had a class with 100+ people, you’ve probably had a class with someone with vitiligo. And it’s not even always super noticeable; it’s highly likely that everybody has spoken to at least one person with it, even if they didn’t notice.

LMAO

I think it has to do more with the aesthetic-fication of it than the actual rarity itself. There's also a lot of other factors that could go into it, mainly things like how colorism can change the way people want to depict certain characters; like how vitiligo has a tendency to be used as an excuse to white-wash. It also gets treated like it's a more "palatable" disability compared to a lot of other ones, so it makes it easy for people to go "hey look! I have a disabled character!" without the need to actually do any research or anything.

ageaihgaiehgi sorry for the mini soapbox LMAO

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

One of my characters is an identical twin, and I was planning on giving them vitiligo (it runs in the family, they have another relative with vitiligo). Would it be more likely for both twins to have vitiligo since they’re identical and therefore have the same genetic link, or is it more likely for only one to have vitiligo, since vitiligo development is impacted by environmental factors? Plus, if they both developed vitiligo, would they both have the same type?

Interesting question! While I do think that because they have vitiligo there is an initial chance that they both could develop it, however vitiligo is also extremely dependent on external factors. I did a quick google search and it seems like there's only a 23% chance that they both develop it!

As for whether or not they would have the same type I don't necessarily think that would be the case? There are a LOT of allele that can trigger vitiligo, so not only would it be depending on if they both hit that 23% chance, but if they both have the same genetic code that triggers it. There's also the environmental causes which even if they did develop the same type would still create some differentials in it's presentation. From my understanding, because there are so many factors that go into determining whether or not a person would get vitiligo that it's nearly impossible to predict which type would develop.

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

hi! I'm a furry artist and my favorite animals are cows, I have a couple of spots on my body (I don't really know what to call them since I don't know what condition I have but I know that it isn't vitiligo). would it be okay for me to draw and anthropomorphic cow with my same spots or would it be better to avoid it since some people could think that it is vitiligo?

I'm never going to say no to someone who is seeking out representation for themselves <3; I don't think it's an issue

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Hello! Excellent blog you have here! This question is purely out of curiosity: does skin affected with vitiligo have a different texture than the original skin? While going through your blog, I noticed the affected areas seem to look smoother but I'm not sure if that's because the lack of melanin makes it look like that as an illusion.

Either way, your blog is very informative and I hope you have a nice day!

Thank you, I hope you have a nice day as well!

Not necessarily but I suppose there is a chance that it could develop a different texture due to sun damage if not taken care of properly. It is also possible that there is some sort of optical illusion thing occurring lol

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

I has vitiligo and I really want more white or asian character with vitiligo. Cause when it appeared I didn't know it's not thing that only black people have (it was earlier 10's) and other treat me as some plagued person (even doctors)

I'm sorry to hear that people treated you like that :(. I remember when I was younger I would legit have to go "it's not contagious" which is literally insane.

People LOVE to treat vitiligo as an aesthetic thing and then turn around and be disgusted when someone who doesn't fit their pretty little mental picture has it.

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Hii! So I have a character with vitiligo who is the daughter of a mixed race couple (White and Black), and I was wondering if there was anything I should be extra careful about or if there's anything I need to change.

I'm considering having members of one of the parents family also have vitiligo to justify it, or to draw her in a way where she doesn't have it as a baby (In scenes with baby pictures of her or flashbacks) to express that she developed it later. Though, I'm not 100% sure if that would work exactly.

Personality-wise she's a very bubbly kid that loves to draw and come up with stories to play out with her friends. I have in the past drawn her with a lot of affected skin, about 40-50 percent of her body, is this realistic for an 11 year old? Sorry if i'm asking too many questions haha.

Thank you so much in advance!

Hi! Also don't worry about asking too many questions, I wouldn't have made this blog if I didn't look forward to them :D!

For things to be careful about, you definitely need to wary of any sort of racism/colorism that comes with giving an explicitly non-(fully)white character a disability that changes their skin tone to white. As a mixed person with (universal atp) vitiligo, I've had multiple people make fun of / deny my status as a mixed person because I'm/was too white passing. I've also seen vitiligo used in racist manners to "fix" POC characters (one such example was someone saying that they were using it to "cure" the character). Mixed characters also tend to get depicted as light skinned in media more often than not because of said colorism. (This is of course not me saying that you or this character is perpetuating this "stereotype", I just want you to be aware that these are subjects that might need to be tackled or considered in your story!)

Also to note vitiligo isn't something that develops in utero, so realistically I don't think that she would have it as a baby; usually there's some sort of external stress factor that causes vitiligo to trigger like with most auto-immune disorders.

As for how much her body would be covered I can't really say because it really does vary that much person to person and is extremely dependent on the variation of vitiligo the person has.

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

I’ve got a question regarding one of the characters I’m working on. She was the god of the sky, and as a god the patterns of the sky would kinda move across her skin throughout the day, at one point in the story she ends up kinda cursed to live as a human for a long time, and at one point I kinda had the thought pop into my head of what if as a human she has vitiligo a little bit like the clouds that used to move across her skin. but I’m hesitant, I know when people like use it to like portray an animal character and stuff that’s a big no, and it seems like this is in a kinda similar but probably less bad group yk? Perhaps bordering on ok at best. so I wanted to get opinions from someone who actually has vitiligo, what do you think about doing this?

I think it’s important to mention she wouldn’t be the only disabled character, or even the only disabled god (so very tempted to make the god of healing disabled, it would be very funny ((saying this as a physically disabled person))) I’m a bit to tired to word it good right now, but like, i would plan to make it just a very human thing if that makes any sense, just part of the world yk?

so yeah, looking for thoughts, should I definitely not do this? Is there a way it could be done well? Got any options on other things i mentioned?

Honestly something like that would make me uncomfortable. While you're right it isn't exactly the same as the animal thing, it still has the same issues.

Besides the dehumanization issues with the "turning animal or magical prints into vitiligo" thing, it also makes vitiligo out to just be some silly pattern to put on your character. Because people view it as just a "weird/cool skin thing" a lot of people tend to forget or dismiss vitiligo as an actual disability. By taking these very explicitly non-disabled traits in a non-human character design and turning them into a disabled trait in their human character design is extremely uncomfortable (and frankly a little tone-deaf for lack of a better wording) and minimizes the impact that vitiligo can have on people.

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Navigation: Helpful Posts

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Complication of posts from CrippleCharacters, as well as other blogs providing advice on writing disabled characters!

This post covers the general topics - for posts on specific disabilities, please see part two.

Last update: 12/01/2025

Character Making Basics and Ideas

[large text: Character Making Basics and Ideas]

- How to Start Doing Research When Writing a Disabled Character - Disabilities that are Common but Have no Representation - Facial Differences that Would Be Cool to Actually See Represented - How to Do Historical Research - Our "Disabled Character Ideas" Tag - Our "Character Inspo" Tag - Am I a Bad Person for Not Knowing Something?

How to Describe XYZ?

[large text: How to Describe XYZ?]

- Blindness Tropes: the "Blank Look" - Describing Characters with Facial Differences as Pretty - Difference between Fetishization and Being Seen as Beautiful - First Description: when to mention the Facial Difference - How Often Should You Mention Mobility Aids? - Dialogue and Speech Disorders - Sign Language in Dialogue - Words for Residual Limbs (stumps) - Describing a Limp - Words to Use instead of "Walk" for Wheelchair Users - How to not Describe Facial Differences as "Scary"

How to Draw XYZ?

[large text: How to Draw XYZ?]

- Tips for Drawing Characters with Facial Differences - Annoying Tropes in Art Re:Facial Differences - Drawing Blind Characters - Drawing Amputees - How to Draw (and not draw) Characters with Vitiligo - Drawing Cane Users - Decorating Wheelchairs - Drawing Characters with Down Syndrome - Drawing Characters with Cleft Lip - Drawing Burn Survivors

General

[large text: General]

- What's Off-Limits for Non-disabled Writers? - Writing a Newly Disabled Character - Writing a Visibly Different Character - The Accident - Including Disabled Communities - Disabled Characters in Historical Fiction - Coming up with Fictional Disabilities - Tokenism Discussion - Disability and Superpowers - Curing and "Fixing" Disabled Characters - Is It Realistic to Have Multiple Disabled Characters? - "Jaws Effect": how media affect the real world - Worldbuilding with Accessibility in Mind - How to Let Readers Figure Out the Character's Disability - Does the Disability Need to Have a "Purpose"? - Including Ableism in the Story - Casual Representation vs Fetishization (with albinism as an example) - Including Body Horror without doing an Ableism - Including a Storyline of a Character being Traumatized from Causing Someone Else's Disability

General Tropes

[large text: General Tropes]

- "Super-Crip": Magic and Disability - Abled Characters Pretending to be Disabled - I Did a Trope but It's Too Late - What You Should Do - made with the mask trope in mind, but could be applied more widely - Magical Cure - made with blindness in mind - Including Healing Magic without Disability Erasure - Why is the Cure Trope Bad? - How to Do a Scary Disability Reveal without being Ableist? - Disabled Character Recovering, but without Disability Erasure - Killing off a Disabled Character without Doing an Ableism - Writing a Disabled Villain without Doing an Ableism - What is Fetishization of Disability, and what Isn't - Not All Sign Language Users are Mute and American

Mobility Aids

[large text: Mobility Aids]

- General Overview - Overview, but with More Options - not writing advice, educational - More Detailed Look at Crutches and Canes - Magic Mobility Aids - Tips on Writing Wheelchair Users - Writing a New Cane User - "But Mobility Aids Wouldn't Exist in my Fantasy World" - Basic Information on Service Animals - Should My Non-Modern Wheelchair User use XYZ instead of a Wheelchair? - Accessible Wizarding for Wheelchair Users - Fidgeting with Wheelchairs - Pet Peeves for Cane User Characters - Wheelchair user trying to navigate Inaccessibility - Walkers and Rollators

Other Disabilities

[large text: Other Disabilities]

- Writing Characters with Tourette's Syndrome - Introduction to Writing Characters with Speech Disorders - Writing Little People (characters with dwarfism) - Dwarfism and Fantasy Stories - Stereotypes around Characters with Dwarfism - Writing and Drawing Burn Survivors: basics and resources - Caring for a Burn Scar: the everyday things - On Chemical Burns - Writing Characters with ASPD - Writing a Character with Russel-Silver Syndrome - Complex Dissociative Disorders Terminology: A Basic Primer - What to Consider when Writing about Pollution-induced Disability - Portraying Psychosis + Review of Jinx from Arcane - Difference between "Nonverbal" and "Nonspeaking" - Stereotypes and Tropes around Characters with Gigantism - Writing Guide for Characters with Schizophrenia - Everything Except Hallucinations

Making Your Content Accessible to Disabled Readers

[large text: Making Your Content Accessible to Disabled Readers]

- Why add alt text? - Image Descriptions Tutorial - Writing Image Descriptions for People Who Can't Write Them - "But how do blind people even use alt text" - How to Tag Your Posts (Tumblr) - ScreenReaders and Color Text (Tumblr) - FanFiction Accessibility

Recommended Blogs/Sources

[large text: Recommended Blogs/Sources]

- @blindbeta - @cy-cyborg - @a-little-revolution - @mimzy-writing-online - @writingdrugs - @vitiligo-is-not-a-trend - Fantastic website for any historical needs

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

hi hi!! I have an monk oc with vitiligo in a medieval setting thats heavily based on historical hypocrisies of christianity. i found theres a historical trend to pin physiological occurances and conditions on being religious in nature. so, this character developed acrofacial vitiligo in childhood that extends around the forehead and hands and feet (also to the ears, so he has hearing issues - not very aware of it though he blames everything about himself on being some type of religious thing since the other monks insist so too). this is by all means only the condition, but the monks interpret it as stigmata due to the placement. especially with burns at the areas with vitiligo since he isn't really getting treatment, that is also conflated/explained as being stigmata. as such hes made to believe so too that, but i want to make it clear that this ISN'T the case, that this ISNT stigmata, theres actual physical causes being ignored, especially with how disregard for how it actually affects him. it contributes to a general thread for the writing how in these monasteries pain and sickness was entirely glorified and remained untreated. ive been trying to do research to go into the disabled side of things for vitiligo and make it clear that this is for the larger narrative, basically kinda pointing out how people aestheticize it and ignore the disabled aspect of it. so uh. i just wanted to ask if you think this is fine or completely disastrous sjkshksjksdjs id hate to make people with vitiligo uncomfortable since it does try to grapple discrimination and fetishization.... especially because he himself is in nsfw settings a lot (the vitiligo is not a topic in the nsfw at all, i avoid that entirely) if you have advice to change things or anything else please do tell!

Honestly I AM a little conflicted on how I feel about this (which is why its been sitting in the inbox sorry lmao). Mainly because I DO think it's important to acknowledge that these views did and DO still exist, and to ignore the discrimination that people faced in history is obviously bad. On the other hand, this feels like more of a story best suited to be told from someone with a lived experience of these things, and feels uncomfortable coming from an outsiders perspective.

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Gonna start frothing at the mouth.

I understand that the sentiment is always positive in context but it feels SO weird to me how people are always like "omg vitiligo is soooo pretty people with vitiligo are sooo sexy can't believe god gifted them with two skin tones" (<- actual comments I've seen). Like yes the positivity is nice but it feels like fetishizing the disorder and always makes me uncomfortable...

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Not all marks or discolouration can be attributed to vitiligo, so I was wondering if you would ever assume a character has vitiligo just because they had lighter discolouration on their skin? I've always found it strange how people treat vitiligo as simply a way to add fun patterning to their characters, especially since real vitiligo isn't like that at all. Because of those people though, I am a little worried that if I were to ever experiment with patterns on a character's skin, some may misinterpret them as being from vitiligo despite looking nothing like the real autoimmune disease. Thoughts?

You're that (unfortunately) because of those people/depictions the assumption that it is vitiligo will most likely occur. TBH I don't think there is any real way to avoid it, even when the characters are explicitly not human.

If you do want to experiment with patterns on skin you can try using tattoos, make up, scarification, tanning, or even metal work! Although you would still have to be careful to make sure you arent accidentally appropriating any cultures with these things tho!

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

heyo! just found your blog, great advice here!

so in a story im working on, one of the major characters has vitiligo (not sure what type yet). story is a space war kind of setting, and this character is a humanoid alien species with insect wings/antennae- other than making sure to avoid patterns that look like insect patterns, is there anything i should specifically avoid in this context?

also, she is the main character's girlfriend- is there anything i should make sure to keep in mind here and/or avoid? if its relevant, main character is human specifically because im writing my own disabilities into the hero. these two characters were originally not planned to be in a relationship, that just kinda happened while writing, i accidentally gave them good chemistry lol

sorry for rambling a bit at the end, thanks for taking the time for this :3

I think it's fine and youre welcome!!