Just decide

Woman: “And now you want me to teach you jiu jitsu.”

Man: “If you don’t mind, Miss Plum.”

Plum, loud and excitedly: “IT’LL BE A PLEASURE.”

*She rips his tuxedo jacket off his shoulders, grips him aggressively, and yeets him over her shoulder in a jiu jitsu martial arts fashion*

Man: *Clasping her arms a few seconds later while she looks coyly at him* “Now, let me see. Um. Let me do it to you.”

*He appears very concentrated, the camera shifts to her soft smile and romantic music begins to play, accentuating a mood that he is NOT picking up on*

“Now, let me see first of all I, um,- I pull this down.” *He pulls her cardigan off her shoulders, her collarbone now exposed and she likes it that way, she looks very obviously at his lips, like this lady has absolutely zero chill*

“Now I do this!” *He jilts her shoulders into them so their faces are centimeters away, she looks like she would like to eat his face and he is still very concentrated but in a giddy boy way*

Him: “Then I hold you close!”

Plum: “Closer.”

Him, confuzzled: “I beg your pardon?”

Plum: “Closer!! Close as you can!” *She is mentally having sex already*

Him: “Oh, yes.” *He searches her eyes for direction*

Him: “Now what do I do?”

*Miss Plum is absolutely beaming*

Plum: “Don’t you know?”

*She wants him to do things to her and he stands there mouth agape. You can see his one braincell struggling visibly in his hollow brain as realization of the century is dangling in front of him. He’s about to realize and then*

Him: “Of course! Now I apply the leverage!” *And he yeets her on to the floor*

*The music swells and fades, telling the audience that this man’s one braincell has failed him. Himbo of the century.*

now keep in mind there only speaking Japanese i don’t know what they are saying, then another guy joins in, so i got a group of three penguin friends

we just waddle around and goof about, the one of them tries to talk to me, but not only do i not have a mic i also don’t speak Japanese, they figure out i don’t speak Japanese and start listing various places, they get the part of being European right, and after listing a lot of places they ask if im from the UK and when i nod they all just start cheering. after hanging out for a while one of them gets real close to me and whispers…

but i was naïve. it's apparently about every positive experience. enjoying a meal? you're so lucky, children are starving. spending your day off cosy in bed? wow, so selfish, homeless people are freezing to death.

Please, please I’m begging you, use firefox.

PLEASE install firefox as a mobile browser and then run adblock on your mobile browser it’s so good I promise.

Look.

Look.

I know I’m a total grind about open source stuff but browsers are the PERFECT place to learn to love open source software and for so long FireFox was a major part of the browser market and sometimes if you want to see what kind of fuckery google is up to it helps to see the kinds of things they block in firefox and just

There’s an organization that makes free, excellent, safe software that doesn’t collect and market your data but for some reason two thirds of the world uses a google product and most of the leftover population uses apple and just

I promise, firefox is so good - the extensions are incredible look - I can use lightbeam to see what sites I use and how they connect to other sites (bottom right should give you an idea how much time I spend on tumblr)

or I can look at ublock origin and see that it’s blocked over 2 million requests since I installed it or I can run the facebook container extension and stop facebook from tracking me and you know what I bet you can do a lot of that on chrome too but you’re doing that while chrome itself is tracking you and gobbling up your activity for google and

firefox is so fuckin great and it’s such a great ambassador for other open source projects please be a big old fuckin nerd with me and use firefox and run a bunch of funky extensions and customize the fuck out of your web experience.

Wanna be a hacker? Firefox.

Wanna use instagram on desktop? Firefox.

Wanna be a killer researcher? Firefox.

Wanna properly credit artists? Firefox.

Wanna read a whole shitload of books? Firefox.

Wanna make video responses to shitlord youtubers?

Wanna shoot cat lasers at bugs?

Wanna use youtube as a music streaming service?

FIREFOX.

What is stimming?

In it’s most simple form, stimming is a repetitive body movement that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner.

What types of stims are there?

Visual Stims

Flapping hands, blinking and/or moving fingers in front of eyes, staring repetitively at a light, pressing on closed eyes to create visual effect [pressure phosphene], …

Auditory Stims

Snapping fingers, tapping on objects, listening to the same song on a loop, rolling Rs, “cat noises”, repeating words, putting hands over ears, singing, clicking tongue, humming…

Tactile Stims

Scratching, rubbing the skin with one’s hands or with an external object, pinching the skin, putting thumb inside fist, sucking thumb, rubbing hands/feet together, petting preferred textures, tying knots/twirling string, twirling/stroking hair…

Vestibular Stims

Moving body in rhythmic motion, rocking front and back or side-to-side, spinning, pacing, walking in circles, walking on tip-toes, jumping up and down…

Taste Stims

Licking body parts, licking an object…

Smell Stims

Smelling objects or hands, smelling other people…

Rhythmic Stims

Tapping on surfaces/objects/self, clicking fingers, making repetitive vocal sounds, bouncing legs, foot tapping, hand flapping, clicking pens, …

There are a lot of other stims as well that don’t necessarily fall under the category of “repetitive” such as pressure stimming, which are still just as valid. Basically if what you do serves the purpose of the stim, you can call it a stim.

Why do people stim?

People stim for all different kinds of reasons. They may stim when they are happy or excited, when they are stressed, as a part of their normal body language, as a way of communication, as a punishment, as a response to something internal or external, as a compulsion, to focus, to self soothe, etc. Stimming can be a coping mechanism, but it can also be so much more! No matter what reason someone has for stimming though, it’s important to remember that all stims are natural and normal.

Who stims?

Anyone that finds stimming useful, whether consciously or subconsciously, can stim. This includes neurotypicals, but mainly stimming is seen as something that neurodivergent people do and it occurs most frequently in:

the autism spectrum

sensory processing disorder (SPD)

Tourette’s

schizophrenia

OCD

people that experience mania/hypomania

people with ADHD/ADD

people with anxiety

etc

Where can I find stim toys/jewelry?

Stimtastic

TherapyShoppe

AutismShop

SensoryUniversity

OfficePlayground

RuthDoodle

Writing can be so easy when the muse kisses you and you write and write and forget the world around you. But a lot times you don’t have the luxury to wait for the muse to come kiss you and you still have to write. Here are some of the things I do to motivate myself to do what has to be done.

How to motivate myself to write more

The 100 Words Challenge

Set yourself a specific amount of words that you must write every day. 100 words doesn’t sound like that much, but even if you only write them every day and not anything more you still wrote 3,650 words that year. Better than nothing and definitely helps to get back into writing, because it motivates you to write even more and helps writing on a schedule.

+ it also works with a specific amount of time

The Inspirational Jar

Grab some pieces of paper and write down prompts you saw on the internet, song lyrics you like, characters you like to write about, quotes from books or movies, or just random words or situations. Fold them and put them into a jar or a box. Now you can just open it and grab one of the papers which you use as the basis for your writing that day. It’s great for getting back into writing and finding your own writing style through different forms of writing and different topics.

+ doesn’t have to be a real story, try other forms of writing, like a poem, a stream of consciousness, fanfiction, dialogue only, texting only, a retelling, no dialogue at all, a song, a diary entry, a character description,…

+ try to spice things up by using two or more inspirational slips of paper

Set a writing time

By setting a specific writing time you can trick your mind to shift easier into the mindset you need to write. You can write just after waking up or right before going to bed or somewhere in the middle. Try it out and find out what works best for you.

Block your phone/laptop

The luxury of having the world at your finger tips is great but it’s also distracting. Use apps (like Forest or Selfcontrol) to block your phone for the time you need to write. Or use something like Cold Turkey Writer so you have to write a specific amount of words or time before you can use your computer again.

Choose a writing place

Where do you write your best works? Choose a specific place to become your writing place, so you can trick your mind (like with the writing time) to get into the right mindset.

+ switch it up from time to time and go somewhere else. Go to a library, a coffee shop or a park to get fresh ideas and then go back to your routine

Music

Try to find music that stimulates your brain to concentrate more on writing or use music that fits the scene you’re about to write to get the right mindset. Music is great to feel like you are in a specific situation or have specific feelings - that’s why it’s great to have a soundtrack to your stories (and it also motivates you to finish it, so someone can buy the rights and make a movie out of it and use your Soundtrack - or is that just me?).

Ask a friend

Ask a friend, a family member or someone else to give you a setting, a word or a character that you try to incorporate into your already existing story or write something short and new.

Exercise

When you’re stuck and suffering from writer’s block with a scene, just stop and go out and work out or do a couple exercises at home. It clears your mind and you feel better after, so that you can sit down again and concentrate. And exercising is also a great opportunity to think your story through and work on solving existing problems.

Make a calendar

Write down whenever you wrote something in a calendar or use a habit tracker. It makes it easier to keep track on what you achieved so far and where you can still improve.

Reward yourself

Don’t punish yourself if you haven’t wrote in a long time or didn’t finish on time. Rewarding yourself is much more efficient. Choose some form of reward (when I write today I can… watch the new episode of my favourite show after, call my friends and go out, order a pizza, buy a new books, etc.) and stick to it. Even if it is a really small reward, getting to recieve it will fill you with joy and pride and makes it more likely for you to do it again.

I hope this helps everyone who struggles to motivate themselve to write. Good luck to you all!

Check out my side blog for more advice and writing prompts: creativepromptsforwriting

Writing with Color: Description Guide - Words for Skin Tone

We discussed the issues describing People of Color by means of food in Part I of this guide, which brought rise to even more questions, mostly along the lines of “So, if food’s not an option, what can I use?” Well, I was just getting to that!

This final portion focuses on describing skin tone, with photo and passage examples provided throughout. I hope to cover everything from the use of straight-forward description to the more creatively-inclined, keeping in mind the questions we’ve received on this topic.

So let’s get to it.

S T A N D A R D  D E S C R I P T I O N

B a s i c  C o l o r s

Pictured above: Black, Brown, Beige, White, Pink.

“She had brown skin.”

This is a perfectly fine description that, while not providing the most detail, works well and will never become cliché.

Describing characters’ skin as simply brown or beige works on its own, though it’s not particularly telling just from the range in brown alone.

C o m p l e x  C o l o r s

These are more rarely used words that actually “mean” their color. Some of these have multiple meanings, so you’ll want to look into those to determine what other associations a word might have.

Pictured above: Umber, Sepia, Ochre, Russet, Terra-cotta, Gold, Tawny, Taupe, Khaki, Fawn.

Complex colors work well alone, though often pair well with a basic color in regards to narrowing down shade/tone.

For example: Golden brown, russet brown, tawny beige…

As some of these are on the “rare” side, sliding in a definition of the word within the sentence itself may help readers who are unfamiliar with the term visualize the color without seeking a dictionary.

“He was tall and slim, his skin a russet, reddish-brown.”

Comparisons to familiar colors or visuals are also helpful:

“His skin was an ochre color, much like the mellow-brown light that bathed the forest.”

M o d i f i e r s 

Modifiers, often adjectives, make partial changes to a word.The following words are descriptors in reference to skin tone.

D a r k - D e e p - R i c h - C o o l

W a r m - M e d i u m - T a n

F a i r - L i g h t - P a l e

Rich Black, Dark brown, Warm beige, Pale pink…

If you’re looking to get more specific than “brown,” modifiers narrow down shade further.

Keep in mind that these modifiers are not exactly colors.

As an already brown-skinned person, I get tan from a lot of sun and resultingly become a darker, deeper brown. I turn a pale, more yellow-brown in the winter.

While best used in combination with a color, I suppose words like “tan” “fair” and “light” do work alone; just note that tan is less likely to be taken for “naturally tan” and much more likely a tanned White person.

Calling someone “dark” as description on its own is offensive to some and also ambiguous. (See: Describing Skin as Dark)

U n d e r t o n e s

Undertones are the colors beneath the skin, seeing as skin isn’t just one even color but has more subdued tones within the dominating palette.

Mentioning the undertones within a character’s skin is an even more precise way to denote skin tone.

As shown, there’s a difference between say, brown skin with warm orange-red undertones (Kelly Rowland) and brown skin with cool, jewel undertones (Rutina Wesley).

“A dazzling smile revealed the bronze glow at her cheeks.”

“He always looked as if he’d ran a mile, a constant tinge of pink under his tawny skin.”

Standard Description Passage

“Farah’s skin, always fawn, had burned and freckled under the summer’s sun. Even at the cusp of autumn, an uneven tan clung to her skin like burrs. So unlike the smooth, red-brown ochre of her mother, which the sun had richened to a blessing.”

-From my story “Where Summer Ends” featured in Strange Little Girls

Here the state of skin also gives insight on character.

Note my use of “fawn” in regards to multiple meaning and association. While fawn is a color, it’s also a small, timid deer, which describes this very traumatized character of mine perfectly.

Though I use standard descriptions of skin tone more in my writing, at the same time I’m no stranger to creative descriptions, and do enjoy the occasional artsy detail of a character.

C R E A T I V E  D E S C R I P T I O N

Whether compared to night-cast rivers or day’s first light…I actually enjoy seeing Characters of Colors dressed in artful detail.

I’ve read loads of descriptions in my day of white characters and their “smooth rose-tinged ivory skin”, while the PoC, if there, are reduced to something from a candy bowl or a Starbucks drink, so to actually read of PoC described in lavish detail can be somewhat of a treat.

Still, be mindful when you get creative with your character descriptions. Too many frills can become purple-prose-like, so do what feels right for your writing when and where. Not every character or scene warrants a creative description, either. Especially if they’re not even a secondary character.

Using a combination of color descriptions from standard to creative is probably a better method than straight creative. But again, do what’s good for your tale.

N A T U R AL  S E T T I N G S - S K Y

Pictured above: Harvest Moon -Twilight, Fall/Autumn Leaves, Clay, Desert/Sahara, Sunlight - Sunrise - Sunset - Afterglow - Dawn- Day- Daybreak, Field - Prairie - Wheat, Mountain/Cliff, Beach/Sand/Straw/Hay.

Now before you run off to compare your heroine’s skin to the harvest moon or a cliff side, think about the associations to your words.

When I think cliff, I think of jagged, perilous, rough. I hear sand and picture grainy, yet smooth. Calm. mellow.

So consider your character and what you see fit to compare them to.

Also consider whose perspective you’re describing them from. Someone describing a person they revere or admire may have a more pleasant, loftier description than someone who can’t stand the person.

“Her face was like the fire-gold glow of dawn, lifting my gaze, drawing me in.”

“She had a sandy complexion, smooth and tawny.”

Even creative descriptions tend to draw help from your standard words.

F L O W E R S

Pictured above: Calla lilies, Western Coneflower, Hazel Fay, Hibiscus, Freesia, Rose

It was a bit difficult to find flowers to my liking that didn’t have a 20 character name or wasn’t called something like “chocolate silk” so these are the finalists. 

You’ll definitely want to avoid purple-prose here.

Also be aware of flowers that most might’ve never heard of. Roses are easy, as most know the look and coloring(s) of this plant. But Western coneflowers? Calla lilies? Maybe not so much.

“He entered the cottage in a huff, cheeks a blushing brown like the flowers Nana planted right under my window. Hazel Fay she called them, was it?”

A S S O R T E D  P L A N T S &  N A T U R E

Pictured above: Cattails, Seashell, Driftwood, Pinecone, Acorn, Amber

These ones are kinda odd. Perhaps because I’ve never seen these in comparison to skin tone, With the exception of amber.

At least they’re common enough that most may have an idea what you’re talking about at the mention of “pinecone.“ 

I suggest reading out your sentences aloud to get a better feel of how it’ll sounds.

“Auburn hair swept past pointed ears, set around a face like an acorn both in shape and shade.”

I pictured some tree-dwelling being or person from a fantasy world in this example, which makes the comparison more appropriate.

I don’t suggest using a comparison just “cuz you can” but actually being thoughtful about what you’re comparing your character to and how it applies to your character and/or setting.

W O O D

Pictured above: Mahogany, Walnut, Chestnut, Golden Oak, Ash

Wood can be an iffy description for skin tone. Not only due to several of them having “foody” terminology within their names, but again, associations.

Some people would prefer not to compare/be compared to wood at all, so get opinions, try it aloud, and make sure it’s appropriate to the character if you do use it.

“The old warlock’s skin was a deep shade of mahogany, his stare serious and firm as it held mine.”

M E T A L S

Pictured above: Platinum, Copper, Brass, Gold, Bronze

Copper skin, brass-colored skin, golden skin…

I’ve even heard variations of these used before by comparison to an object of the same properties/coloring, such as penny for copper.

These also work well with modifiers.

“The dress of fine white silks popped against the deep bronze of her skin.”

G E M S T O N E S - M I N E R A LS

Pictured above: Onyx, Obsidian, Sard, Topaz, Carnelian, Smoky Quartz, Rutile, Pyrite, Citrine, Gypsum

These are trickier to use. As with some complex colors, the writer will have to get us to understand what most of these look like.

If you use these, or any more rare description, consider if it actually “fits” the book or scene.

Even if you’re able to get us to picture what “rutile” looks like, why are you using this description as opposed to something else? Have that answer for yourself.

“His skin reminded her of the topaz ring her father wore at his finger, a gleaming stone of brown, mellow facades.” 

P H Y S I C A L  D E S C R I P T I ON

Physical character description can be more than skin tone.

Show us hair, eyes, noses, mouth, hands…body posture, body shape, skin texture… though not necessarily all of those nor at once.

Describing features also helps indicate race, especially if your character has some traits common within the race they are, such as afro hair to a Black character.

How comprehensive you decide to get is up to you. I wouldn’t overdo it and get specific to every mole and birthmark. Noting defining characteristics is good, though, like slightly spaced front teeth, curls that stay flopping in their face, hands freckled with sunspots…

G E N E R A L  T I P S

Indicate Race Early: I suggest indicators of race be made at the earliest convenience within the writing, with more hints threaded throughout here and there.

Get Creative On Your Own: Obviously, I couldn’t cover every proper color or comparison in which has been “approved” to use for your characters’ skin color, so it’s up to you to use discretion when seeking other ways and shades to describe skin tone.

Skin Color May Not Be Enough: Describing skin tone isn’t always enough to indicate someone’s ethnicity. As timeless cases with readers equating brown to “dark white” or something, more indicators of race may be needed.

Describe White characters and PoC Alike: You should describe the race and/or skin tone of your white characters just as you do your Characters of Color. If you don’t, you risk implying that White is the default human being and PoC are the “Other”).

PSA: Don’t use “Colored.” Based on some asks we’ve received using this word, I’d like to say that unless you or your character is a racist grandmama from the 1960s, do not call People of Color “colored” please. 

Not Sure Where to Start? You really can’t go wrong using basic colors for your skin descriptions. It’s actually what many people prefer and works best for most writing. Personally, I tend to describe my characters using a combo of basic colors + modifiers, with mentions of undertones at times. I do like to veer into more creative descriptions on occasion.

Want some alternatives to “skin” or “skin color”? Try: Appearance, blend, blush, cast, coloring, complexion, flush, glow, hue, overtone, palette, pigmentation, rinse, shade, sheen, spectrum, tinge, tint, tone, undertone, value, wash.

Skin Tone Resources

List of Color Names

The Color Thesaurus

Things that are Brown (blog)

Skin Undertone & Color Matching

Tips and Words on Describing Skin

Photos: Undertones Described (Modifiers included)

Online Thesaurus (try colors, such as “red” & “brown”)

Don’t Call me Pastries: Creative Skin Tones w/ pics 3 2 1

Writing & Description Guides

WWC Featured Description Posts

WWC Guide: Words to Describe Hair

Writing with Color: Description & Skin Color Tags

7 Offensive Mistakes Well-intentioned Writers Make

I tried to be as comprehensive as possible with this guide, but if you have a question regarding describing skin color that hasn’t been answered within part I or II of this guide, or have more questions after reading this post, feel free to ask!