AAVE, Black Characters, and Code-Switching

You aren’t writing about me, are ya? Haha, well first I’d suggest you familiarize yourself with AAVE. Learn how it’s regionally spoken and hear people speak it. Like, a lot. If you want it to be “authentic” and not have Black folks reading your characters’ speak, laughing and shaking their heads.

It’s an ever-evolving tongue and essentially where mainstream culture gets all its “cool words” from (and actually, cool in the sense of something “impressive” is a word created by Black people, amongst many others words, such as “hipster.” You’ll notice a lot of the slang you hear in the past and now is really Black English).

Think bae, turnt, shade, hunty, bruh….now using these certain ones might date the story as usage changes with time fyi. The only word I’d say to avoid is the N word, as Mod Najela discusses here.

If your characters grew up in white-dominated upper middle class, I’m supposing they’re learning AAVE from either a parent, or family or friends who speak it. I grew up in the city and moved to the burbs when I was entering 4th grade. I didn’t have any AAVE-speaking Black friends at school for several years, but as I remained in contact with family members who spoke it and as my sisters and I did amongst each other and also watched Black tv and movies, my aave stayed relatively flexed.

Code Switching

Living among and as friends to mostly White people (even in the city) my speech is influenced by both with a heavier influence of Standard English than AAVE. Depending on how comfortable I am with the non-Black, non-AAVE speaking individual, more AAVE may intermingle. That’s how it is with my sisters usually; we typically toggle between the two, otherwise are daily speech is in standard.

I didn’t even realize how easily I can slip into BE once i’m comfortable with the [non-black] person until this time at college. The school had added some new feature and I’d casually said “they shoulda been done that.” My friend just looked at me confused and (snarkily) said “English please?” Of course, he’s wrong, since AAVE is a real language with it’s own rules, but I really didn’t realize i’d said anything he might not understand.

I suppose an SA equivalent to that sentence is “they should’ve done that a while ago.” I honestly couldn’t explain to him what I meant at the time because what I’d said in AAVE was the only way I knew how to explain what I meant.

I’d say determine your characters’ histories. If they’ve never been exposed to AAVE-speaking Black people and just happen to speak it, that’d be a bit odd, so you’ll probably want to determine where it comes from as well as whom they speak it around, and how often.

More Reading:

Black in Upper-class White Society

AAVE is not SE with Mistakes (pdf)

Tumblr: Black Proverbs (so damn accurate)

I actually have no idea what I did. I don’t think it’s great but I love Illumi so here ya go. :D

hunter x hunter heart memes (icons) 💘

i hope these are good lol

30% of all diets end in an eating disorder. 

99% of dieters gain back all the weight and more. 

Yo-yo dieting increases your chance of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and early death. 

How can i make my female character win a fight without forgetting about biology?? I don’t want her to be a sue/overpowered

Without exception, people who say, “women cannot fight” or “cannot win a fight,” because of biology do not know what they’re talking about. It’s an easy way to instantly recognize that the person speaking or writing is pretending to be an expert on the subject.

I’m going to be slightly hyperbolic here, but the two most important things in hand to hand combat are, stability and force generation. Now, if this was a different discussion, I’d probably step back and include some other factors, but for this discussion, those are the two things we need to look at.

Stability is exactly what it says; how well you can remain standing based on what happens to you, and what you do. More stability makes it easier to generate force, and makes you more resistant to being knocked down, or thrown. The lower your center of gravity, the more stable you will be. This why you will see martial artists go into low stances. You spread and bend the legs, while keeping your feet flat on the floor to lower your center of gravity. In hand-to-hand, there a huge advantage in having the lower center of gravity.

This leads right into one of the “biology,” fallacies. Women tend to be shorter than men. That is biology, but it’s not a combat disadvantage. Additionally, even at the same height, women have a lower center of gravity than men. For a woman with hand-to-hand training, that’s a significant advantage. She will be significantly more stable than a much larger, male foe.

The second major factor we’re looking at right now is force generation. This is your ability to put power behind your punches and kicks. It’s also another case where, “biology,” misleads you. If you’re untrained, it’s easy to believe that you’re generating the force in your arms. This leads to the idea that someone like Schwarzenegger will have a very powerful punch. As a result, it’s easy to say, “women have a disadvantage because it’s harder for them to build upper body bulk.” Thing is, that argument is irrelevant because power does not come from the arm, it comes from full body rotation, starting in the hips. You keep the entire core in line, without twisting the spine. This has a result of putting your entire body weight into the strike. Properly executed, this will deliver far more force than you need, regardless of your gender.

If you’re wondering, this is also true of kicks; generation starts in the hips, you’re putting your weight into it, and when you connect, you’ll do so with far more force than you need. A trained female martial artist can easily apply more than enough force to shatter the heaviest bones in a much larger foe. For example, a properly applied Muay Thai shin kick or sidekick into the side of the knee will destroy it.

The role of momentum, or force generation, is where we connect to the powerful spinning and jumping attacks in martial arts. The greater the moment you generate, the harder you hit. Add running to the equation and it’s even worse. You might’ve been hit by someone running at you, now imagine getting hit by someone who knows what they’re doing and can weaponize a flying leap. That’s skill, not gender.

There’s also a related detail that exists agnostic of gender: You don’t want to, “just,” punch someone. Your hand, whether you’re a man or woman, consists of twenty-seven small, delicate bones. The same structure that allows for human manual dexterity also makes using the hand as a blunt instrument, “less than optimal.” This means, understanding where to put your hands, and how to hold them are far more important than simply applying unlimited force and reducing your foe into chunky salsa, simultaneously obliterating your ability to ever operate an ink pen again.

Again, this is mostly true for the feet as well. There’s only twenty-six bones, and you’re probably not using them to hold a pen, but you do rely on them to walk. The heel is a bit more sturdy than the palm, but you can still wreck it with a bad impact. Most neophytes have no idea how to protect their toes, and you can break those toes on impact. You can’t just hurl your foot at someone and hope for the best. You need to know how to maximize your impact, turn your hips over, and balance on a single leg while delivering enough force to shatter bones.

Combat is about what you know; what you have internalized and what you’re willing to do to another human being. If you are not willing to harm another person, that is debilitating in a fight, but it is not biological, it’s social.

Society harshly punishes acts of violence, and this can result in a real aversion to following through. Additionally, many martial artists do not practice with the intention of ever using what they’re learning on another person.

If you know what you’re doing; if you have the muscle memory; the hardest part is the mindset. Being willing to set aside the social norms, and decide to end someone’s life.

That’s the one thing about this that’s almost true. In western civilization women have been conditioned against engaging in violence. This starts in childhood. Girls are frequently given domestic focused toys, while boys are given martial ones. The games they’re encouraged to engage in follow similar patterns. Media produced also follows this. Action films are aimed at a male demographic, while romcoms are aimed at women. In a real sense, men are sold violence, women are sold love. The important thing to understand is: there is nothing real about this dichotomy.

Society tells you, “you should like this,” but, you have the freedom to choose what you do and what you like. The success of female led action films in the last few years solidly illustrates that there is huge untapped market among women for more aggressive representation. Climb into any MMO, and while you will find women in “traditional,” support roles, and RP communities, you’ll also find them the endgame raiding communities, and in aggressive combat roles. There are plenty of girls out there who eschewed, “traditional,” feminine toys, in favor of the same thing the boys were playing with. This is society, not biology.

If you think, for one second, that this doesn’t carry over into the real world, remember that there are women in police, military, and intelligence roles. Some nations are far happier to put women in combat roles, while others still find the idea socially unpalatable. However, these women exist.

Society tells you, “you should be like this,” but, you have the freedom to choose who you are. Social norms would prefer you to be domestic, passive, and waiting for rescue, but peer pressure only goes so far. Especially among women who simply migrate to peer groups more accepting of who they are.

Okay, having said all of that, let’s loop back and talk about the Mary Sue for a moment. The term itself is not, inherently, misogynistic, but it is frequently applied that way.

There’s nothing, inherently, wrong with an overpowered character. However, they are harder to work with. Especially if the character is so powerful that they could easily resolve the central conflict. This doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Just that more powerful characters can easily become the focal point of the story, so plan ahead.

Second, extreme combat proficiency does not, inherently, make a character overpowered. Being superhumanly skilled at combat will help you deal with a very specific, and somewhat rare, set of circumstances. It won’t help you interact with characters in any way that doesn’t involve the application of violence. So, the character is incredibly dangerous, but, only in one field.

A Mary Sue is not “a powerful character.” They are a character unconstrained by any limits. They are, “the best,” at everything. Any challenge placed in front of them can be solved trivially, in the optimal way. It’s not that they’re good at violence, but are in over their head when the conversation turns to politics. In short, a Mary Sue never faces adversity of any kind. The result is that a Mary Sue weakens the story they appear in. They’re blatant power fantasies, who only exist as an ego trip for the author.

The term is sometimes gendered, Mary Sue/Marty Stu, though the effect is the same. This has nothing to do with the character’s gender, beyond which label you prefer. (Male characters can also be referred to as Sues.)

However, the term is also, sometimes, applied to any powerful female character as a pejorative. In this context, it is a reactionary insult by someone who is offended or threatened by the idea that a woman could possess any power to influence their world. You can probably guess that my opinion of this particular “critique” is low.

If your character faces adversity. If they grow as a person. If they experience pain and loss. If they face challenges they cannot overcome, and must find other solutions, they’re not a Sue.

Your characters can be powerful. Women can be powerful. That’s not a sign that they are flawed. If someone is threatened by that idea, it tells you more about how insecure they are.

-Starke

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When asked in an interview what kind of challenges is Kaz would be dealing with in Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo explained, “I think this is the moment when Kaz is deciding who he is going to be. Because his life has been all about revenge, and one of the questions that Inej poses to him is not really about his attachment to her. It’s about, what comes after that?” This got me thinking about how Kaz’s character arc oddly resembles some other well known stories, particularly Charle’s Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, and this comparison is seen most clearly in chapter 30 in Crooked Kingdom. Like Scrooge in Dicken’s novel, Kaz spends the chapter evaluating his past, present, and future leading him to question for the first time, just as Leigh describes, what happens next?

The comparisons with the ghosts in Dicken’s story begins around page 413 when Kaz, Nina, and Inej get to the morgue. When they enter the scene turns into a flashback to when Kaz first started wearing his gloves and how they’ve helped him until he met Imogen. Those of you who’ve read the book or have seen a faithful adaption know that in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge had a fiance named Belle who left him after his love for money outgrew his love for her. Similarly, Imogen was a girl Kaz had a crush on, and from her flirtatious manners it was clear she shared his feelings. Kaz felt the only way he could be in a relationship with Imogen was to first overcome his touch aversion, but after some painful trial and error he learns that his PTSD does not go away on self determination alone. The results are shown in the last paragraph of the flashback scene: “At the ring, the next time Imogen laid her fingers on his sleeve, Kaz held her gaze until that close-mouth smile slipped. She dropped her hand. She looked away. Kaz went back to counting the money” (page 417). From his dismissal of her actions to the focus on money in the last sentence, it’s implied that from here on out that Kaz abandoned the idea of trying to have a relationship with anyone in favor of building his empire of revenge. Like younger-Scrooge, younger-Kaz allowed his relationships to deteriorate in place of a different ideology that leaves him increasingly isolated from others. 

Then moving onto the next phase, I’d argue the most fitting scene for the ghost of Christmas present in the chapter is the one between Kaz and Jesper in the Guildrenner Suite hallway. In Dicken’s story, Scrooge watches the Cratchit family in the present, and they’re presented as an opportunity for Scrooge to begin empathizing with others and go back on his curmudgeonly ways. In a similar sense, Kaz could continue pushing everyone away from him, but in that scene in the hallway he admits to Jesper and probably himself that he cares about him, (in his indirect Kaz-ish way of course). I want to note again, the Imogen scene is a flashback, the past, and this scene with Jesper in the present.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is where the comparison between stories is the strongest.  Kaz and Nina are looking around the morgue for a body when Nina identifies one with the right date of death. Kaz pulls it out and after a few moments of silence Nina says, “I wonder how he died”. Kaz’s responds with “Alone”. That one word is incredibly loaded. When Kaz and Nina are studying the body Kaz observes that it took so long for the man’s body to be found by other people that animals had began eating at his fingers. The question Nina asked really was “what caused the man’s death?”. The question Kaz was asking was “what state was the man was in when he died?” because in his mind, Kaz isn’t viewing some random man’s body. He’s looking at his own. In Dicken’s story, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge his future grave and implies that if Scrooge doesn’t change his ways he’ll die alone. There’s no one at his funeral to mourn him (cough cough), only robbers delightfully going through the possessions and money Scrooge obsessed over during his life. Similarly, Kaz avoids attachments because he obsesses over revenge and the vulnerability relationships bring, but Kaz is finally forced to ask himself in this scene, is that sort of life worth living? Like Dicken’s characters, Kaz realizes that if he keeps living his life this way, that’s how he’ll end up dying. Just like the man at the morgue. Alone.

(edit) alrighty so this is OP from the future coming in to edit with some details I left out the first time that I feel strengthen the similarities to the two stories: 

~For one, the ghosts come to Scrooge when he goes to sleep, and as I argued in this more recent post, I think there’s a connection between when Kaz is avoiding sleep and when Kaz is avoiding his relationships/feelings. To sum it up, there are more similarities to sleep and relationships than I think we tend to think about. Like, you physically need rest to survive, and throughout the book Kaz mentions putting off sleep in order to focus on what he considers to be more “important”, their revenge on Van Eck/Rollins. Similarly, people need relationships and social bonds of some sort to live. Literally there are studies showing that babies and children who are fed/housed/cleaned but not given attention and love die, and adults who don’t have communities or social networks to rely on for emotional support experience more stress and health problems than those who do. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Inej, who expresses emotions and creates friendships, has less trouble handling her trauma than Kaz does. So anyway, over the course of the book, Kaz has been trying to ignore his growing attachments to his friends, but after waking up alone in his hotel room he spends most of the chapter being introspective and analyzing everything I said above.