by the moons

a black girl character growing her hair out long breaks more stereotypes than a black girl character having short hair

a black girl character getting to be soft and fragile breaks more stereotypes than a black girl character being strong all the time

a black girl character being protected and comforted by others breaks more stereotypes than a black girl character having no one to look out for her but herself

a black girl character being considered pretty or cute by other characters breaks more stereotypes than a black girl character being considered unattractive

not everything that is empowering for white girls is empowering for black girls

Writing Native Characters/OCs

Don't write your Native characters as dumb, being goofy is ok, but downright stupid isn't.

Avoid the "noble savage" trope; eg. having them be overly serious, aggressive, etc.

On aggression, portraying them as straight up bloodthirsty is very bad, esp for Nahua, Maya, & Mesoamericans in general.

Depicting or calling them "dogs" is very bad, it's a literal slur.

Drawing Native characters with red skin. Warm undertones are fine as long as you don't make them literally red.

Don't draw us with random feathers in our hair, we don't do that.

"Native" isn't a standalone identity, our tribes are far more important than the umbrella "Native".

Natives all look very different, some of us are light, some are dark. There's lot of Black Natives too.

Our living conditions are also diverse. Not all of us live on reservations, most of us are urban.

Don't portray our men as inherently predatory and misogynistic, it feeds into racist propaganda.

Don't portray our women as submissive, sexual, exotic creatures. Very gross.

Don't write us as thieves and criminals, more racist propaganda.

Writing or showing the death of a Native character can be very traumatic for us to see or read, esp if the death is needlessly graphic.

Related, torturing a Native character for shock value is very gross and messed up.

"Savage accent" is gross and racist. Don't write it.

The "Spiritual One" is so tired and unoriginal. (hence the "Native character is introduced with a flute playing in the background)

Our regalia is not casual attire, it's specifically ceremonial. We wear ordinary clothes, if not with some cultural influence, most of the time.

Please don't use us for poverty poor.

Writing us as drug, sex, gambling, addicts is really bad.

Esp avoid them using alcohol and inhalants, it's very stereotypical and are real systemic problems we face.

Using MMIW as a plot point is horrible, I'll hunt you down if you do this.

Having us fall in love with colonizers, don't emulate Pocahontas, that movie was a mistake and so is this trope.

The "special colored eyes/hair" see the Yue and the Water Tribe problem.

Regional/Cultural specific tropes to avoid:

Arctic NA Natives:

Don't us the word "esk*mo". It's a slur.

We aren't all Inuit. Lots of us are Inupiat, Yup'ik, Alutiiq, Athabascan, Tlingit, etc.

Although lots of us do eat meat, but for the love of god don't make that our personality.

Please do research on our names if traditional, no "Tuk Tuk" names or I'll kill you.

Although lots of us are born in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, not all of us are. I was born in California.

If you are not Arctic NA Native, don't draw our traditional tattoos. They are unique to each tribe and hold significant meaning to them.

We do have parkas but we don't just wear it, esp not when it's warmer like summertime, then it's qaspeq/kuspek. Please do research on our attire.

Drawing us with the "closed eyes" caricature.

Plains Tribes:

Carelessly having plains Natives in headdresses is a caricature.

There's lots of different plains tribes, they aren't a monolith.

Not all plain Natives still live in tipis, good god.

This is esp where you need to avoid "savage accent" and red skin.

Stop adding fringe everywhere.

They also aren't running around naked in buckskin loinclths.

(A lot of this also applies to eastern woodlands too. Also eastern woodlands tribes do not live in tipis)

Southwest:

Navajo isn't the only tribe in the southwest.

The "pueblos" are only built by Puebloan tribes, such as Hopi and Zuni. Navajos aren't Puebloan, they don't live in these.

We don't just spend our days just making silver turquoise jewelry.

Don't write about Sk*nwalkers, please don't.

Kokopelli is a Hopi Kachina. He isn't pan-indian.

Central/Mesoamericans:

"Aztec" and "Maya" are not all there is. And they are not the same.

"Aztec" isn't what the people are called, they are Nahua.

They aren't bloodthirsty and in love with violence, stop writing this.

"Evil Priest", "Holy Emperor", "Human Sacrifice", yeah stop all that shit.

I guess what I’m asking is using the lavvu like structure in this story is super uncool. (The idea came to me in a dream and they lived in the lavvu there). I did think this out, if they’re nomadic they cant have a permanent structure and they also have a fire in the tent so they’d need the opening in the roof. But I really domt want to steal something from the sami people because I used it wrong… help please (2/2)

Using Sami Housing for non-Sami people

Giant grain of salt since not Sami:

I’m going to say you’re okay (based off execution, of course) with this because you have recreated two key things necessary for proper cultural diffusion: similar biomes, and similar circumstances.

You have Nordic nomadic peoples, of which the Sami share a region with, and it makes perfect sense to use their words to describe something they made to withstand the exact condition of the situation. 

As a result, it’s not an automatic stop, you’re appropriating. It’s something to be cautious of, of course, but so long as you’re respectful (not modifying the structure much, for example), you’re (probably) fine.

Sami people are allowed to disagree with me and provide their own opinions.

Might I suggest: add more Sami influence.

If you’re worried about just taking one part, try to create a Viking (which is what Icelandic people were, just those who settled down to farm) and Sami mix with a slightly larger geographic area to reflect their cultural practices. 

As much as the Southern Water Tribe is very obviously Inuit-Yupik, it is Chinese influenced to have it better fit in with the Asia vibe of the whole Avatar universe. I’m basically advocating for a similar sort of blending here: take two things that share regions and (cautiously, carefully, perhaps have regional variations where one is more prevalent than the other to reflect circumstances) mix them together in order to create a cohesive, believable culture that pulls from both its inspirations.

I would not use tipi

Tipi is its own structure, specifically for the Plains and Prairie people of North America, and it was built with completely different geographic constructions to keep in mind. It’s not a generic word for “nomadic structure”, and it’d be much more respectful to use something from the region.

Also, you can use the sami housing type of Lavvu. (Edit: I was so tired that I mixed up Kolt and Lavvu. Kolt is the traditional clothing Samís wear. Absolute clownery.) It’s very similar to a tipi. If the characters are nomadic, that will be the default type of housing. But as said, the kolt varies a lot in design and function depending on what type of samí.

@allmycolorsforyou​ submitted:

Hello! Thank you so much for your work here! So, I’ve read the posts in the fantasy tag, but I’d like to tell you about my plot just to make sure there isn’t anything wrong I’m not seeing. The fantasy setting of my books is totally inspired by Brazil’s culture, vegetation, mixed races, etc. My main characters are 3 girls and a boy and they’re on a journey together. They’re the same species (fae) but represent different types of people (brazilian japanese, brazilian polish, afro brazilian and a mixed race like European + Afro + Natives). The setting is a whole new world (a throne of glass diverse and gay, if you will) and nothing in particular about their origin culture will take place in the story bc the land is an extremely diverse place like Brazil so their culture is the result of many mixed ones. I’m not giving them Asian or Afro ou Native names bc there’s no Japan ou Africa ou Brazil. The enemy are humans who come in all shapes and races and an evil monster whose personification is… not figured out yet but for sure it’s not human. It may or may not possess humans along the way but I guess I just have to make sure he takes people from different races?

Overarching Notes on the Premise: 

This is a piece of information for you to look at further, and the first thing that I pinged about this ask: you’ve picked inspiration from a pro-colonial, pro-assimilation work, from an author who has some deeply misogynistic themes in her other books. Throne of Glass (and subsequent books) contains lines about how it’s fine that a single person rules the world with near-absolute power so long as they’re nice about it, and has pro-assimilation undertones the minute a brown person steps on the page ¼ into book one. It’s subtle, but by having a brown person want to learn the ways of her colonizer to maybe overthrow him, all the while being shocked the MC knows her language and treating the MC as special for it, was enough that it pinged a red flag for me; I was proven right in later books. Meanwhile, the Court series has all sorts of abusive men acting out of “love”, and sacrifices character development for the sake of m/f romantic pairings.

This isn’t to say a work inspired by such a setting can’t be good, but to illustrate some problems you might’ve missed when taking inspiration from it. The issues run way deeper than “it’s mostly white straight people.”

On “Diversity”

Diversity is much, much more than having characters of colour described in ways that shows they have not-white features and not-European customs. Similarly, crafting a diverse fantasy country/culture is much, much more work than simply copy/pasting modern cultural dynamics into a fantasy setting and handwaving the history to say “and stuff happened to create this.”

Modern (and historical) diversity came as a result of trade, cultural diffusion among neighbouring but different groups, migration, immigration, war, and colonialism.

You can’t approach fantasy diversity without at least some of those factors. It will ring so unrealistic it will pull the vast majority of your readers out of the story (especially your marginalized ones).

Culture (and things like skin tone) are determined by the natural world, history, and outside cultures rubbing (or smashing) against each other. No single culture exists in a vacuum, which means fantasy cultures cannot exist in a vacuum.

People had wars. People traded. People married. People decided to move across a continent and settle there because they liked the weather better. Countries took over other territories, stole stuff, traded stuff, had wars, had peace treaties, looked over the fence and went “and we’re gonna change it just enough so it’s firmly ours but anyone who looks at the two side by side can see they’re influenced by the other.” Nobility would marry from a trade ally and then those two cultures would intermingle.

This is just people being people. You can get some fantastic cultures out of these scenarios, but they come with the ever-present reminder that no one place creates a single culture.

Ergo, your basic assumption that a single landmass without external cultures can create Brazil—diverse, multicultural Brazil—is false. You need external cultures to engage with your primarily shown culture, because Brazil did not create itself; it is the product of its history, and that history includes the rest of the world.

Brazil’s History

Brazil in its modern form was created via colonialism. Sad, but true.

“Basic” Brazilian culture is going to be influenced by slavery, Indigenous peoples, Portugal, and the fact most of these peoples settled in a continental rainforest when they’re (usually) not from one. It has deep roots in the African diaspora, was shaped from the top by the biggest slave trading nation in the period looking to maximize profit (look up how many crops got introduced to the region for trading ends), and by all of these people either killing off, enslaving, or working with the Indigenous peoples of the rainforest to either make space, or survive.

And even just among the Indigenous peoples, there were probably over two thousand of them, Pre-Columbus. Brazil is now down to a couple hundred, but there could be more because of how many uncontacted people there are in the Amazon.

Once you get beyond the colonialism, then you get into immigration. Japanese-Brazillian people are primarily from Okinawa, and are the result of Okinawan customs getting modified for the non-island setting, plus bumping into general Brazilian culture. Polish people will have a similar sort of tug of war: their customs probably got modified to account for living in a totally different environment with wildly different resources available.

This, as you can see, did not happen by accident. This was a set of very deliberate choices by outsiders, those choices eventually creating the Brazil we know today. 

You don’t have to go recreating the exact climate of colonialism to get to something that looks like modern Brazil (and, please don’t, your Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous readers will thank you for it), but you do need outsiders. 

I’m going to nitpick on the names here: it really doesn’t feel good to read that you want to recreate known cultural diversity, but don’t want to give people culturally-accurate names. Names are not only a good way to code characters as being from a certain culture, but names are often what diaspora populations cling to as reminders of where they came from. 

By flattening everything into a general concept of “everyone is Brazilian and comes from here because I say so”, what you end up doing is picking up the pro-assimilationist stitch I mentioned is present in Throne of Glass. 

Part of respecting diversity is acknowledging people might not’ve always lived here, but they’ve now made this place home and are making the best of it. This is especially true for those who were on the disenfranchised side of the colonialism power dynamic. (With colonizers, part of respecting diversity is having them stop being in power and give power back to those who they disenfranchised). 

So look at what made all these populations end up in Brazil, and see how you’re going to modify that (or copy it) to get all of these diverse people in the same place. Brazil has a great potential for internal diversity, yes, it had two thousand unique Indigenous nations, but it won’t create customs that had been codified on an island nation, like Okinawa, because it isn’t an island. It won’t create a people who had spent centuries living in primarily savannah and modified customs from there to a rainforest, like West African peoples.

And even the concept Brazil would only create people who lived in a rainforest, uninfluenced by the mountains or the coast or deserts, is ahistorical, because peoples would share borders, and trade, and talk, and marry, and spread ideas around. Rainforest peoples were influenced by mountain and desert people, because ideas spread from the mountains and the desert. And those peoples were influenced by Polynesians, sailing across the pacific. 

If you want advice on how to properly code people as being from different fantasy countries, check out my guide: Representing PoC in Fantasy When Their Country Doesn’t Exist

The Villain

Trying to diversify your villains is a hard thing to juggle, because most villains are already pretty diverse. That’s what was said to make them villains: the fact they weren’t white, straight, cis, and/or abled.

It’s why villains have darker skin and clothing. It’s why they’re usually theatrical and flamboyant and gender non conforming. It’s why they often have canes. These deviations away from “white upper class sound-minded physically fit people performing expected gender roles” were the subconscious clues to the audience we shouldn’t like them. 

Even if you only take villains that match the same race as your protagonists, you can still end up with problems like colourism (the system of oppression that makes paler skin within PoC groups more desirable), or a sort of bias that makes you describe the villains as just that little bit more not-white than the protagonists. 

Without skin tone as a factor, most villainous shorthands are still some sort of marginalized group: smaller eyes are stereotyped as an East Asian trait, large noses can be Jewish or Arab, dark curly hair can be Jewish or African, the list goes on. Anything that isn’t pale skin, average-sized eyes, a European nose, rosey cheeks, and blond or medium brown hair has probably been used as a villain shorthand to invoke some sort of marginalized group.

There is also the tricky topic of mixed race or mixed culture vs mono-culture/ race people. You haven’t specified any of your villains’ ethnicities and it doesn’t look like you’ve even picked them, but let me give a warning: mixed people are fetishized, and are often put on a pedestal above mono-racial people; alternatively, mixed people are demonized, and are seen as far lesser on account of being mixed. Which it is often depends on the cultural context of the society, and what ethnicities the mixed-race person’s parents are.

Ex: in societies where colourism is prevalent, a child with a darker skin tone is often going to be seen as lesser. Genetics are roulette so being mixed race does not automatically determine what your skin tone will be, but if you end up with two siblings and one is notably darker, the darker skinned parent will often be blamed for it. This often goes into what marriages are approved or disproved, out of fear that the child will end up falling on the “wrong” side of the colourism spectrum.

I’m not mixed in such a way that’s weaponized so I can’t speak to it, but I am just putting a note that this exists. 

It is more than possible to have your villains be people of colour. But if you do that, then make sure they’re not the only member of that group, and make sure the villains are described in such a way that their villainy isn’t emphasized by features white people are seen as not having.

Also, the fact they are possessed can have some very unfortunate implications, either in the form of “these people are weak minded, [insert race trying to paint itself as superior here] would NEVER”, and/or in the form of effectively forcing a colonized people to act as a colonizer.

Which leads me to:

Fae vs. humans… or, “colonialism shorthand”

As the title says. Fae vs humans where humans are trying to invade fae lands is one of the easiest, quickest, and generally most obvious parallels to colonialism you can have. This goes double if you have a particularly forest-y setting, since most people assume North America was “untamed wilderness” before Europeans came and Indigenous people exclusively lived amongst the trees that were haphazardly planted.

Toss in the fact that the culture you’re basing this society off of was heavily influenced by colonized peoples, and the villains of this nation in real life are going to be white. This adds another aspect to “it can be really hard to write PoC villains”: the wrong angle, and you can absolutely paint victims of colonialism as just as bad as the colonizers, when this is not true.

Power dynamics are an important thing to consider, when writing villains. Because a lot of times, most villains are able to be villains because they are dominant in some way. Once you start to have villains be “marginalized people trying to do something to either fight structural inequality or get justice in a system that failed them or escape the system that failed them”, you are punching down. Hard.

So when you look at this spirit, ask yourself: what goals does it have for possessing someone marginalized? Will it be able to accomplish anything this way? Or will it get much farther by taking someone from a dominant culture and possessing them, instead?

The thing about Fae is, they’re already kind of… associated with Indigenous peoples. They have nature magic. They’re often akin to elves in terms of old guardians of the forest, especially in modern fantasy, and elves are heavily Indigenous coded.

On top of that, you’re making your fae analogous to a whole bunch of Indigenous groups (Indigenous Brazilians, Afro-Brazilians) and colonized people (Okinawan)—which makes the parallels more intense. Even if you make it that your Japanese-Brazilians are Yamato Japanese… you then make a colonizer (within Asia) into an Indigenous analogue. It’s going to be tricky.

It’s more than possible to handle this tactfully, but you first need to be aware of the power dynamics that come built into such a plot. The fact you did not indicate anything about the power dynamics on the humans’ side and were instead focused on adding in as many characters of colour as possible tells me that you aren’t aware of these dynamics.

They absolutely need addressing before you can write such a plot or a villain respectfully.

Overall

I think you need to solidly analyze the influences on your work, your goals, and the dynamics at play. Because right now, I’m seeing a huge emphasis on simply wanting to toss in a whole bunch of different skin tones and facial features and “cultures” into a single place, without actually putting in the work to make something realistic or representative of any given peoples except majority Brazilians. 

You’re at a huge risk of punching down in multiple locations, especially in regard to your human characters. Even with your fae, you could very easily wind up disrespecting the people you want to represent, because you are overtly erasing their homelands and not even giving them a name to signal where they came from. 

Diversity is way more than tossing in a bunch of cultures and physical features into a fantasy world. Diversity means representing people, including their immigration status. It’s not a checklist of “oh I should have these people here because then I’m showing I know humans come in different skin tones”. That is how you get tokenism. 

That’s also how you get assimilationist homogeneity, where everything gets shoved into a single culture that’s assumed to just… be this way, without outside influences. It really doesn’t feel good to have your cultural history stripped away because of wanting to show one culture as just being so special that it produced your culture from itself—when it couldn’t have.

This is on top of the fact you’re basically taking a diversity paintbrush to a very assimilationist and pro-colonial work, which is something that seems to have carried over in your worldbuilding. You’re so focused on simply trying to diversify a work with mostly white people that you haven’t asked: could this plot even work with racial diversity at play?

Because the thing about plots where you take down colonialism is: they don’t work unless you use pre-established colonial forces as the villains. And when you’re talking Brazil, those historical villains were primarily the Portugese, who are white.

Diversity isn’t as simple as this.

Your work should reflect that.

~Mod Lesya

Race and Mixed-Ness

It’s unclear to me based on your description whether your Japanese-Brazilian coded character and Polish-Brazilian coded character are monoracial or mixed. It’s strange to me that your last mixed race person is described as “a mixed race like European + Afro + Natives.” Did you mean to describe a Pardo Brazilian and fail to research/locate the appropriate terminology? And furthermore, why is that character described in racial terms and the other two in national terms? 

The reason this ambiguity is an issue is this: what does Brazilian-Japanese look like, racially? The answer: ANYTHING! Brazil/Japan/Poland/etc. is just a designation for a nation-state drawn on colonial borders. It says nothing about how, specifically, its people should look; to suggest that it does is ethnonationalist. 

Following the assumption that your fae are mixed, Mod Lesya is also right about the potential glorification of mixed-ness. I, on the other hand, am the kind of mixed that, in one majority culture, is considered inherently “cooler.” It’s an awkward feeling to know that when passerby explicitly connect my double eyelids or English-ing Good to being hafu, my identity is being leveraged to further some kind of agenda (eg. westernization, pushing of homogeneity through Othering) Don’t make your mixed people part of an agenda, even if you think it’s a well-meaning one (eg. diversity, progress, etc.). 

~Mod Rina

Further Recommendations

I think it’s possible to write a highly mixed race neutral world (e.g. Earthsea Universe, Broken Earth). Ursula LeGuin and N.K. Jemisin have both written extensively on the conscious narrative choices they took for how to handle the issue of race in a manner that subverts notions of racism, but nevertheless draws attention to the variation in human appearance for their characters. To paraphrase another favorite fantasy author of mine: Don’t hesitate to steal from those more talented than you. That said, I agree with Lesya. You can’t code a country like Brazil, where the very fabric of the culture is so interwoven with race relations, colonialism and imperialism, and create a race neutral society without removing lots of what makes Brazil “Brazil.” You are better off using a diverse civilization that existed prior to the onset of race-based imperialism and colonization.

When that doesn’t happen. Like, when a culture has been so subsumed by the other that it only shines sometimes through small stuff, that shows that there was a lot of effort to make that culture disappear. Brazil is not a country where different cultures live in harmony- not even our different brazilian cultures. There is a certain bias towards the southeastern way of living, for instance. We have a lot of indigenous massacre, a lot of police brutality towards black people, a lot of racism against asian-brazilians.

I understand what op wants to do, i think. In the sense that like… maybe it’s a place where people of different cultures can live well and in harmony, or maybe that different people can have a single culture. But Brazil is not the example you are looking for, op. For one, even the same city can vary wildly in culture - see for instance the Liberdade neighborhood in São Paulo versus the rest of the city. For another, one culture doesn’t just disappear if they’re not forcefully erased. We have german speaking communities in south brazil, and many children who are born speaking german as their first language. We still have a german dialect that is no longer spoken in germany, but remains in small pockets of communities in Minas Gerais. Also, we have a pretty dark past (and present) full of the western, european culture being imposed upon the others. Even brazilian general culture being imposed upon poor european immigrants.

@itismurder says:

My two cents as a Brazilian person: reconsider why you wanna do “fantasy Brazil” in an industry that doesn’t allow Brazilian authors to write “fantasy Brazil”. Brazilians are still giving baby steps regarding publishing our own stories outside of the Brazilian scene: is it appropriate for an American to do it before us? I’d also argue that you cannot really have a “fae” story that really says “Brazil”, considering we don’t usually “do” fairies.

@scila says:

Yeah, I agree with itismurder, profiting off Brazil when Brazilian authors struggle to publish stories about their identity in English fiction is not very nice. Besides, Brazilian culture as a fantasy analog would not work unless you want to set in the Imperial/Colonial era, which was far from a “race neutral” culture. Also the fae is not part of Brazilian folklore.

Please don’t fall for the myth of a racial utopia in Brazil. Yes, we are far more mixed and open to immigrants than Americans, and that’s awesome, but there’s also a lot of racism and racist history, especially toward Afro-Brazilians and Pardos. Immigrants were viewed by some as way to “make Brazil whiter,” for example.

@weirdplutoprince says:

As someone who’s used to seeing brazillian characters having weird hispanic sounding names instead of names and surnames that would be common in brazil, the bit about not using br names sounds particularly annoying to me lol. if i were to read a story with characters said to be brazillian and they were named stuff like john or matthew i’d be mad dsusdfsf also agree with what everyone else said.

Thank you, Brazilian commenters! 

Black Girls & Women: Representation We Want

As a Black woman reader, I definitely want to see more soft Black girls and women in literature. Girls with their own self-interests (caring about oneself isn’t necessarily selfish) and not always someone else’s caregiver is great too.

Note to writers of all races: By all means use this list as inspiration for your stories! 

More Black girls...

In love.

Interracial relationships (Black X White, Black X BIPOC)

Black love. Healthy parental bonds (Bonus: dark skin Black mothers!)

With close family bonds and healthy relationships and support systems (that don’t require enduring abuse, fixing their partner, or overall emotional labor to earn domestic happiness)

Being protected

As main characters, heroines and anti-heroes

On adventures

In fantasy and magical settings

In historical settings as peasants, upper-class society, and royalty. NOT always slaves.

Descriptions of Black Afro hair, skin, features as a normal thing in books (see this compilation) and not in an Othering way

On the other hand, vibrant, sometimes hyped up descriptions that allude to their beauty (see this ask. Or this one). Not Othering, just appreciating! 

Put us in fancy dresses and give us a sword and let us dance at the balls and have admirers!

Experiencing complex emotions not necessarily in reaction to racism or racist violence

On the book cover! And with an accurate, not light or white-washed model

~Mod Colette

Responses:

@madamef-er

Soft Black girls and nerd girls who like cute things. 

Shy Black girls not just in situations with boys. 

More lgbtqia+ Black girls. Studs! Femmes! 

Gender fluid and non conforming constantly changing their style because they like it!

Spies and not just as the 'sexy bait' or 'weapons master' let us sit behind the computer for once and be hackers and stuff

@tanlefan

Black girls who are just...people.

I want a fantasy escapism adventure that isn't a thinly veiled discussion on slavery or racism or any other aspect of The Struggle. I am tired. 

Can I just have a happy Black girl who believes in fairies or something?

@esmeraldanacho-1776 More autistic Black women/girls! I don't care what genre really; just have them in there!

@briarsthicket And enby black people!

@mattiekins

Def soft Black girls. 

Energetic and playful. 

Or shy and quiet.

I want to see more Black girls who are nerds and not just mommy mommying or nanny nannying everyone. 

I want Black girls who want to be a ballerina, or a talk show host, or a game designer etc. 

I want a Black girl who gets to be happy. 

Who doesn't have to act older than she is and be the shoulder for everyone, always.

@xiiishadesofgrey

I want more Black lady nerds, if we’re talking modern settings!  

More Black ladies who have a sporty/playful nature! 

Who aren’t afraid to get dirty and make chaos, without being dirty or frowned upon!

Strange as it sounds coming from me, more Black princesses! Brandy as Cinderella in the 90s was my first Cinderella, and I LOVE that.

Please, god, more Black wlws.

@daintythoughtswritersblock

I want to see tropes exercised 

Black women of all shades and tones

@hazelnut4370

Tbh just fellow Black people being happy, like I rarely see that,

Or enjoying hobbies

@rivergoddessdream

Happily childless Black women

Black women traveling the world

Fat Black women in happy, healthy, poly relationships

Black cis and trans women having a true sisterhood

Autistic black women

Black women in period pieces that aren't about slavery and don't take place in the US

Black women thespians

Black women painters

Black women revolutionaries

Black women front and center in the narrative

Black women healers and storytellers

Non christian Black women stories

Black women rockers

#complicated black women characters #tell those stories

@missnancywrites

More Black Girls...

With diverse cultural and social backgrounds!

That are nerdy, girly, intelligent, ditzy, all the personality types that white girls in literature get!

That are fragile, shy or anxious. Almost every single Black woman I’ve seen in media or otherwise are wise and adult. Let us be an absolute wreck, or an anxious mess!

In science! Characters like Shuri, Moon Girl and Iron Heart in Marvel revitalized me, cuz young Black girls only get two types. Both these girls are in intellectual and in science, but have bery different personalities.

In interracial relationships, and not because they hate Black men or something along those lines. They just happen to be dating outside their race, black women get hate for that in real life and it’s unfair. Let us have relationships outside our race! That said...

In platonic relationships with Black men! I think that’s important, cuz I don’t often seen Black solidarity unless it’s for the purpose of showing how diverse the writing is. Let them share interests, daily frustrations that they would only understand, but don’t force a romance.

In solid friendships with other Black girls! For some reason, we’re pitted against in each other inside and outside of writing! Write some sweet wholesome friendship!

With different sexualities! Let there be some that are ace, others are gay, bi or pan! Just be sure you don’t sexualize them, or turn em into a robot.

Who are dark-skinned! This can be seen a lot in tv or movies, but when you want a black girl in your stuff don’t just hire a light-skinned Black girl or a biracial black girl. It’s not the same.

Who get to act their age! Black women have a long standing history of being adultified, starting from a very young age, and it’s extremely harmful. Little Black girls can wear what they please, the problem is people sexualizing them. Let the teen black girl be a teenager, she can look out for her siblings but she isn’t the keepern the house or their lives. Young adult Black girls are not ideal housewives or capable working machines, they mess up and mess around just as much as any young adult.

With mental/physical disabilities or illnesses. Alongside with being forced to be more mature than they are, disabilities/illnesses are never taken seriously and we’re forced to just deal with it. Having Black girls who happen to have these issues, but also have a healthy support group is always good!

@ink-and-roses

Seen as beautiful and desirable and NOT in a hypersexualized way

Interracial relationships are wonderful because Black girls are beautiful and lbr everybody sees it

Sensitive and allowed to feel something other than righteous anger

Some Black girls are skinny! Some are big! Some are slim and some are curvy! There’s no mold!

Dark skinned!

A YA protagonist out to save the world from something other than racism

Superpowers or magic that doesn’t come from generational trauma or slavery

Black characters who support other Black characters. None of this token crabs in a barrel business.

Black girl nerds and punks and goths exist. I promise.

And this may be a personal preference but I’m not against the idea of a damsel in distress. We are always being strong. Let her be soft and delicate and cared for. Let her be princess carried and rescued from the tower and the dragon.

[Note from Mod: It’s not just you! I love a Black damsel being saved and protected. What is progressive for one woman varies due to historical and present depictions and is why intersectionality in feminism is so important! -Colette]

@nightlyswordswoman

As a writer, I write a lot of my Black female characters like this because I rarely ever see Black women being represented in these ways! ESPECIALLY on the covers of books, unless the author themselves is a Black woman and even then its rare. 

Too often Black women are stereotyped as strong protector types that are always rough, tough, and don’t need anybody in books (and real life), when that’s honestly just dumb and inaccurate--Black women are as vulnerable as anyone else (in some cases, even more vulnerable, but that’s another topic). 

So yeah, this list is 100% accurate and I encourage those who are interested in writing Black female characters (whether you’re a Black woman or not) to consider writing them like this, because the stereotype needs to die lol.

But wait, there’s more!

@just-a-swsh-fangirl  As an anime fan I kinda want to see a white male protagonist be paired up (romantically) with a Black female at the end of the series. It would make my Black self happy to see a girl like me in an important role like that.

@tgingwe

Black girls in STEM, pleaaase

Black girls with ADHD, depression, and other mental health conditions! 

Black girls with supportive families! 

Pan Black girls! 

African Black girls, with cultures that impact their lives and with complex relationships between their specific identities/cultures and the idea of being perceived as just Black outside of Africa! 

Happy Trans Black girls!

@starcrossedrose

Love triangles where a Black character gets to be with the guy or girl in the end.

Love triangles revolving around a Black character.

Black retellings of fairy tales

Black characters in royal positions (King, Queen, Princes, Princesses, etc.)

@superviza

Soft, reserved, emotional, shy, spirited, spunky, bubbly, corny, weird Black women

a Black woman in a healthy relationship with a Black man who has a healthy obsession with her

little Black girls

modest black women

Black women without a criminal to success backstory

Black women they were raised in a healthy family with both Black parents who are still living

Black women in interracial relationships that aren’t necessarily white

No tokens; Several Black women together with no beef

Black women in fantasy

Black women in friendship with ppl of other races and ethnicities

Black women who get to feel and express emotion with it being a threat

@sappho-of-etheria

Black girls who don't live in the US

Black girls who are daughters of immigrants and have complex relationships with both their homeland and the land their family is from

Black girls with healthy relationships with their parents

Black girls who are indecisive about their lives and struggling to find their place in the world and the reason not being racism

LGBTQ+ Black girls with families that accept them and celebrate them

More Black witches/magic users who don't fall in the magical negro type.

Quirky Black girls who have endearing and unusual interests

Black girls who both love sterotypical and non-stereotypical Black things

Black girls having supportive friendship groups and not being the one who constantly needs to support the others

Black girls saving the world

Black girls having a love interest who loves them and cherishes them not because they think they are weak but because they want them to be safe and happy

Black girls being the cherished love interest

Black girls being thought of the most gorgeous girl and not being overly sexualized

Black girls and their siblings/friends going to another world a la Chronicles of Narnia

Black girls being the chosen ones and saving the world

Black girls in medieval fantasy stories and not just being a slave or the handmaiden of the white princess

Black girs with different and complex relationships with their womanhood and how they express it

Black girls with different hair textures

But above all else I just want Black girls to be able to have the same range in character as their white counterparts. I am tired of never being able to relate to characters that look like me

Black girl rep wishlist continued

@just-an-anime-fangirl I kinda want to see a white male protagonist be paired up ( romantically) with a Black female at the end of the series. It would make my Black self happy to see a girl like me in an important role like that.

@bubblyjaay-blog

Don't pull a Henry Danger.

I want Black girls to be loved and fall in love. 

Not just be perpetual straightlaced, sassy side characters who's only there to be straightlace support.

@igotloki

Yes! All of this! 

I’m so tired of seeing people who look like me only playing the side kick or supportive friend at best. 

There is no reason we can’t be the main character in every genre.

@mutantgurls

Dark skin Black girl as main characters in romance, Rom-com, fantasy, science fiction

Black girls starring in romance, fantasy, or syfy. (Not just drama)

Black girls following other religion such as Judaism or Islam or they’re atheists

Black girl getting to be soft, goofy, silly

Magical Black girls who get to transform into their superpower alter ego

Magical beings Black girls (Black fairies, mermaids, aliens)

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

@horse-faced-activist-gay​ said:

Hello! I have what I fear is probably a stupid question. I have a character whose great grandmother was Japanese. Everyone else in his family is white. Is he a poc? Not in a breaking him down to a percentage type of way, and there are other characters in the story who certainly are poc, and his mother was close to her grandmother’s culture, he isn’t so much. It just feels like I should know to capture him properly. Thank you!

Neither Japanese identity nor POC status can be assigned purely by blood quantums. There are a fair number of individuals in the US who identify as mixed/ Japanese/ Japanese-American who fit the above description. What is more relevant for the purposes of your story is how this character views their Japanese identity, how they interact with white culture in the US, and how both of these concepts affect their interactions with family and friends. Please research the concept of “white presenting” for further insight. 

- Marika.

While in some ways, sometimes, I am white presenting, I’ve been pretty connected to my culture since childhood, so I’m pretty solid on my own POC label. I’ve reached out to other white-presenting Japanese peers for their experiences! 

It’s a complicated relationship. My respondents were split on whether or not the POC label was right for them individually, although everyone identified as Japanese/Okinawan. The POC label is very much a matter of personal choice and how you want to be perceived. As Marika said, sometimes it’s less productive to talk about “who is POC” and more productive to consider how someone’s racial or ethnic identity changes how they interact with the world. 

One common thread was how quickly they were racialized or invalidated the moment they opened up about their heritage. 

A: [Regarding physical comments like “oh, I see it a bit now in your eyes”] I’ve always seen it as ego soothing, like “damn sorry I misread your ethnicity here’s something.” In the Western mind Asian people have particular eyes. Either that or the way people look at me shifts when I mention my ethnicity.

B: I recently had an experience where a professor said I couldn’t be a person of color because I was lighter than a paper bag and it caused a whole discussion that was frankly humiliating. I feel weird claiming the identity of POC because I can evade a lot of racism just based on looking white. I’ve noticed a lot of my experiences with racism are based on disclosure. I generally get treated as white until I mention being multiracial or Asian specifically, then people get weird.

Another common thread was feeling as though monoracial white people didn’t see the utility in identifying with the non-white culture at all, and pressured them to “embrace whiteness”: 

A: I never got put into the Other category by white people. To white people it’s always been, “why are you so weird, just accept you’re white and move on.” I’m stubborn so people pushing against me meant I pushed back harder. My identity as an Okinawan-American is much greater than my identity as a European-American these days.

C: [It] made me feel so off-put. “Embracing” my whiteness was all me, on my own terms, using my own realizations. I’m fairly fine to say that I feel like I was bullied out of saying I’m Japanese openly. 

They also noted that monoracial Asians also gate-kept them out of the community (an experience I share with A as well!). 

A: When I mention something about my ancestry [to someone in the Asian-American community] to connect as a fellow Asian-American, I always get like, “wow really? I couldn’t tell, you must’ve taken more after your [white] Mom” or some shit. So it can be a sensitive topic for me. It does feel like the second I drop the fact that I’m Asian on another Asian person it’s like a test, like they gotta measure my Asianess.“ 

On a more hopeful note, they mentioned that they’ve worked to find ways to connect with their heritage or find a supportive community, and that it’s been rewarding. 

A mentioned that the local Vietnamese-American community was welcoming, and also found that learning Japanese in university meant a lot for cultural connection. 

B found that taking Japanese classes, going to Japanese cultural events, and sharing Japanese food with friends helped them connect. 

C mentioned having a great time exploring traditional dress and kimono workshops, as well as buying old/vintage Japanese items to learn about them. 

All of them mentioned that online nikkei communities have also been a great space to connect with each other, although they said there was a certain je ne sais quoi about in-person interaction that they greatly missed. 

So, OP, I hope you can see from this that cultural connection and community are going to mean a lot to someone like your character, and you should represent that by giving him an interest in keeping up with his Japanese culture, even if it’s through the little things. 

Also from my wonderful respondents is this message to any white-presenting Japanese person struggling with their identity (and this can apply to other white-presenting mixed folks too!): 

C: I think you’ll build some confidence as you get older and that confidence includes not just your personality, appearance, but who you are. I fought to get into those Asian student clubs (failed), went on dates with some Asian people (failed), tried to make friends with certain Asians on the basis we were both Asian (failed), went to Japan and tried to connect with people (failed). You shouldn’t have to do all this to prove to others or yourself that you are who you are. All my Asian friends have entertained the "come over I want to make this recipe” or “let’s go see this Japanese pottery shop.” Find people who want to support you.

Sci-fi Writer: The ship/AI is sentient and friends with the crew

The Heart of the Forest

I am a first-generation American, with both my parents being Taiwanese immigrants. My mother and father are both highly educated and are currently American citizens. At home, you’ll probably find a Taiwanese talk show or a Chinese drama serial blaring on the TV; my father has a slight grudge against the English language. I was raised speaking Mandarin Chinese and am passably fluent with a slight accent, although my reading level is barely at elementary-school. I’ve gone to Chinese school since I can remember, and grew up in a Chinese church. Simply put, I’m just an average ABC kid living a quiet life. 

Language

Being able to speak Chinese has been a real sore spot my entire life. From going to only speaking Chinese as a wee five-year-old to having to take the kindergarten class as a second-grader in Chinese school was a significant thorn in the side of my ego for quite some time. The environment I grew up in very much encouraged being “cultured”. While unspoken, Chinese kids that can’t speak or have a severe accent when speaking Chinese are very much judged. I actually love the feeling of being able to speak Chinese at a near fluent level; I just wish I could read and write fluently as well. The sheer complexity and history inherent in the Chinese language frustrates a bookworm like me, knowing there is an entire world of wonder that I can’t fully access. It’s the fact that I can only understand about every fifth word whenever I open a Chinese novel that really grinds on my gears. 

Religion

There is actually a significant Chinese/Taiwanese Christian immigrant community. My church is non-denominational, and it actually has the words “Chinese Christian Church” in its name. Taiwanese and Chinese culture is woven into the fabric of our church, which results in some interesting situations with some of our pastors that are ABCs or white. 

Food

Taiwanese street food is the best. In an environment rife with competition and plenty of eager customers, there is just so much good food. The recent trend with bubble tea is both beneficial and frustrating to me. Beneficial because there is more access to bubble tea (I absolutely refuse to call it boba), frustrating because so many people are unaware that it is a Taiwanese invention. My favorite dish finds its roots in Mainland China: Beef noodle soup. My mom cooks it with tomatoes, which makes a huge difference in the way the soup tastes. In general, I would say that in America, we don’t eat classically pure Taiwanese cuisine; the only thing consistently Asian on our table is the omnipresence of white rice. I’ve eaten grilled steak with white rice before. 

Identity Issues

My primary identity issue is that of a different trope from the “banana” one; I’ve always felt that I would never be Asian enough. The idea of being able to speak and read Chinese fluently, to understand what life in a Taiwanese city is like, that has always been an underlying complex of mine. I’ve always had some strange ideal of trying to become a “Taiwanese” person, and I constantly compare myself to people I know in Mainland China and in Taiwan, even though that is simply impossible. It’s to the point that I get a guilty thrill when transfer students ask me what region of China I’m from when I speak to them in Chinese. This weird, inverted superiority complex has decreased over the years as I’ve improved in my language skills and also learned to appreciate more of the benefits of growing up in the U.S. But it’s still there, always lurking. 

Things I’d like to see less of

Racism in my community is a real thing; a lot of Asian immigrants (and subsequently their kids) are unabashedly racist and stereotype with no shame. It is a strange, sad phenomenon born out of ignorance and tribalism. My peers and I have to be more adamant about holding ourselves and others accountable in regards to these narrow-minded, limiting mental blocks. 

More nuanced coverage of China in western media. There seems to be a significant misconception that Chinese people are either poor, brainwashed commies with no conception of what fReEDOm is or they are rich, trashy brainwashed commies with no conception of what fReEDOm is. If more people actually started talking to people from mainland China, I think they’d find they’re really just normal people with their own thoughts on what democracy and government is.

Things I’d like to see more of

Sincere, genuine representation of Asian-Americans, be they Indian or Chinese or Korean or Japanese (read: Fresh Off The Boat? Nice try, but it ain’t cute now in 2020). Media purporting to represent us is chock-full of stereotypes and caricatures to the extreme; they attempt to both appeal to white people and Asians and fail miserably on both ends.