Look, Guys, This May Seem Ironic Coming From A Person With Verbose Disease, But I'm About To Tell You

look, guys, this may seem ironic coming from a person with Verbose Disease, but I'm about to tell you the secret to winning social media: shutting the fuck up. you have a controversial discourse opinion? shut the fuck up and no one will know. can't participate in a boycott for various reasons? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you think or do something Problematic that has no bearing on anyone but yourself? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you haven't been keeping up on a pressing social issue? shut the fuck up and no one will know. your mind is a wonderful place where you can have all the bad takes in the world and they're all perfectly insulated from everyone and everything unless you try to excise them on a grand scale. you can take the mental L all by yourself without using a public platform as a confession booth and face zero repercussions and it'll be just fine. open up a damn diary and explain yourself there.

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to whomstever transformative work writers it may concern -

this is plagiarism.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful vampire lord lived in a splendid palace in a seaside city with his seven lowly spawn, whom he starved and kept in perpetual terror." vs "Once upon a time, a gorgeous vampire lord lived in a splendid palace in a seaside city with his seven sad spawn, whom he starved and kept in perpetual terror."

(almost word-for-word the same sentence and scenario, no true distinguishing features, probably not a sentence two people would uniquely come up with in its entirety)

this is derivative.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful vampire lord lived in a splendid palace in a seaside city with his seven lowly spawn, whom he starved and kept in perpetual terror." vs "Before our story truly began, there were seven poor vampire spawn who lived in constant fear under their beautiful, but terrible, master in the seaside city of Baldur's Gate."

(same scenario or trope, similar voice/phrasing, but a wholly unique work, with clear nods to the influencing material)

this is two writers with a similar voice.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful vampire lord lived in a splendid palace in a seaside city with his seven lowly spawn, whom he starved and kept in perpetual terror." vs "In times of old, a bustling city full of trade sat beside a sea, and in it lived a vampire lord of most evil repute. This is not his story."

(similar tone and voice, dissimilar approach)

this is none of the above.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful vampire lord lived in a splendid palace in a seaside city with his seven lowly spawn, whom he starved and kept in perpetual terror." vs "Cazador Szarr made a deal with the devil. That's how this whole thing started. Part of that deal? Find seven pretty suckers and carve a contract into their flesh. Keeping them as slaves in his shitty basement was just a bonus, really."

(same source material, same scenario, but unique voice/approach/style)

in case you needed to review the difference. stop hassling people because they used the same trope/scenario/word that you did. it's embarrassing. and it's the mark of an amateur, tbh.

Hair for thought: a little mini lesson

I know this blog may seem more geared towards art than writing, and admittedly, I am pushing for visuals because I can be a very visual creator myself, so the two converge for me. So that may be an issue of communication on my end.

However, I do want people to consider that the way you "see" your character in your mind affects how you write them! So if you're here to learn to write better Black characters, the way you picture them has an effect!

For example, let's say you're writing your character. You want them to have a 4C afro. Do you know what 4C means? Do you know what that looks like? How it feels? How it changes under different environments and circumstances? How can you describe those things to give your reader an adequate picture of your character if you don't know what that looks like? How can you get creative with their looks if you don't know your options?

If you have a loving moment between your characters, and you want one to touch the hair of the other. First, do you know the importance of the vulnerability of touching your Black partner's hair? Second, how will you describe that, if you don't know the texture of the hair and what it looks like? You can't often "run your fingers" through it! You have to be able to know and describe the curl pattern and what could happen with it!

Again, I'm using hair examples because that's the next lesson, but this still works in general! Skin color, the way the light plays on the skin- if you understand lighting on brown skin visually, you can describe it! Our lips, the way they feel in a kiss! Pubic hair texture, for the nasty!

One major example I have of this is that once, a few years ago, I did a test in one of my favorite fandoms. I took about 100 stories, and I asked myself: how far can I get into this fic while assuming My Blorbo is Black? (I.e., how often do we assume that whiteness is the default and don't feel the need to properly describe our characters?)

The answer: through most of them 🤣 "Brunette with brown eyes" is the majority of Black people.

We have to be willing to address the unintentional bias in our minds that treats Whiteness, and therefore white features and the habits that come with them, as the default. It doesn't seem like it matters because it's "normal", except for I and other Black fans! It's not our norm! You have to understand how we look, and how we may interact with the world culturally (and again, we're not a monolith! But there are some consistencies!) and how that may "look" (be described) in a story.

I hope this may help clear up some confusion 😅 and again, I'm sorry if I didn't make my goals clear. I'm new at this.