Galactica-rose - The Anti-Depression Blog - Tumblr Blog

Resources for Writing Sensitive Topics

As always, when writing about sensitive topics/injuries/illnesses, we encourage everyone to research and tag works appropriately. This is to ensure that the whump community can remain a safe space for everyone, as well as assist writers in creating well-informed works that avoid offending people and stereotyping, romanticising, or sensationalising hard topics.

We have also added some additional links that may be useful when creating characters.

Below are some links to resources we and others found useful - we'd like to thank the wonderful members of our community for helping us with finding great resources.

Blogs/Tumblr Posts:

@cripplecharacters - A whole blog dedicated to helping people write disabled characters.

^ A Guide to Writing Disabled Characters

@writingwithcolor - A whole blog dedicated to writing and resources centered on racial, ethnic and religious diversity.

^ Stereotypes and Tropes Navigation

@creatingblackcharacters - Creating Black Characters *with intent!

Resources for Writing Injuries (Tumblr Masterpost)

Resources for Writing Sketchy Topics (Tumblr Masterpost - please note that a couple of links are broken due to the post being 7 years old, but many are still working!)

A guide to designing, drawing or writing characters who use mobility aids (Tumblr post)

Writing A Blind or Visually Impaired Character (Tumblr Post)

Independent Websites

Avoiding Stereotypes in Fiction: Characters with Mental Health Issues (WritersHelpingWriters)

How Do I Depict a Disabled Character Respectfully? (Fay Onyx, Mythcreants blog)

Respectfully Depicting a Character Adapting to a Disability (Fay Onyx, Mythcreants blog)

Writing Deaf Characters (T. Frohock, author.)

How to Write Deaf or Hard of Hearing Characters (Melanie Ashford, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association)

How to Write a Blind or Vision Impaired Character (AllWriteAlright)

If anyone has any additional sources, feel free to share them in the reblogs/replies!

POST CONTRIBUTERS - Thank you!

@psychologeek - Thank you for sharing some of the primary resources with us, it helped us a great deal :)

@tabletop-whump

3.5. a lot of procrastination

the stages of writing:

amazing idea

doubt

despair

snacks

somehow, a finished story.

Day 4 of 31 days of Halloween

The dark night shrouded the young boy in a cold blanket. He remembered to put on his sneakers but he wasn't good at tying the laces yet and the shoes flopped off and on his foot with every step, laces trailing behind.

Sophie didn't tell Raphael that they would be visiting or even that she had a brother. She thought it would be the best surprise! She knew he would love him just as much as she did. The young boy and ghost crossed the city, sometimes having to reroute because she forgot he can't just float over fences and rivers.

Though the boy was scared, she kept reassuring him and because he didn't know where they were, he followed. Eventually, they found their way to the old abandoned house that Raphael called home. At night, it was even scarier. The vines hung from the roof, the gargoyles out front were snarling, and the spikes on the roof made it look like an abandoned church.

The boy cautiously walked up the concrete steps, careful to avoid tripping on the moss that covered the sloping cliffs. He made his way up to the hulking doors and hit them as hard as he could, but not a sound was heard. He tried again. BANG. The sound echoed through the building.

"I will just go get him. He must be sleeping" Sophie says, sliding through the tall mahogany doors with ease. She finds him sitting in the study, drinking the blood of a delivery man.

"Raphael! I came to visit and I brought a friend so please come to the door. He can't get in."

"you brought others here without permission?" He races to the front and opens the door to see the slip of a thing that Sophie calls her brother. His hair was curly and long, his ribs poking through his skin under his small shirt. His hooded eyes stared at the vampire with only a mild interest.

"Are you Sophie's friend?" The boy squeaked out. The vampire bared his fangs and invited the boy inside...

31 Days of Halloween Writing Challenge (makeup)

The years went by and Sophie had stopped crying. Raphael treated her like a daughter and she saw him as a fun uncle. The two became inseparable...mostly because they both didn't want to leave the house. Sophie did convince him to drink human blood and he convinced her to go see her parents.

As the years progressed, Raphael kept growing stronger now that he was eating properly. Sophie however, was becoming more depressed. Her parents were growing older, they had another child, Sophie's half sibling. She got to see them move on with their lives.

Sophie started to show up to her brother's room. She would talk to him, help him out when he was scared, and make funny faces at him but for some reason that only made him cry.

"Don't cry! I just want to make sure you get to stay with mom and dad longer than me." She would coo to him, but she would make sure to hide whenever her parents came in.

When the boy was around 6, he started communicating with her. He could see her! The two became fast friends. They played house, he showed her the newest video games, and she helped him with what to wear everyday.

Eventually, she wanted him to meet Raphael. So she kept watch and had him sneak out of the house...

31 Days of Halloween Writing Challenge#2

It had been 200 years since Raphael had felt love. He mostly stayed in his castle, letting the world pass him by. His cape had holes in it and he got his blood from the rats that had infested. He never wanted to be a vampire and always saw it as a curse.

That is, until he met Sophie. The girl was an elementary schooler who had died during a storm on her way home from school. She was hung and still doesn't know who her assailant is. She had to watch her parents cry at her funeral. After, she wandered the streets until she found Raphael's house where she felt she could cry with no one around. She didn't realize Raphael was there.

"Why are you crying?" Raphael asks, slowly approaching the young ghost. She flinches when she hears his voice. She was still wearing her school uniform, her facial features still intact as she hasn't forgotten them yet.

"I am dead. I barely lived and had to watch my parents cry at my funeral. I just wanted to help the poor ghost in the park and I don't even believe in ghosts!" Sophie cries to the first person to talk to her in weeks.

"Well I am forever alive with no one to talk too. If I get close to someone, I know they will die before me and I will grieve again. Living forever is so lonely." Raphael says, tears welled up in his eyes and his fangs made little cuts in his mouth. The young man was tanned and yet pale somehow, like he is sick forever.

"Well, I could be your friend," Sophie sheepishly says.

"One day you may move on too and I couldn't bear that!" Raphael cries.

Sophie, almost regretting her choice of creepy house to cry in, tries to pat the poor vampire but her hand goes right through him.

"I am just a kid. I don't even know what unfinished business I could have. I doubt I will leave so soon or suddenly. You're the first person I have spoken too. The first to acknowledge that I am here. Please let me stay!" The poor ghost couldn't help but miss her parents, just as Raphael missed his own family.

"okay little girl. You remind me of my daughter and it's been decades since I've spoken to anyone. I will let you stay."

So that's how they spent their days, talking to each other, and giving advice...that is for now...

Depression Solutions

Me: Ah yes. If I work on the story I've been writing for 2 years, I may feel better and productive. Also Me: Fuck that I will just start a tumblr page.

I really struggle with this

You don't need anyone's approval for the stories you write and the art you create. But it's also absolutely valid to want some approval from your audience. Kudos and likes don't determine your creation's worth. But it just feels amazing to receive them.

reasons to write fanfiction (I'll start):

share a cool scene that popped into your head

evoke a particular emotion the canon makes you feel

song made you think of a character or idea from canon

make people feel the same way about a character you do

make dolls kiss for fun

explore ideas the canon hints at but doesn't do anything with

traumatize characters and make them suffer

coddle characters and let them rest

had an insane idea for a crack ship and now everyone needs to know

the author of the canon was wrong and must be fixed

use familiar characters to explore your own ideas and plotlines

canon is too short and you need to wallow in the universe of the story

31 Days of Halloween Short Story Challenge

The night was cold and long, the rain hitting the pavement like a drum. It was on this night that Sophie saw it. The pale, translucent, ghost from the rumors being spread around at school. She didn't even believe in ghosts seven hours ago and now she is face to face with one. It was just hovering in the park, a shapeless blob that she almost mistook for fog.

"What are you doing there?" She calls, not knowing what else to say. "Won't you get a cold in the rain?" Her uniform skirt and button up were completely soaked through, her umbrella not strong enough to hold back the winds flinging water through the air.

The ghost just looks at her, then turns away. "I don't like to be ignored" She says, starting to climb over the short chain. She was only an elementary schooler after all. As she walks closer, the rain makes her vision even blurrier.

Her flashlight cut only sharp angles into the dense night. Still, she makes her slow trek to where she had seen the blob. She is almost to the spot when she feels a sharp tug on her blouse and falls backwards.

---------------------the next day

"Did you hear about sophie?" Her frazzled father asks the distraught policeman. He is still in his robe and pajama pants from staying up all night. His wife wouldn't let go of his arm as if he'd disappear if they lost the physical contact. They had called yesterday but the cops had told them they had to wait 24 hours so they went out searching.

Sadly, they couldn't find their daughter and were forced to go home and anxiously await any news of their daughter.

"We found her. She was hanging by her neck in a park she passes on her way home from school, a sheet hung over her as if she was a ghost with a creepy sharpie smile. I'm so sorry."