#tragedy exploitation

[writingwithcolor]

A Careful Balance: Portraying a Black Character's Relationship with their Hair

@writingraccoon said:

My character is black in a dungeons and dragons-like fantasy world. His name is Kazuki Haile (pronounced hay-lee), and his mother is this world's equivalent of Japanese, which is where his first name is from, while his father is this world's equivalent of Ethiopian, which is where his last name is from. He looks much more like his father, and has hair type 4a. I plan to make his character very finnicky about his hair, both enjoying styling it, but also often being unsure how to style it (not in that he doesn't know how to, but has so many options for how to style it, he has trouble choosing). However, I know that there are some very harmful ways to write black hair, especially in regards to how the black character themselves feels about it. Kazuki does not hate his hair, in fact he takes joy in it, and I'm researching black hair and hair styles to be as accurate as possible. But I'm unsure if portraying a black character as occasionally overwhelmed by or vain about his hair is negative. How would you suggest either changing this or making it work? Does it need to be changed in the first place?

Black Character Overwhelmed by Curly Afro Hair

Your Black character wanting his hair to look its best and at times feeling overwhelmed seems reasonable and natural to me. It appears their challenge comes with how to style it. Not so much with struggling how it looks or how hard it is to manage. That is good, as this further helps avoid placing a strong negative focus on Black hair. 

Him caring a lot about how it is style should not be deemed vain or frivolous, either. In any case, hair care is self care. There’s nothing wrong with having pride with your hair, especially hair that mainstream society, historically and present, might say is not beautiful. This still matters, even in a fantasy world, since your readers still exist in this reality. It’s empowering and a welcome change to see someone who loves their afro hair, actually.

There are unique factors someone with coily afro hair would experience vs. straight, wavy, or looser curls, but people struggling with their hair (too frizzy, too flat, too limp, too thin, too thick!) is universal. 

There is a delicate balance to achieve.

Avoid Writing a Black Hair Journey Experience 

An overall negative Afro hair journey might be the reality for many, especially when society deems Afro hair as unacceptable and slaps so many uninvited opinions, laws and policies over its existence and on certain styles (again, historically and very much at present), but that’s the kind of story that is best handled by someone with the background. Someone willing to commit to the research might also be able to pull it off, although it’s truly not the kind of thing an escapism novel needs in my opinion. If the story is not meant to delve into “A Black /Black Hair Experience” then I'd avoid going that route. That is moving a bit towards a struggle narrative, depending on how much it defines your character’s story.

Add positive and neutral hair language and interactions

For your writing, I’d avoid using unchallenged negative language about his hair. Being overwhelmed at times and frustrated is one thing and expected. If his hair is constantly brought up, and is associated with uncontrollable, ugly, or too [insert struggle here], then rethink the direction you’re going. 

Add some positive or neutral terms, reactions, and interactions in the narrative towards afro hair, such as describing color and texture.

“His fine coils bounced in the wind.” 

“Hair black and shiny” 

“She wore her hair in two large, fluffy buns.”

“He admired his fresh, neat braids in the mirror, smiling at his reflection, before turning to leave.”

Another tip: It may have been for research purposes, but leave out any hair number categorizing in the story and rely on description. I’d say this goes for any story, as reading the number would feel off. 

“He had coily 4a hair.” Nahh! :P 

Also, I would suggest sending all passages that focus on his hair to a Black sensitivity reader for review.

More reading:

~Mod Colette

[chaoticdesertdweller]

[catcas22]

I hate how the dlc turns the Battle of Aeonia into a farce.

It wasn't two noble warriors, each admirable in their own right, brought to blows by irreconcilable visions for the future.

It wasn't a brother and sister pitted against each other in a brutal war for succession in which their only choices were victory or death.

It wasn't a tragic misunderstanding, Malenia desperately seeking to rescue her kidnapped brother and Radahn defending his home.

The explanation that we all thought was reductive, caricaturish, borderline insulting to the characters, ended up being confirmed canon. Radahn was a Gaston-esque moron determined to test himself against the Undefeated Swordswoman, consequences be damned, and Malenia was a coldblooded attack dog willing to nuke an entire continent to ensure victory.

I hate it so, so much.

[denkisauce]

(bnha manga ending spoilers)

what was the point

what was the point

what was the point

WHAT WAS THE POINT

WHAT WAS THE POINT

WHAT WAS THE POINT 😭😭

what was the pointtttt

[daemon-in-my-head]

I think the biggest issue about the durge storyline is the surface approach to horror the game has chosen. Instead of an emotional connection, a human element or exploiting empathy to drive home how horrible it is what happens and make the person playing feel awful for what is happening, they mainly went for shock value and scratched all else.

And because this was the thought jumping around the vacant halls of my brain as i was trying to fall asleep yday, here's an idea on how you could change that as well as improve the tutorial <3

Start right at the beginning. Don't let the PC wake up all on their own in their pod, have them immediately ambushed by a frantic wizard as they leave their pod.

The wizards name's Lenore. After a very brief, very brutish surface inspection she deems you human enough to help her out. She introduces herself as a member of the society of brilliance and explains what's going on very roughly, ur on board a minflayer ship, in the hells as it seems, but she knows someone perhaps it's not to late for y'all yet. Hands ya a makeshift club or smth and tells u to follow her.

Story continues as per usual, you meet us, Lenore immediately wants to study them after this is all over, you meet Lae'zel, Lenore stops herself from asking her all sorts of astral mushroom questions, you meet Shart, she and Lae'zel still hate each other, she places some hope on lenore getting y'all out of here. You see the very well made transformation of thrall no.38 and everyone's disturbed, but alas nobody has time so y'all head to the helm

The same dialogue happens right before you enter the helm, Lae'zel and Shart bicker but Lenore shuts them both down saying how they have no time to lose but if you make it to her acquaintance in time you won't be tentaclefied and she'd rly rather not as she has someone dear waiting for her at home, dialogue concludes and y'all head inside.

Now everything happens as per usual. Helm shenanigans, y'all crash land, yada yada yada. Except now you'll also find a lenore around the entrance of the crashed ship and you'll also find a half dead mind flayer amongst the 2 intellectual devourers that cut you off from the rest of the map. Once you defeat those two and make your way into any direction, a dialogue is triggered, more on that later.

Approaching her triggers a dialogue, she asks to team up and visit her buddy, if you agree she joins you immediately, if you refuse her she laments your sorry fate and leaves to find her acquaintance. In that case you'll just never meet her again cuz creativity ran out for that route, apologies.

Assuming she joins you; the mindflayer scene triggers. She offers to deal with it, you get 2 options; either allow her the honors or reject her and deal with it yourself. If you allow her, my sadism will shine through and she'll fail the checks (guaranteed), aka turn on the party. Combat initiates and you gotta take her out after she displays the horrors of having ur personhood stripped away and becoming a geniune mindless thrall in service of mindflayers (we're just gonna go with multiple dead brains r still better than one living one mindflayer logic here). Now should you reject her; the same thing will happen. She will reply as though you agreed and go ahead. Perhaps she just ignored you?

Now after lenore is out of the picture and we have a brilliant showcase of what thralldom entails, the game continues on as per usual. You do whatever you gotta do until the a long rest scene triggers where everyone feels miserable. Not the first dream guardian one but a new one. Its just guys complaining they feel shit, narrator explaining you do too, but nothing besides the omnious knowledge that smth is happening comes of it.

Right after that wonderful experience the Alfira Incident will trigger upon next long rest. That one will happen as per usual as well, however unlike the usual Incident aftermath, this time, no matter what dialogue option you chose the game and narrator will treat it as though you tried to blame the tadpole. The companions too actively gaslighting you into believing it was the tadpole. After all, you just had a really, really shit night only one day prior so it's gotta be the tadpole snacking on ur brain. It just has to. Thats also why your answer was just ignored. Perhaps the part in charge of impulse control is being eaten rn. Eitherway "keep it down until we found that halsin guy" is the only consequence.

Now usually upon the next long rest after Alfiras unfortunate demise Scel would show up. However this time he doesn't. Instead you'll just get a notification that you recieved a new item (murder mantel) and a note. The note reads good job, ily, prommy I'll stay longer next time, signed ur dearest stalker. Yk the usual Scel stuff.

Game continues on as per usual until you either defend or raid the Grove. If you defend the grove; in the groves makeshift prison is a group of goblins. You're asked to deal with them as you see fit. You get 3 options: show mercy and let them go, threaten them and let them go, dispose of them. The narrator will say how you go about each option a la "you approach them and open the door" however what is shown, regardless of option, is how your character slaughters them gleefully. Right thereafter whatever companions are with you will comment on it, Karlach/Wyll think you overdid it, Shadowheart/Lae'zel question if this was necessary and Astarion/Gale are concerned (more for themselves but alas), you once again get dialogue options that would allow you to express how you didn't want this to happen specifically, however it doesn't matter what you pick, your character will always sigh dreamily express pride in having their deranged nonsense being witnessed. If you chose to raid the Grove the same group of goblins will be waiting for u around Waukeens Rest and express the desire to join you, however it'll end the same way.

Next longrest Scel will finally show up and compliment you on what you've achieved so far, your character will question if he has anything to do with the tadpoles, to which he'll just reply that the guardian told you they fend them off, don't they? If PC expresses they never wanted any of this but couldn't help it Scel will just sigh and lament that *that* old habit seems to be back and follows up by reassuring that "don't worry, it'll all go back to how it should be in due time".

After that game continues as per usual.

And just like that you've enhanced the tragedy of Lenore and made her Tower even more haunting, cuz now you know her and you know what she meant when she said she had to return.

But most importantly you've displayed the horror of durge in a way the player can relate to, because you've proven how much illusion their choices really are. You make the player feel empathy for Durge because now they know how much it must suck to have their autonomy stripped from them in this particular, almost doll like fashion, seeing how they very much just experienced that a few times. You've also etablished whatever is going on with them is much more sinister than the tadpoles, and you've already seen how bad that is thx to Lenore. And Scel is even more menacing cuz how the fuck does he know shit he shouldn't be able to know cuz it happened in your dreams? Who is he? What's going on? Who is Durge? Who else is up there in that tadpole scrambled mass of flesh you call a brain?

And all of that was achieved by keeping the original shock and gore in place but adding onto it with a bit more context and emotional connection. Cuz you can't force your customizable character to feel something, wouldn't work for them, but you can etablish how much it doesn't matter when you're a handcrafted doll remote controlled by a murder god.

Anyway thanks for coming to my tedtalk and the cutesy little post about rip good horror that escalated into a quick rewrite of act 1. Knowing me smth like this will happen again <3

[mamawasatesttube]

hey! so i just started reading through superboy '94 and idk exactly how to explain this but like. i like the comic itself but it's really hard to enjoy it bc there's so much of older women hitting on kon. i've read issues zero, one, and two for context. i think i want to read through more of it but does it ever stop having so much of that? bc so far it's really uncomfortable watching like 3 people that're way older than kon hit on him and the narrative not really address it in a significant way (so far)

unfortunately, that won't go away for a hot minute (until about halfway through the run). kesel is like... trying to fulfill the "teen boy fantasy" of dating a ~hot older woman~ and unfortunately, it can be really hard to read because he doesn't seem to comprehend that tana grooming kon, is, like, a bad thing.

as for knockout, i will say the culmination of her arc and everything she does to kon is fascinating to analyze in some respects (though still hard to read!). because she is a villain, she does manipulate kon, and the narrative acknowledges that she lies and uses him in a way that is deeply hurtful to him. in some ways this arc reads so intentionally like a story about abuse that i find it hard to believe kesel didn't intend it as exactly that; in other ways i'm like wait no never mind he's an idiot, i don't know. (it's sort of like everything surrounding blockbuster+tarantula in nightwing '96: the guy it happened to reacts realistically like someone who's abused/traumatized would, and it really does read like A Trauma Response, but the rest of the characters in the narrative don't really treat it or the character it happened to like they would if the story was gonna acknowledge that they have any sort of sexual trauma.)

overall i kind of regard this part of sb94 like. almost a horror story? where we're sitting on the outside banging on the glass like NO GET AWAY FROM HIM but he doesn't even realize they're monsters. i also personally kind of interpret it like how kon sees the situations; he doesn't realize anything is wrong, so the narrative doesn't acknowledge anything is wrong. it's unreliable narration. (kesel did not mean this; kesel wanted us to like tana, lmao. but this is kinda how i take it and run with it.)

[aroanthy]

kiryuu sibling stasis post-32 is so interesting to me. nanami tries to leave and is (temporarily but also, crucially, violently) prevented from doing so by touga and akio. after this experience she puts distance between herself and them: she leaves touga’s phone in the car, she resigns from the student council (though she dons her old uniform still), she repeatedly dismisses and undermines the authority of the rose code, of end of the world, of akio, of touga. but she’s still in ohtori, isn’t she? uncomfortable with the idea of leaving, uncertain if it’s really possible. she tried before, and it hurt her. deeply. it’s so interesting to me, nanami’s agency and how she limits her exertion of it after 32, when she realises it for what it is. contrast that with touga, who accepts this weird stalemate between them, who is, really, uninterested in having any relationship of any kind with nanami if he can’t gain something from her. he’s very passive with her after 32, compared to the passivity he’d always feigned towards her before in order to stoke reactions from her and then exploit them. i was thinking about how touga has always been able to sever his relationship with nanami, but chosen not to; first out of a sense of obligation (‘we should live to help each other’) then a realisation of how that could be exploited. i was thinking about how nanami has never realised her ability to leave, in part because it is limited by touga and the harm he does her. i was thinking about the desperation and confusion akio calls out to anthy with as she leaves. i was thinking about how different that is to the kiryuus’ strange semi-breakdown; touga doesn’t want or need nanami, and nanami might love her brother but she cannot trust him or feel safe around him, doesn’t want to see him anymore; she’s itching to leave, and just a little scared (you know, because last time she tried that her brother assaulted her), and he’s not doing anything because ignoring her means he doesn’t have to deal with the emotions of her leaving or staying. something something gendered power dynamics something something tragic siblings

[wisteriasymphony]

"We're nothing more than toys to these gods, Marinette!" Adrien continued to dodge her strikes, that accursed spinning yo-yo whirring past his ears every instance it was thrown and retrieved. "They're going to get rid of us soon, taking their side won't change that!" "Maybe they wouldn't want to get rid of us if you played your flipping part!"

The yo-yo missed again, clacking against a wall behind him. Adrien took a breath, the soles of his boots digging further into the ground.

"I did what I had to," he cried out. "My part was slavery, Marinette! My part was torture!" Marinette's tear-stained frown was deep and furious, the corner of her mouth drooping to bare her lower teeth. Her face—her ears—were a bright, blinding red.

"A future with me is torture to you?!"

[jannacalendar]

Jenny was possessed by a creature that had killed multiple other people. Eyghon attempted to tempt her boyfriend to 'take advantage of [her]' body which she had no control over. She was brought back from the brink with Angel's hands around her neck - the vampire who inflicted great trauma upon her people, the consequences of which she had to bear the burden of (and that, lest we forget, ultimately led to her death.) Three weeks later she was still having trouble sleeping due to what she endured.

That is such a violent, intrusive experience and yet that plot point is wrapped up with... Jenny feeling the need to apologise to the man who (however unintentionally) was the architect behind what happened to her - because she was 'harsh' when telling him she needed more time and space.

'You make me feel bad that I don't feel better.'

So not only is she dealing with the emotional and mental fallout from her experience, but Giles is repeatedly sulking around her because her recovery isn't quick or nice and tidy. I'm glad she got to shoot him with a crossbow.

For all her humour and lightheartedness, Jenny is a character whose foundations are build upon brutality and the show never once stops to tend to the gaping wounds such experiences leave - rather punishes her for them. Let's not even get into common strands of fan discourse around her reaction to the events of The Dark Age because that's a whole other can of worms.

[local-redhead-bookworm]

Lots of vague thoughts about how Heero and Mikazuki have inverse arcs. Heero’s arc is about learning to live for more than the fight and become a person again, rejecting the call of a machine that would turn him into a killer and not making a deal with a demon. Mikazuki’s arc is about slowly losing himself to the point that he doesn’t see a future for himself in a world without fighting, becoming nothing more than a weapon as he succumbs to the deal with his demon.

[randomidiocyncrazies]

Also I am honestly so pissed off about LH0's treatment of female characters. Woopdedo a woman is killed for the cliffhanger! Again! Hopefully the female heroes in the top 10 are treated better...

I really don't mind deaths in fiction, but the way it's done feels so ~sensational~ like it's just to shock the audience. I was already interested in e-soul you don't gotta make him kill a woman to hook me, damn. And the 'tragedy points' are so cheap—oooh they just reunited ooooh they might get together in the future OH NO she dies in front of him, how saddddddddddd

It's such lazy emotional manipulation—blah blah all fiction is emotional manipulation but this is insultingly low-effort. it's just paint-by-numbers at this point by constantly doing something 'shocking' at the end of the ep 🙄

[krea2re]

Ok give me your favorite (or one of your favs) iwtv character, one of worst things they've ever done, and your best PR statement defending them!👀

oh god this is so scary. defending these chars will get u killed on twitter. promise to not hurt me

anyway my favorite character is louis and i guess the worst thing hes done is either being a pimp or terrorizing the gay san francisco population.

your honor if i may, louis had to take care of his family and being a pimp was the most reliable means available for his circumstances!!! plus he did his best to elevate their qualities of life alongside him as he went up the social ladder!

and uh. the san francisco thing. well your honor he was coping badly about the loss of claudia and was using these men as a means to self medicate (by giving them drugs which he'd take back into himself when draining them) he was on a bender he simply didn't mean it 🥺 if he tried to do this anywhere else he probably would've been killed it was a matter of safety 🥺🥺🥺

[arctic-hands]

Ugh 34 (?) days until the election and if I'm forced to have "God Bless The U.S.A" stuck in my head for all that time I'm gonna start flag burning I hate that damn song

[roboyomo]

that face when now you, the "co-lead scientist", are targetted as well and your body has Also been used as a vessel for an Unknown 3rd Thing (your own exclusive edition) so now your hands carry the blood of your family when you wanted them to be at peace. And you Also get Made Fun Of by a coworker you trusted

Like we said. Classic Situation At The Corporation.

[gaykarstaagforever]

Either global warming is in fact real, or God is really mad at the South and Midwest about something.

Either way you'd think we need MORE NOAA staffers, not less.

[y3sod]

bro can the anons stop begging me for donations i

1. know your bitch asses arent real

2. am financially fucked over myself