Category: Shard-verse

Let’s talk about Swordcat

(TW: mental institution / prison setting, mild threats, cold)

As a reminder: you can request to find out more about the world of the White Knight! Check out this post for topics.

This guy
This guy

Swordcat, aka Leon Smith (the mostly human part) / Lenxoli (the part associated with the sword, which wants to destroy all humans) (See this post for details – tw for ableist language)

 

So they found out that keeping the sword in the freezer helped out Leon one day, during the coldest winter Shard City had had in decades, when the heating system in Stomlin Ward (the special security ward of Stow Prison) broke down, completely.

A little before the normal free time they herded all the prisoners that weren’t horrible security risks into the break room. There were extra blankets and electric heaters. Swordcat was usually found without a shirt [1. Which totally isn’t author appeal / fan service, I swear], but today was covered up, while most of the other inmates were wrapped up in blankets (except Wild Rush, who didn’t appear to notice temperature changes of any sort).

The biggest and baddest claimed spaces in front of heaters, pulling chairs and sofas closer. Wild Rush claimed a couch and heater and curled up next to Daisy. Swordcat dropped a blanket to the floor in front of a heater, growling slightly when another inmate gave him a dirty look, and curled up on the the blanket, his tail covering his nose.

Pretty soon, people were getting cozier, forming clumps of those that could get along.

Magpie sat down next to Swordcat, scratching his shoulders. When that had no negative affect, she curled up next to him. Others joined them. Daisy pulled Wild Rush over, and he sat warming what would have been her cold side.

Finally Techrat was the only one left, sitting on a couch near a heater, with his blankets carefully positioned to not aggravate his phobia of being restrained, and bearing a look that said clearly “Do not touch me. I will turn you inside out. I have the technology” as his teeth chattered. He apparently decided that being close to others was less offensive than freezing and sat between Daisy and Gimmick who both scooted over enough that he was only barely being touched.

It was when the heating was fixed and the store room where the sword was kept rose above freezing, that Swordcat returned to what they had thought was his normal, growly, threatening self, in contrast to the purring snoozing Leon they had found as they checked the break room (It was inhumane to not let the inmates be warm – and there was nowhere they could have been shipped off to – but it would be just carelessness to not check for trading of contraband while they were all so close).

It took only a few experiments to confirm it, and from then on the sword was stored in the kitchen’s deep freezer. While Lenxoli could still be talked to (for those doctors that wanted to risk it), it was much easier for Leon to shut it out.

 

(Note to self – each cell has a window on the other side of the bars made of nearly unbreakable plastic that can be opened as the inmate prefers)

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Snippet – Wild Rush does not react in a healthy way

TW: abuse, assault, threats, threatening with knife, blood, victim blaming

(I’ve decided Charles’ pronouns are ne / nem / neir / neirself)

Wild Rush had the habit of threatening / yelling at / blaming / etc Charles and Andre before Daisy came along.

They’d been expecting it. The boss was predictable about a few things at least. And when they heard his office door slam against the wall, they glanced at each other and dropped their mugs in the sink (less chance of them getting broken that way – they had to replace dishes too often already).

Now Wild Rush has Charles pinned down against the table, one of his knives that always seemed to appear from nowhere pressed against the back of neir neck. It was kind of amazing that the boss could so easily take down someone as big as Charles. Mostly terrifying, but kind of amazing.

“You told me it was guaranteed,” Wild Rush growled.

Andrew watched the sweat trickle down Charles’ neck. “Practically guaranteed. How was I supposed to know that Tectrix would decide he wanted it?”

Charles thought it was funny that of all the things that gave Andre panic attacks, getting chewed out wasn’t one of them. And he’d been the one with a knife against his throat or a gun against his chest plenty of times. Ne wasn’t laughing right now, of course. Ne’d gone pale – you’d think they’d get used to it – and ne was trying to breathe as little as possible.

“You’re supposed to find out these things. What am I paying you for?”

The knife twitched. “Gimmick said-”

“What are you doing?” Daisy shrieked. She pulled Wild Rush off.

He blinked at her. “I- they- we were just talking.” He sounded way too reasonable for someone with a bloody knife dangling from his fingers.

Andre pressed a clean washcloth against Charles’ neck as ne sat up. “It’s not bad,” he whispered.

“You were not!” Daisy said, her voice only slightly less high. “Why would you do that?!”

“They screwed up.”

She made a pained sound and pushed past him to them.

“It’s fine,” Charles said. “I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not!” she said. Andre glanced at the boss. He’d expected him to be pissed, but he just looked confused.

Wild Rush put a hand on her arm. “Daisy…”

“Don’t touch me!” And she fled. Wild Rush glanced at them, still puzzled, and went after her. Andre heard a door slam.

~~~~~

Andre scowled as he heard the door unlock. He’d just finished bandaging Charles’ neck – it really wasn’t that bad, hardly worse than a papercut, but it’d bled a lot – and the andrenline surge was dying down.

The boss perched on the chest at the end of the bed, bent all in angles. “Why is she upset?”

“We’re not exactly thrilled either,” Charles said coldly. Andre squeezed neir hand warningly.

“So what? Why is she upset?”

“She likes us,” Andre said.

Wild Rush’s brow furrowed further. “I like you too. So?”

“Generally people don’t assault people they like,” Andre said, suddenly tired.

“If you hadn’t fucked up-”

“Yeah, we know that,” Charles said. “She doesn’t. She hasn’t been here that long, remember?”

He pursed his lips, then said, “She won’t talk to me.”

“She probably needs to calm down,” ne said.

“From what? I didn’t do anything to her!”

“Didn’t her dad used to hit her?”

“Yeah, but…” He glanced away, his eyes crinkling as he thought. “I won’t let anything hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“You’re missing the point,” Andre said.

“She knows I wouldn’t hurt her.” He looked back at them. “Doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think that’s the point. She probably doesn’t like to see her friends get hurt either. Most people don’t.”

“And there’s a difference between knowing something and, y’know, feeling it,” Charles said.

“But you fucked up,” Wild Rush said.

“Yeah, we know,” Andre snapped. “You don’t have to threaten us. We know.”

Wild Rush frowned, apparently still baffled. “Okay. Talk to her, okay?”

That was the last time he pulled a weapon on one of them.

I don’t think Wild Rush fits any specific diagnosis. (I’m not doing any research for him at least). He considers Charles and Andre his closest friends and he’d be upset if they got injured or killed, but only to the extent of how someone would be if their favorite shoes got ruined. ‘Well, shit, how am I going find some that good again?’ But he’d be wrecked if Daisy got killed.

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Character Writing #5 – Phobias

(Trigger warning: abuse)

Does your character have any irrational fears?

Wild Rush – not entirely irrational as parents abused him, but he hates everyone in his family

Daisy – scared of heights (except under certain conditions which are spoilers.)

Delia – centipedes, millipedes, and other things with WAY too many legs

Charles – I can’t think of anything. Cows. I’m going to say cows, because why not. And moose. And other large animals.

Andre – claustrophobia

Techrat – phobic of being restrained

 

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Character Writing #5

… I’m not doing these in order. These are supposed to be #28 and #21 of the 30 questions (a few of which I’m not doing at all)

If your character’s life was a genre, what would it be? (I’m thinking of this as from their POV)

  • Wild Rush – action, probably with lots of explosions. Maybe action comedy
  • Daisy – romance or romcom
  • Delia – probably a sitcom? Maybe?
  • Charles – action thriller
  • Andre – spy thriller
  • Techrat – horror
  • Swordcat – live stream webcam (… that’s probably a copout :P )

Does your character have a symbol or would they pick a symbol?

The one’s that actually have a symbol:

  • Delia – white knight (chess piece type)
  • Wild Rush – cards
  • Daisy – two hearts
  • Techrat – barcode
  • Mask – his mask, obviously :P
  • Joel Burton – a black rook (chess piece)
  • I swear Gimmick has one, but I can’t think of it
  • Jill – a ferret’s bandit mask
  • (there are a bunch more – pretty much all the Name Criminals have one, as you might expect)

The one’s that don’t:

  • Andre – hibiscus flower, like off a Hawaiian shirt
  • Charles – a bullet casing, I think
  • Mick Adler – a battery

 

 

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Character Writing – Mini #1

I felt like talking about a few other people’s sexual orientations.

– Techrat: sex-repulsed. If he didn’t find contact with people and, basically the human body, viscerally disgusting, he’d be straight and allosexual (non-asexual). As it is, he’s celibate and almost libido-less. (He’s got serious mental problems that would probably respond better to therapy and drugs if he didn’t think he knew better than the doctors and was actually compliant. But nothing is going to get rid of it entirely).

– Swordcat: straight, but to a species of space cat people that haven’t existed for millions of years. You can imagine what this does to his love life. Before he got turned into a cat person, he was straight, in a normal way. He’s got a daughter and ex-wife that he gets along better with now that he’s a cat person (he was a jerk; now he’s a lazy tom cat).

 

(I need to write more people who have serious problems that aren’t criminals. A lot of the criminals with problems – like Techrat – aren’t bad people and I have criminals that don’t have serious mental conditions, like Mask – who also isn’t really a bad person. But. I still need to have civilians and good people that have serious mental conditions that they struggle with.)

 

(And, unrelated to anything else in this post – I suspect at some point somebody is going to ask/think that Wild Rush is autistic. I’m going to say right now, no, he isn’t. Not because there’s anything wrong with being autistic, but because they deserve better than Wild Rush. I’m not writing him to represent any particular condition – I think borderline personality disorder is the closest, but even that doesn’t fit very well since he truly and deeply loves Daisy. He’s kind of a horrible person. He can be charming, he can be entertaining, but he’s very dangerous and his only truly redeeming quality is loving Daisy. Although he puts on a hell of a show.)

(About the only character that has no redeeming qualities at all is Tectrix. I’m writing him as that guy you love to hate. Silver Dollar is also pretty awful and Gimmick is completely self-absorbed.)

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Character Writing #4

I’m being lazy and only doing one question today.

 

(trigger warning – character death / murder / torture)

#7 – Is there an event in the character’s past they’d like to erase?

Delia – her husband being killed is the obvious one. Her brother dying in the war is another.

Wild Rush – basically his entire childhood outside of school

Daisy – her mom leaving

Charles – if he hadn’t met Wild Rush his life would probably be a lot more peaceful.

Andre – I can’t think of anything

(trigger warning – torture)

Mask – getting attacked by a rival gang, tied up, and lit on fire would be an obvious one…

 

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White Knight Art

Finished the reference sheet for White Knight. Yeah, Delia Troy Burton is under there. Also, my first image for the OCTP meme. Next is them holding hands.

I need to do a whole bunch of designs for Wild Rush’s clothes, because otherwise they all end up looking like this. (He wears solely shades of yellow, black, and red, but I could get a lot more patterns and such in there.)

And you get to see the White Knight logo. Like most comic book logos, the color changes to match the cover.

White-Knight-v4
The White Knight, reference sheet

WR&D
Wild Rush and Deuce of Hearts

 

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Character Writing #3

(Trigger warning: light misgendering, senility, food mentions, disability, scarring & tattoo talk, murder)

I’m adding three more characters. I’m also going to do the questions for Charles and Andre (I need to look up their last names, but it’s on the other computer) and then a random character that will probably change for each question.

Character’s relationship with parents:

Charles – (I haven’t decided pronouns, so for now I’m going to use zie/zir for zie) Zir parents were really conservative, but trying. They were fine with zem being gay, but confused by zem being non-binary. For years they assumed that meant zie wanted to be a girl and would buy zem typically female-assigned stuff. That was partly okay, because zie does like feminine stuff, but they overdid it. Zie’s got two sisters and their family didn’t have huge amounts of money. Zie gets along fine with all of zir family, although zie often finds zir parents tiring.

Andre – he was spoiled rotten and getting out on his own was a huge shock. His mom would do all his cleaning, food prep, etc, so he didn’t know how to do laundry, cook, etc. Charles thought that was funny and helped him learn when they were in college. His dad has gone senile and Andre finds visiting him very sad, but tries to go at least once a month. He has a younger brother that takes care of his parents (they’re in a nursing home) and he doesn’t approve of Andre’s career and won’t take any of his money. But they’re polite to each other, in a somewhat awkward, prickly way.

Joel Burton (okay, I’m giving myself an easy one :P ) – seeing as his parents have more than plenty of money, Joel’s got a fairly easy ride. Which makes dealing with his disability a lot better. (I can’t remember the name I gave the disease – it’s similar to Parkinson’s). His dad would spoil him and his mom was stricter, but overall it balanced out.

Most prominent feature:

Charles is huge. Like tall, massive, generally huge.

Andre is very classically good looking.

Techrat – his shaved head. Not like fuzzy shaved. Bald shaved. And not cuz he’s balding. Aside from that, probably the barcode tattooed on the back of his neck.

Scars:

Okay, so medical technology is more advanced than in our world, so people generally don’t get scars from surgeries, etc. People get the normal day to day scars, which can be removed easily if they want.

Charles has a puckered sort of scar on his right shoulder where zie got a tattoo removed. Zie was really young when zie got it and a friend did it with a homemade tattoo gun. Zie keeps the scar as a reminder that we all do stupid things sometimes.

Andre is one of the few people that the scar removal tech doesn’t work on. He’s got scars all over his chest and arms from the various fights he’s been in.

Delia would have a c-section scar if not for the technology.

Gimmick has heavy calluses behind his ears from the hearing aids he wears (of his own design). He’s also got a faint white mark on his left shoulder that is all that remains of the surgery scar when he got his rotator cuff repaired.

How vain:

Charles thinks zie’s pretty good looking, but zie’s not vain about it.

Andre loves to primp, but he keeps it private (cuz Wild Rush is a lot more vain than he is and will throw a tantrum.)

Techrat absolutely hates how he looks. But he has serious issues, in that he wishes he was a machine.

Sexual Orientation and history:

Charles just loves the dudes.

Andre is closer to being bi than gay, but identifies as gay. He’s slept with people of all types, but is only romantically attracted to men.

Leonard Burton (Delia’s brother-in-law) loves the ladies. He’s aromantic and just wants sex and to spoil his (current) girlfriend. He stays really good friends with past girlfriends, in a completely healthy way (he’s not a nice guy™, he’s actually a really nice, giving guy, who just likes to sleep around).

How easily does your character make friends? Are they well liked?

Charles makes friends pretty well, but drops them quickly too if they say anything even remotely bigoted.

Andre is more forgiving, but has a harder time making close friends. He has a huge number of acquaintances who think they’re closer than they are.

Gimmick doesn’t really make friends. He’s got a giant ego that doesn’t make room for anyone else. One of his closest friends is Techrat, because they share a love for technology.

Techrat also doesn’t make friends, but that’s because he finds people disgusting and annoying.

Describe your character’s happiest memory

Ugh, I hate questions like this. Either you get cliche answers (when they met their spouse, when they got married, when they had their kid…) or you get spoilers.

Delia: One of those cliches. She was deeply in love with her husband. Probably also when the company she worked for (that she co-founded with friends) took off after all their hard work.

(Trigger warning: murder)

Wild Rush: probably the one he values most is when he killed his parents, although probably falling in love with Daisy is happier.

(end trigger warning)

Daisy: learning to drive, falling in love. I dunno.

Charles: meeting other non-binary people for the first time.

Andre: graduating college

Gimmick: when he got his first hearing aids and then when he made better ones (the money he makes off the patent doesn’t hurt any either)

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White Knight notes for later

2 comments

This is mostly a note to myself and lots of rambling.

I want to revamp my character diversity – I have a huge number of characters, but there are a lot of diversity categories not represented or poorly represented (like, there are a lot of Asian characters, but very few black people…) (I don’t know what the breakdown of ethnicities actually is, that’s just an example). My plan is to basically use random numbers to fix this (I already use a random generator to determine relative weights, heights, and some other things).

Percentages I’m going to use: (I’m intentionally inflating numbers to increase representation)

  • Intersex: 1%
  • Transgender (binary): 4%
  • Non-binary: 15% (I truly believe that a lot more people would be non-binary if it was more widely known and accepted – which it is in my story) (I’ve decided Delia is a demi-girl, and one of Wild Rush’s henchmen is going to be non-binary)
  • Neurodivergent: ???
  • Invisibly disabled: ???
  • Disabled: ???
  • Race categories… (gonna get the statistics for the US and round up)
  • I’m not sure what else?

Plan for the generator:

Have list of categories, with what numbers mean the character fits in that category. For example, race/ethnicity* could be White, Native American, Black, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, East Asian, etc, and by having a list people could easily be more than one ethnicity.

Like any generator, results will probably be tweaked by hand.

* obviously for this, I’d use the words that fit my actual map, since there isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between my fictional world and the real world.

Diverse characters I know I have:

  • Lt. Aurita – cop, black / Pacific Islander,  Caling, an ethnic group that whose average height is under 4 feet Pygmy (I can’t tell from googling if this is an offensive term or if there’s alternatives – she’s not a little person, because she doesn’t have dwarfism, she’s ethnically a Pygmy) (Seriously, if I’m screwing up here, let me know). (Edited 4-27-14)
  • Mask – Middle Eastern, disabled (I need some Middle Eastern characters that aren’t criminals – don’t judge me for that, the majority of my characters are criminals.)
  • Delia Troy Burton – Asian, demi-girl
  • Joel Burton (Delia’s son) – Asian, disabled (fictional disease similar to Parkison’s)
  • Emily – Latina, Selective Mutism (I’m not sure if that’s neurodivergent, disabled, or both…)
  • Charles – (Wild Rush’s henchman) gay, non-binary
  • Andre – (Wild Rush’s henchman) gay
  • RV – black
  • (Since Ostanes is set in the same universe, I can count Iosis & Ostanes and their mom for Asian, and Dr. Maurell for asexual and Latino) (basically I already diversitied-up that story, so I’m not worrying about it)
  • (I really need some more asexual characters)
  • (I swear there’s more, I just can’t think of them right now)

Characters that I’m not counting as diverse:

  • Swordcat – multiple, through alien intervention (I need some naturally multiple people)
  • Wild Rush – neurodivergent, mostly likely diagnosis is sociopath (it’s more complicated than that and I don’t want to try to count him as representation of anybody because he’s a really terrible person)
  • Tectrix (I think that’s what I’m going to call him) – Middle Eastern (although that might change. He’s currently problematic and I’m trying to figure out how much of that is stuff I need to change about him and how much can be fixed by having other characters as counterweight) (He’s really just kind of a horrible person and I might just make him white, because making white people horrible doesn’t say anything bad about white people.)

I swear I almost should just make all the really horrible people white, because I’m totally racist against my own race. (That’s mostly sarcasm). (Anyone who non-ironically mentions ‘reverse racism’ will get laughed at and banned. Not kidding.)

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Character Writing #2

(Trigger Warning: child abuse, character murder. Will mark where it stops and starts)

Let’s start with some basic stats:

Delia Troy Burton

Age: 40s
Height: Tall for a dfab person
Build: muscular
Hair: Black, straight, short
Eyes: Soft Brown
Skin: medium toned
Ethnicity: Zanchian-Anitian (Chinese-American-ish. Again, fictional world.)
Job: Chief Financial Officer (I think) at place that I can’t remember the name of. It’s a technology company.

Wild Rush Age: 40s (I think)
Height: Very tall
Build: Skinny
Hair: curly, dark reddish-brown, short
Eyes: Bright blue
Skin: Grey Ethnicity: European (I don’t remember what I’m calling that area)
Occupation: Criminal

Daisy Hart, aka Deuce of Hearts Age: 20s (at start of the story she’s 17)
Height: Average
Build: Curvy
Hair: Shoulder-length strawberry-blond, straight
Eyes: Amber Skin: Grey / pale pink
Ethnicity: European
Occupation: Student / Criminal

Name one (physical) scar your character has and where it came from: (I don’t even want to get started on emotional scars. I’d have to warn for all the things)

Delia: I haven’t really thought about it. Presumably she has some from playing sports (Lacrosse and Quoits*). Any she has won’t be major.

* Not the real one. Fictional sport.

(Trigger warning: child abuse)

Wild Rush: The grey skin is an obvious one. Aside from that, I know he’s got a scar on the back on one knee from getting hit by a belt buckle by his dad. He had a several broken bones as well. Pretty much everything has healed away to invisibility by now.

(end trigger warning)

Daisy: Again, I haven’t really thought about it. I can’t think of any that would be plot relevant (aside from the grey skin, which isn’t really a scar).

How vain is your character? Do they find themselves attractive?

Delia: She’s not vain, but she’s proud of her body. She likes how strong she is and she’s got a cute face.

Wild Rush: He’s exceedingly vain and generally obvious about it. Aside from finding himself good looking (he’s very tall and thin), he loves how talented he is at gambling, card games, and card tricks. He’s got some self-esteem issues and needs reassurances from people he cares about (mostly Daisy, also his two trusted henchmen).

Daisy: She’s not vain at all. She doesn’t think she’s attractive, but she’s quite cute. (She’s curvy and hippy, and has picked up the standard amounts of society-prescribed fat-hatred.)

What is your character’s ranking on the Kinsey Scale? (I’m going to interpret this as what is your character’s sexual orientation and history, because the Kinsey scale has some problems – it’s based on history, not on interest).

(trigger warning: death)

Delia: she’s pretty much entirely heterosexual. I think she had a normal array of boyfriends, although she was pretty focused on her career. When she met her husband, they feel head-over-heels in love and they were totally devoted to each other. Since he was killed she hasn’t dated at all. (I may have her date at some point, I haven’t decided).

(end trigger warning)

Wild Rush: He’s bisexual, or maybe bisexual and heteoromantic. Likes everybody that will give him attention. He had both boyfriends and girlfriends in high school. I’m pretty sure he briefly dated Jill (another Name Criminal). He’s very opposed to homophobia. He’s completely devoted to Daisy, but he’ll go to bars and get drunk and make out with guys. (Daisy knows and is okay with it). I can see him having a threesome with his two henchmen in the past. In fact, I *know* he’s at least gotten a blowjob from at least one of them, because they were bribing him to let them drive (he’s a scary driver. Good in the sense that he doesn’t hit anything, but scary.) He prefers to bottom (and top from the bottom) when with a guy.

Daisy: ummm? heteroflexible? Has only dated guys – dated a couple of guys in high school, then fell in love with Wild Rush.

I’m going to add one not from the list. How easily does your character make friends? Are they well liked?

Delia: fairly easily. The company she works for was founded by her and three of her (amab – I may make at least one of them non-binary) friends (One has left to do other things). I know she has at least two other good friends, RV at the animal rescue where she volunteers and Leonard, her brother-in-law. (… I should give her some close girl friends. I know there’s one that shows up asking why Delia hasn’t been out, but I can’t remember her name.) She goes to a lot of charity events and is well-liked.

Wild Rush: Not easily. He is superficially charming, but has a short temper. He’s scary and most of the other Name Criminals are scared of him. Aside from Daisy, his two closest friends are Charles and Andre, his henchmen. There are several other Name Criminals that he’ll hang out with when in prison, because they play poker. (Later he becomes friends with Delia.) He’s respected, but not liked.

Daisy: Everybody likes Daisy. She doesn’t have a lot of close friends though, but pretty much any of the other Name Criminals would help her out. She’s very sweet, charming, and likes to help people out.

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Character Writing #1

Copying this from Tumblr so they’ll all be in the same place.

I’m doing the Character Writing Challenge on Habit Rpg. I’m doing three characters. Wild Rush and Daisy Hart, who I’m also doing the OCTP meme for, and the main character, Delia Troy Burton.

(Trigger Warning: Child / Teenager Abuse.)

1) Character’s relationship with parents

(Skipping Delia and Wild Rush because I know theirs. I can’t remember the details of Delia’s – its in my notes. Wild Rush’s comes down to, he hates his family for pretty good reasons).

Daisy Hart / Deuce of Hearts: Her mom left when she was about seven. Her dad started sexually abusing her when she was 13. She ran away with Wild Rush when she was 17. Aside from that, her dad basically ignored her and did the minimum necessary. She has no idea where her mom is. Her dad is now dead (from a car crash).

(End Trigger Warning)

2) Most prominant physical feature:

Delia: Probably how strong she is. She’s very muscular from years of sports and martial arts. (I have in my notes which ones specifically. I think lacrosse and I know, another fictional First Nations* sport, as well as a fictional martial art). Physically I modeled her after some professional wrestlers.

Wild Rush: His grey skin. He was in an accident which interacted with some other stuff, and basically he’s got grey skin. Aside from that, his bright blue eyes.

Daisy: She usually also has grey skin (because of spoilery reasons). Aside from that, probably her amber eyes or her strawberry blonde hair.

* It’s set on a fictional world, but things kind of correspond. I don’t remember what I was calling them exactly. It’s in my notes.

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Easiest fix: make everyone amoebas

Don’t have to worry about diversity when everybody’s genderless, asexual, shapeless, and transparent.

But anyway.

This is going to be one of those awkward things, where I say a dozen things wrong. I apologize.

There’s a discussion over on Shakesville of how everyone is sick of white straight able-bodied male protagonists. And I’m in agreement, but…

Neill, the protagonist of the novel I’m revising, hits three of those (He’s asexual). So, I could make him black or Hispanic or something. He comments on the antagonist being mixed-race (for example: ‘The tip of his tongue moistened his bottom lip, very pink against his dark skin.’) and I don’t know if that would be weird coming from a POC. If not, yeah, he’s now Hispanic. (He probably will be) (And once he is, none of the main characters will be white. Which is groovy.)

But I kind of want to make him disabled as well. But he’s a doctor in a criminal mental institution and a major physical disability would put him more danger, so they wouldn’t allow that? I think? I do think I’m going to make him dyslexic. So, um, suggestions. He had meningitis as a kid, so I don’t know if that could cause something (besides cognitive disabilities. But he’s very smart. Maybe a problem with balance?)

There’s one other character, not for this story, that I want to give a disability to. He’s a guy in his twenties, very smart, and extroverted. He does tech support and that sort of thing. I’m open to suggestions.

(Content notice: discussion of gender essentialism, sexual harassment)

What I’m finding with this is, I’ll think, oh, do this. But then that means that event will be read as something completely different. Okay, so do this other thing, but now that other event reads as… And you’re all looking at me, going use your words, give us examples.

Okay, so I make Neill a woman. Cool, we’ve got this highly educated, very smart woman. Groovy. Exceeeept… at one point Ostanes kisses Neill, without consent. Now, it’s just a kiss, on the lips, no tongue, no groping. That still comes off as much scarier than a dude kissing a dude. Okay, make Ostanes a woman as well. Now people will interpret it as straight women kissing to get attention of guys (even though it happens in a gay bar). (I think – I might be overthinking that one).

But that raises another problem. Ostanes is a dandy. He likes really nice clothes, in bright colors, and he pulls it off. A woman doing the same is going to be read as, well, ‘women like clothes’. So I don’t want Ostanes to be a woman. And there are other problems with changing Neill to a woman, that come down to people thinking girls like girly things. It’s frustrating.

I do want to make things diverse, and I think even if I screw up it’s better than not trying. But sheesh. In story I can say, oh well the society doesn’t think like that, but that doesn’t actually fix anything.

Update July 16: So Thomas Neill is now Tomas Maurell. And he’s overweight and has a bunch of minor problems caused by the meningitis, including a balance disorder and chronic fatigue. I’m still working on editing those in. And the other character I mentioned, has something like Parkinsons (he’s young and in college, so I have to do some research.)

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Overthinking how to fix Ostanes

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So instead of finishing writing, like, for example, the short story that’s about half done and would only take a few more hours, my brain insists on going back to Ostanes. Aside from the obvious (making it so it’s not so much talking heads), I noticed it’s basically a sausage fest, at least for the first half. And most of the characters are barely described right now (yes, that’ll be fixed), which means everyone will assume they’re white, able-bodied, straight, and cis. The last two aren’t things that will really come up without me having to force it in.

This is not acceptable.

But let’s talk total diversity (because I want people’s opinions on how to improve it). Diversity bolded and my questions in blue (so you can skip the teal deer if you want).

(Spoilers likely – also, this doesn’t take place in our world, but for simplicity’s sake I’m going to use Terran nationalities.)

Dr. Thomas Neill. White, somewhat overweight (although not mentioned very early), asexual.

Ostanes and Iosis. Multiple (not considered a bad thing in this setting). I need to do something about them denying they are, because it comes off as silly (first, research). But that’s a different issue. Ambiguously brown, probably mixed because he has curly hair. Their mom shows up and is Southeast Asian. We know basically nothing about their dad. Tall and very thin. Ostanes is pansexual. Iosis says he’s asexual, but likes to have one-night stands and make out with people at bars. Ostanes says it’s because it’s a power trip. I think it’s just complicated. Opinions? Iosis at least possibly has a mental disorder or personality disorder (that or he’s just a giant self-centered vain asshole). Ostanes has selective mutism, which I need to clarify.

Various undescribed guards. Easy place to add diversity.

Security chief. Pretty much undescribed. Woman, which I need to mention earlier.

Dr. Caro. Jerk. Male. No description.

Dr. Callis. One of Ostanes’ ex-doctors. Woman. Tried to seduce him, which is problematic. (Or at least Iosis insists she did, but he may not be an entirely reliable witness…)

Dr. Ginson. One of Ostanes’ ex-doctors. Male, no description. Could easily be a woman, which would make up for Dr. Callis.

Dr. Tross. One of Ostanes’ ex-doctors. Male, no description. Iosis thinks he’s a jerk.

Iosis’ victims. The few that are described are men, presumably white. I’m pretty sure that’s fine with me.

Uco. Overweight. Male. He has a heavy accent, but I don’t say from where. He could easily be a woman, but I’m afraid that that’s saying that making clothes is woman’s work? Or am I overthinking?

Uco’s assistant. Male, has Café au lait spots on his face. Could also easily be a woman. Maybe make Uco a woman and the assistant a man?

Delivery people. At least one is a woman. They’re otherwise undescribed.

Anita Trevino, Ostanes’ and Iosis’ mom. Southeast Asian. Woman (duh). Gorgeous. Probably has the same mental/personality disorder Iosis does because their personalities are very similar. One of the few people who can get the better of Iosis, and it’s wonderful.

Dusty. Who still needs a name change. Currently male. Going to be changed to a woman, possibly a woman of color. (Also, probably pansexual, but that won’t come up. I am NOT going to write young Ostanes walking into the kitchen and seeing his mother making out with his mentor. Not happening, but it’d be hysterical. Because I’m a jerk.) The other person who can chew out Iosis and it’s even better. Shows up as a fox (trickster archetype – actual talking animal fox) later. If I change him to a woman, is it problematic for her to be a fox? If so, suggestions for a different trickster type?

Mr. Hiddles. Rabbit of various anthro states. Male. Not changing, because oh god I lurve him. I lurve him to bits.

Elliana. Woman. Probably going to be changed to overweight, possibly a woman of color. Neill had a crush on her. She’s a fairy princess. Opinions wanted. The real Elliana was Neill’s kindergarten teacher, when he had a crush on her. Any problems there that I’m not seeing?

Three old women / witches (presented without judgement). I’m tempted to do the crone/maiden/mother thing, but I don’t think it fits. The king of fish and an ogre. Yes, this story gets odd. I need to foreshadow the change and read a lot more fairy tales to get the tropes right. It’s beautiful and I need to expand it more. It’s just so so lovely.

 

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30 Characters Challenge #7 – Lee DeLoreo

Here’s the last of my entries for the 30 Characters Challenge.

Name: Lee DeLoreo
Hair Color: Ash-blond (with red dyed stripes)
Eye Color: Grey
Skin tone: Pale

Lee DeLoreo is the events organizer for several charities, including the Friends of the Greyhound. He has the annoying tendency to name drop, usually unnecessarily, but all the publicity he gathers is for charity.

DeLoreo is a minor character for my comic series, The White Knight, but may show up more than I planned since the main character does a lot of charity work.

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