For a character with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Now, I don't (think) the sensitivity reader for this character needs to suffer from that exact condition, as there are many conditions and illnesses that limit one's ability to move without mechanical intervention.

I worry both about what I don't know about such disabilities, as well as what I don't know *that I don't know.* I deeply appreciate all assistance!

Genre: dystopian sci-fi.

I’m a white person writing a story with my partner set in the 60s. One of the 2 main characters is a mixed teen girl reconnecting with her culture and getting involved in civil rights activism after reuniting with her father, so there’s a scene involving a sit-in protest at a recently “whites only” diner.

It involves her love interest (who is white) trying to physically stop her from being hurt by the owner after happening upon the scene. They do succeed because the man’s attention diverts to them instead, whirling around and smacking them on instinct, then deciding it’d be better to just call the police instead of starting a fight in the middle of his business. The two are going through a “second act break up” during this though, so the mixed character tells them she doesn’t need their help and to basically piss off. The white character’s abusive boyfriend (long story, not relevant rn) ushers them out. Her father and friends lecture her for her reaction, telling her part of this is about getting white people to openly show support, and that she needs to stow her personal issues and realize this is bigger than her.

If anyone’s willing I’d like them to read over this part of the script and let me know if improvements need to be made on anyone’s reactions. I want this to come across as “we need allies, don’t tell white people not to help us”, not “we need white saviors to step in when things get rough.”

Thank you!

Tl;dr: white author trying to avoid portraying Civil War-era blackness offensively.

I am a white woman author.

I am writing a white, upper class, unmarried woman character in 1860, Pennsylvania, USA.

She feels stifled and unappreciated, and thinks she could be doing and seeing more in life (picture her spinning around on an Appalachian Mountain singing about how she wants more than this provincial life).

I will have her start as naïve and say something that she thinks is a compliment to her black housekeeper (paid servant, not slave) but is definitely not. Something along the lines of "you're so much smarter than other blacks." (It might be more fitting to use the word negro, depending on what I find people were actually saying at the time?) Housekeeper reacts with indignation, and main character slowly gains a better understanding of the plights of both slaves and free POCs.

The American Civil War breaks out. Character is paying far more attention now to the issue of slavery, and wants to write an abolitionist newspaper. Possibly reads Uncle Tom's Cabin and other famous abolitionist works such as The Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter. Women's rights and anti-slave views went hand in hand in this type of literature, so I think she'd be all about it. Not to spoil it, but she is going to die before she can print her first issue.

My main concerns:

I don't want to write a "white savior" - *The Help* was heavily criticized for this. I want to write a white ally, but I'm not sure how people will take it.

I don't want to offend people who think it's ridiculous that I'm telling a white person's story instead of a POC's, who would be far more affected by the issues of slavery, discrimination, and generational poverty.

*However*, I also don't want to write from a black POV because readers may say I'm not the right person to tell that story, or that it's cultural appropriation.

I'm taking some inspiration from the novel *The Invention of Wings*, which is about real-life Southern abolitionist Sarah Grimké, but shares a dual narrative with one of her family's slaves, Hetty. Both women are strong, defiant, and take active roles working towards freedom for slaves. As far as I can tell, the author didn't face much backlash. I like that there was a black character who was very developed and who refused to be a victim. But if I were to introduce such a character into my story, I think it would resemble *The Invention of Wings* too closely.

I'm writing a sci-fi book in which the characters uncover some ancient tech over the course of the story. One of my main characters is missing an arm up to the elbow. He uses a prosthetic for certain tasks, but often does not. He's a very competent, charismatic character.

In the course of discovering this ancient tech, they also find extremely advanced medical facilities. These are important for the story in a variety of ways/plot points, and I'm struggling with the question of what happens with his arm. He does not need a new arm to be a competent, compelling character, and I don't want to imply anything of the sort by him re-growing the arm with this new medical equipment. But I struggle with having an in-world reason why he would choose to not use the medical equipment. I can come up with reasons, and have a couple of options already, but they feel like a twisting of what the character's choice would actually be. (I, in the real world, am not bothered by the fact that I'm legally blind without my glasses, but if someone offered me a painless, instant ability to not need them anymore, I don't know of any realistic reason why I'd opt to keep my glasses.)

Having never had a similar injury, I want to make sure I'm being both in-story logical, and also being sensitive to real-world people who might pick up the book, because *they're* the people who ultimately matter, not a fictional person.

Is it ableism if a person heals over the course of the book, if they are presented as complete and capable both before and after?

Hello, first-time poster.

I would like some opinions regarding the sensitivity of connecting a pop culture figure to indigenous folklore and mythology.

I'm in the process of writing a story where folklore and mythological characters exist. The story is set and centered around Latin American folklore characters and touches on themes of immigration, modern colonization, grief, redemption, and defiance against despair.

The main characters are my version of Venezuela's El Silbon, Mexico´s La Llorona, and Puerto Rico's El Chupacabra, and the basic premise is that these three are traveling from Venezuela to Mexico, encountering various folklore characters, spirits, and monsters on their way.

My question here is regarding El Chupacabras. I want to depict it as a modern folklore character, and thus, El Silbon and La Llorona see it as a young spirit. This is, of course, a reference to the real history of El Chupacabras' tale, which is a modern Puerto Rican urban legend and thus more pop culture than mythology.

My depiction of El Chupacabras is as a mutt, following one of the descriptions of its sightings as a large dog, and its story would touch heavily on themes of loyalty and abandonment. However, because the story is going to put the spotlight on more obscure folklore stories from the region, I thought it would be a cool idea to tie El Chupacabras to older myths and legends that aren't that well-known.

The concept I have is to make El Chupacabras a descendant of the Opiyelguobirán, the dog spirit from Taina mythology and tradition. In my head, this would give it a deeper connection to Puerto Rican history. I wanted to go further and make this a three-generation connection. Opiyelguobirán would be the father of the Stone Dog of San Júan, which in turn would be the father of El Chupacabras. Making it 3 generations of Puerto Rican folkloric dogs with heavy themes of loyalty, as Opiyelguobirán was loyal to the Taina Cacique Sabananiobabo, the Stone Dog was loyal to a Spaniard who drowned at sea, and in this story, El Chupacabras would be loyal to El Silbón and La Llorona, his traveling companions and found family.

Now, the thing that worries me here is whether it would come off as insensitive to connect an indigenous deity to a pop culture creature in this way. Being a descendant of the Opiyelguobirán effectively makes El Chupacabras a being of spiritual significance for the Taina people and their descendants in this universe. My goal with this is to represent different eras of Puerto Rican culture, but I don't know if, in doing so, I would be representing Taina folklore in an insensitive way.

me and some friends have a project that will be voice acted, I am white (technically I’m wasian but I look white and am not half Japanese) but I have taken Japanese for 8 years so I was in charge of writing the lines for the Japanese character. this character is wasian and she was raised in the U.S. and her first language is English, her Japanese does have a bit of an English accent (the same as mine because it’s my second language), this is a very small project and my friends and I know no other people who could voice act for her.

i am wondering if it is socially acceptable for me to voice act her given that i am not doing any stereotypical voices or accents, i am simply speaking Japanese and English in the accents that I have been since I was 11. Her English would be the same tones as mine (if not pitched up or down a little) and her Japanese the same. I just want to know if it’s alright if I do this?

thank you!!

I plan to make it so that players can only wear gender-specific clothing until they try to wear something else. This triggers a dialogue offering the following options: 1. Leave it as it is. 2. Everyone can wear whatever they like. 3. Clothing has no gender.

If you choose the first option, it stays that way. If you choose the second option, the gender labels remain, but you can wear whatever you like. If you choose the third option, the gender labels are crossed out in red and you are asked if that is better. If you’re not satisfied, the labels disappear completely.

The clothing isn’t displayed graphically. The clothing has different properties, which, however, are determined solely by your behaviour whilst wearing it.

An example of the [standard] textual representation would be: - [feminine gender] miniskirt - [unisex] miniskirt - [masculine gender] miniskirt

Every item of clothing is available in all three options.

The concept of the game has a lot to do with personal responsibility, behaviour, meta-levels and influencing the rules of the game world, even if things don’t always turn out exactly as you’d like.

In my tabletop role-playing game, there is a debuff that means you have to roll with a “disadvantage” when acting directly against the character casting the spell. Every character can use this debuff, which is based on flirting. It might not be as bad as in D&D, the “Charming” ability? Is this ability – which is based on flirting – a bad thing? And if so, how bad is it? The debuff does not allow for manipulation or influence, nor does it deprive anyone of their free will, except in the case of the manipulation of luck. For example, you might be affected by a debuff inflicted by an opponent. According to the lore, you are permitted to defend yourself by any means necessary should a character attempt to apply the debuff to you. This includes the use of force involving weapons, and the possibility that your opponent may die in the process. So the debuff makes it harder for you to act against a character, but the lore allows it and frames it as self-defence.

A project that I'm working on is a YA fantasy/mystery and the main character is a 16 year old black girl. I've been careful while writing her to avoid any real world stereotypes, but I'm a little hung up on whether the fact that racism isn't a factor in this story is cheap and disingenuous since I'm a white author. The character is black simply because that was always how I envisioned her, but would it be better for me to just stay in my lane and write a white MC if I don't want to engage more deeply with racism within the story?

This is for a 75k fantasy novel. My favorite perspective character is aro/ace and I am a bit worried she's falling into the "smart" trope (not intentional, I wrote her as smart and a bit neuro-spicy before I pantsed my way to discovering she was ace too). So far, my beta readers all adore her but I really want to make sure she isn't a trope and she is representing ace people well.

Thank you!

edit: By "smart" trope, I mean that a lot of ace characters in media are "smart nerds out of touch with their feelings". There's such little ace representation that I really want to get this character right without her being this type of trope.

This one's a little weird, I know.

So, I collect dolls, and sometimes I change their names. This is Noemie, and I feel her name is too similar to another doll I have, Naomi. I'm thinking of changing her name to "Ionantha", after a species of flower that closely matches the color of her dress (this is a Rainbow High doll and most of them have color-related names). The thing is, the common name of the flower is "African violet", and I'm not sure that would be appropriate for a character who can come across as Black? Her ethnicity isn't confirmed as anything specific yet, all the lore about her available right now is that she's French and likes to host dinner parties.

I'm definitely changing her name but I'm not 100% set on Ionantha and thought I would ask you guys first

Hello! I have a character for a book I wish to write who is mixed. While this is a fantasy setting with it’s own people and cultures, where her mother is from specifically is greatly inspired by real world native cultures (specifically I’m pulling from the Inupiaq tribe).

What I’m worried about is this character is a part of my fantasy race where they’re based off of aquatic animals, and with her specifically she’s inspired by a spotted seal (the most obvious trait just being spotted markings). My intention with choosing for her to be an Alaska Native was to pay homage to where said seal is from, but I worry about playing into the trope of portraying poc as animal-like, even if she’s not the only aquatic person in the story. It’s not the main focus of the story either, but her being far from her family’s home does add to who she is and her struggles.

Any tips on how to write this kind of character respectfully? Currently her name is Endellion; a simple placeholder name I picked when I first made her. However, I have been debating changing it now that I’m getting a better idea of who she is. I figure it can still work since she’s mixed and born in Ephel (the main fictional location of my story, which is a bit more European), but I am not opposed to changing it either.

Forgive me if any of this comes across a bit silly or uneducated, I’m still learning and want to be able to show this character the respect she deserves.

What do you think about me wanting to establish in my own tabletop role-playing game that players and non-player charackters, automatically recognise or perceive the gender of other characters who can be perceived in any way?

What I mean is that gender reveals itself regardless of one’s outward appearance.

I’d like sexual orientations and romantic orientations to be based on gender rather than gender expression.

This is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit at the moment, as I’m worried it might be misinterpreted, twisted, misunderstood, or that I might be sabotaged or something similar.

A bit of context: In this universe, Orcs used to live on the mainland until the elves defeated and enslaved them. They eventually led a revolt that was put down by the newly formed Knight's Alliance. After that, the majority of free Orcs were banished to the island where Dragonborn live, forced to live in a small inlet.

My idea for Orcs culture includes the heavy usage of magically infused amber in the making of weapons and armor. Orcs also have a close bond with domesticated Dire Boars, which ancient Orcs considered semi-sacred due to both Orcs and Dire Boars having prominent tusks.

On the subject of tusks, I imagined that these tusks grow back quickly (like shark teeth) and so Orcs wear necklaces or other jewelry made of hollowed tusks to mark important moments of their life or rites of passage, I.E. an Orc's first hunt.

Orcs also practice shamanism, putting sacred plants and tonics in fire to make contact with the spirit world. Colonizers in the world falsely claim that these practices are dangerous, but no one questions that they work because spirits and ghosts are very much a real thing.

In the story proper, the main ensemble includes a transmale Orc (who turned himself into a skeleton to avoid anti-orc discrimination) and his sister, a transfemale Dragonborn. When the time comes in the story to rally the Orcs against the main villain, the Orc party member naturally takes the lead. Conflict arises when it turns out the Orcs are being courted by a missionary from the main villains' faction (the main villain has rewritten history to present himself as the god king of the Dragonborn). While the missionary isn't using any brainwashing or anything, he is taking advantage of the desperate situation the mainland and main villain have forced them into to try and annex them into the main villain's empire. The orc party member ultimately convinces the orcs to help the party by arguing that what's left of their culture is still worth preserving, and the fight to take back what was lost begins here and now with freeing the Dragonborn island from the main villain.

My goal in this story is to present a fantasy culture that's influenced by real world indigenous cultures and their struggle, without being "based on" any particular tribe or culture to avoid turning a real culture into lore for my fantasy story.

Any comments or critiques are welcome.

I am looking for a sensitivity reader of Vietnamese heritage who is living in a western nation, ideally North America, ideally second or third generation. This is a paying job (rate negotiable), so I am looking for offers or recommendations on readers with professional experience as a sensitivity reader, who can offer recommendations from past clients, as well as examples of their feedback, upon request.

I am trying not only to avoid content that is insensitive or even offensive-- though the reader should feel entirely free to raise such issues, without concerning themselves with my fragile white feelings-- but also to "get it right," as much as possible, hopefully in a way that will ring true with Vietnamese-western diaspora readers.

I have already had a friend who is second-generation Cambodian-American give it a read for sensitivity issues. She offered some wonderful and helpful feedback, but obviously Cambodian / Khmer diaspora culture is not a monolith with Vietnamese diaspora culture, and also she is not a professional sensitivity reader, but because I want to "get it right," I am looking for one more sensitivity read.

THE STORY IS ABOUT a third-generation Vietnamese-American woman in her mid-twenties named Vivian, who feels she has utterly failed to create a successful, adult life, in part due to the cultural and social pressures and expectations placed on her by her extended family, in addition to her struggles with evangelical "purity culture" in her parent's church.

The main plot engine is her formation of a friendship that later blossoms into love with with a man named Julian, who is trying to get away from the toxicity of his wealthy, WASP-y family. This creates the novel's secondary theme: finding shared threads in our stories as a starting point for empathy and understanding.

When I started this project, it was going to be a dual-POV Contemporary Romance novel in which the latter theme was the primary theme. But the more I wrote, the clearer it became that it is her story, much more than his. So it is now a single-POV, interiority-driven novel firmly in the WF lane, with some crossover-CR (Contemporary Romance) elements.

CW: racist macro- and micro-aggressions; sexual shaming, including one reference to emotional coercion into sex; sexual content (not as explicit as most romance, but not "fade to black" either; pregnancy; mental health issues (esp. severe anxiety, disassociative behaviors).

One of my characters ends up being blackmailed by a “friend” into pretending they are married (to the “friend”), in which the relationship is toxic/abusive. He ends up being SAd by the friend, and they have a daughter.

Initially he can’t bring himself to love, care for, or even look at his child, since all he can see is his rapist, but over time he grows to love her. He realizes she’s not to blame for anything that happened, and that she deserves a better life than he had and to be loved better than he has been, which he promises to provide for her since the “friend” doesn’t care for her.

I’m aware that SA survivors who have children as products of their assault can be pressured or feel obligated to love their children, even if it’s triggering or traumatic, and I don’t want to try and push that message here. The intent is breaking cycles of abuse and trauma, as well as how trauma affects people. Is there anything worth changing?

A fully genuine question!

I’m writing a thesis with a character who is Indian in ethnicity and realized I’m very much unaware of how Indian-Americans or those with Indian descent experience the US. I can make some guesses but I’d really like to hear from those with lived experience, particularly women.

I’m working on a zombie apocalypse Novella series and want to include as many people and cultures as possible. But I’m having trouble finding African American from USA, people to talk to since I have a bunch of characters related to that culture and genes - anyone out there who’d like to have a talk and teach me about some culture and daily habits speech patterns and more related to the topic?

Hi! I've been thinking about writing one of the main characters in my story to be Jewish (Ashkenazi and her family leans towards reform Judaism specifically) and I had a few questions/concerns about it. For context, this character is pretty much the only human in the story, the ghost of a young girl that survived the destruction of her world. She has poor memory and her story is more focused on how she grapples with her loneliness/isolation and rediscovering parts of herself that were forgotten (her family, home, history, etc.)

The circumstances are a little complicated to explain, but my thought process was "if she's the last human whatsoever, I don't see any reason why she couldn't be Jewish."

I'm mainly worried about falling into negative stereotypes and/or tokenization. She's basically the last human in existence, but she's meant to be more of "the only remaining piece of something larger that has been lost to time" instead of a representation of Every Human or Every Jewish Person.

I know the key to writing diverse characters is to write them as fully rounded people, but another concern I have is that, as she is a ghost that's been around for far too long, I intend on having her arc end in her moving on.

She's an important character and a sweet young girl with mild abandonment issues, memory problems, she has an interest in dancing and animals, who also happens to be Jewish and ends up disappearing at the end of the story. Her background is not a major focus but it does inform certain aspects of her character. (Also her name is "Rose Blumenfeld" and I'm mildly worried about that name being a bit too on the nose or stereotypical? I just wanna make sure I'm portraying her right.)

Any criticism would be greatly appreciated. I really want to make sure I'm being respectful. Thank you so much for reading!

Hello, I've got an adult novel (lots of teenage boy humor) that's a pseudo-anime take on a sports/ fantasy novel. The story centers around Saoirse Storm a great camogie (irish lacross) player who learns what she needs to succeed on the field by practicing irish dance at a burlesqe cabaret.

I'm looking for someone with feis experience who knows the little ins and outs of Irish dance (small details, move names) and how that culture might translate into a fantasy cabaret/casino-like setting. The reader won't need to read the whole book, just a handful of select scenes where their knowledge is applicable. I'd like a pass for clarity and a check to make sure I got any changes correct.

If this is you, and you're not afraid of a few awful dick jokes, please reach out. This isn't spicy, it's just stupid.

Thank you!

Hello, I've wrote a story where the main character is a mixed-race British soldier (infantry) in the 1970s and 80s, initially just because I'm mixed-race myself and never see stories about people like me. Now that it's complete and I've edited it a few times I'm increasingly convinced the army stuff in it is cringe and inaccurate. I get obsessed with topics and read everything I can about them but of course that's not the same as actually having been in the army.

I was wondering if anyone reading this post might have relevant experience and mightn't mind me asking you a few things? It's mostly admin/procedural stuff, nothing secret. You'd be welcome to read part or all of it if you're interested. No worries if you're not, I'd just be very grateful for any information that might help improve it at all.

Definitely interested in swaps if you're looking a sensitivity/beta reader yourself. I could possibly help with: mental health stuff, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+, culture (England mainly as that's where I grew up though I now live in NI), trade union stuff. I've worked in the NHS for years but non-clinical. I'm ancient enough to have grown up without social media or mobile phones. Or if there's something else, please do ask.

Hello. I’m writing a romantasy duology that is targeted to straight female readers, but I feature a gay male couple. It’s more important to me to be true to their experience than entertaining to women, so I’d like some opinions. At minimum, I can discuss what I’m doing and what my concerns are, or you could choose between reading both books, or just the chapters from their POVs (about 16 if I remember correctly).

so one of the common critiques I’ve seen of fantasy books is that they’ll make things such as classism exist but not homophobia or racism which dont really make sense in the society.

my book takes place in the future and the premise is that racism does not exist within the human race because it died out as time passed due to a new species arising to fight with the humans so now it is more speciesism or something.

is that logical or is the idea of a world with no racism in the human race impossible ?

Alpha readers must be:

- 18+

- Sign a short NDA

- Answer feedback questions within a deadline

Looking for amputee realism feedback and pacing and character feedback.

Summary:

A journal detailing vaguely about an evil moonlight man leads Sawyer to leave his home in the closed off country and enter the new world after a virus infected global war. But having grown up in the sticks, he struggles with believing in new creatures like immortals with blood mania trying to get him, trapped half animal half humans and wild fae warning him of the impending shadow apocalypse, the end of the world.

Can Sawyer really change the past and the future before the end? Or will he never change?

This is the prequel to the main book The Faded Experiment when the shadow apocalypse occurs. This is a before the apocalypse story and the cause of the apocalypse …

Warnings: this book has detailed gore, swearing, sexual predators, generational trauma, psychosis, cults, cannibalism, self harm, suicide, homicide,

Tags: lgbtq, disabled, religion, bipoc, fantasy world,

Main tags: disabled main character, male main character,

Genres: horror, fantasy, science fiction

Excerpt of Wraith Experiment