Tag: Diverse Characters

Flash: Unloading

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The noise of a thousand bodies in a small space quieted as the ship doors opened to reveal the immigrants new home. Non-canned air slipped in on hot wind, replacing human stink with the unmistakable odor of sulfur. Human noses inhaled deeply the pungent scent, glad for something new to smell after so many days in transit. Bright natural light rushed to fill the corners of the room as the doors widened enough for the ramp to be deployed.

Clarence huddled mid-way in the masses with his family. The trip had indentured them for ten years labor. More likely twenty years for him and Monique to cover the costs of Grandpa and Nanna’s trip. They were young and could suck it up. Food and other living expenses were going to keep the family down for a generation. Still, they had gotten out of the ghetto.

He waited for the other shoe to fall. He figured he wasn’t about to step into Eden. Others might buy the brave new world bit the recruiters sell. But there had to be a reason why they recruited in the slums and not in the colleges. Someone needed to do the work before brains arrived.

The people at the front stepped back seeing their new home. A few started wailing and cursing.

His dad and Gramps pushed the crowd back from the women on one side, Clarence stepped between the family and the mob on the other. Lincoln, a young man and his pregnant wife who had befriended the family on the trip out, helped him. On this new world they were going to be family too. That is if the company allowed it.

Yelling started in the front, and the side walls started slowly moving inward, forcing people off the ship. Nothing for it but to leave, although a few people fought the issue. Idiots, like a company is going to pay to haul bodies out here and allow you to turn around to go back.

Bridges burnt, Clarence and his clan stepped onto their new planet.

(Words 343 – first published 5/30/2013; republished new blog format 1/7/2018)

Flash: Death Wish Part 2 – Nothing Fits

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature (Language)

The shower’s water and my blood were fighting each other as they ran down the drain. Water trying to follow natural forces and move one way, and my very unnatural blood running counter to how the world should work. The red froth gave me something to stare at in the shower other than my friend’s shampoo and his kids’ bath toys. I wished I still had tears to cry.

Rod’s was the nearest place I could think of.  Hell, it was the only place I could think of that they wouldn’t know.

I don’t know why the Philadelphia Court attacked. I certainly had no fucking clue why they would be angry enough to hire hunters as cleanup. Shit, I am only five … well four – five in at the equinox … and not even my creator shared anything with me.

I should have run somewhere else. Then Rodrigo would still be alive. His kids would still have their dad.

… and I wouldn’t be saddled with a death wish.

I could hear the bitch cackle. And I deserve every snide remark my creator would give me, if she had survived the attack. Which she hadn’t.

I tried to erase the picture of her head flying towards me as I was frozen by fear. But … shit … having a lover’s head hit you square in the chest does reactive the run-like-hell reflex.

I had been taught to calm prey down first. Control them. Get them to the point their only desire to please me. I had blanked Rodrigo’s memory of my feeding off of him plenty of times. Why not tonight?

Instead I talked to him! Hell, I apologized! What was I doing?

And now I got a death wish.

I twisted the nob and the water stopped. The pink foam would eventually make its way down the drain.

Rod’s towels were more thread then cloth, but they worked well enough even if none of them matched. It’s not like the water wanted to stick to me.

I moved quietly down the hall to his bedroom. Maybe something would fit me. He had over six inches and fifty pounds of muscle on me, not counting about twenty pounds of comfortable, as my mom put it.

I had been turned when I was eighteen; happy graduation – hoped you enjoyed your summer, because it is the last one you are going to get. Still hadn’t got my full growth.

Hated them. I was taught not to turn anyone before twenty-five. Just easier for the Made to blend long-term. The only reason anyone gave me for the early turn came from Al who said they needed a daywalker. If he wasn’t just tormenting me, then they broke their own rules to make me. I figured I was minion then toast, and nothing they did to me showed different. Going out in daylight HURTS … but then so did staying in the Court. Working Elias’ gas station actually was a reward in my book, even though it was far beneath the rest.

In the end, the daylight saved me. The younger you are, the less the sun affects you. Nature isn’t completely out to get you. An hour past dawn in July, and I could still run outside and keep running for a good long time. 

To my friend’s home. Well, hovel … I looked around the large closet where he had put a mattress. But whatever … he had a place. Better than me at the moment with everything from the Court gone.

The one bedroom was dedicated to his kids. Damn, he loved them. Talked about them constantly at work. Feared for them, leaving them home alone at night while they slept, keeping them feed, wondering if child services would come.

The few shirts and pants hanging over the mattress were all too large. And idea nibbled at me on how to hide and deal with the death wish.

 … The death wish

Why couldn’t have I played with him until his only thought was to please me? I’ve done it before. Then the death wish ends up being having mind-blowing sex, and that is really easy to do since people can get really off when they die. But I was so hungry and hurt.

I heard my creator’s laugh again. No excuse. She had taught me on my first kill just what being caught up in a death wish gets you. Sip – never kill except on the anniversary – and then only after getting the prey prepared. I’ve killed only five times, two in training and three anniversaries.

I pulled on one of the faded Mr. Mart shirts. Behind me I heard movement. For a second I was paralyzed again. They found me.

Then a slight mew of a child’s sigh and I realized what was happening. The children. It was about ten, so Rod’s after-work nap would be soon ending for what he called the ”las guerras de comida”.

I cracked open the hall door to look at the triplets. Two identical boys and one angelic girl just beginning to stretch and twist out of dreamland.

And I knew.

I had to do it. I began to pull Rodrigo’s form about me. I had until my anniversary in September to wear it. Looking like him would let me hide in plain sight. The others would not expect me to take care of three kids. But function follows form, and memories and actions would pop up while I wore his shell. I should be able to do this. I already knew his job.

I shrugged my shoulders and the shirt settled on my new frame. I strode back to grab some pants.

So this is what tall feels like. Very cool.

… I would also have time to figure out why the hell a sane man rather have a vampire take his kids than their own mother.

(words 985 – first published 11/28/2012; republished new blog format 12/17/2017)

Flash: Death Wish Part 1 – Hair Drop

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Pietro leaning against the wall outside disturbed me when I opened the apartment’s door. I was about to go to sleep when I heard the knock.  I hadn’t seen him in two months; he always took off the summer from the gas station – convenience store where we pulled third shift. The boss didn’t mind, as summer had plenty of high schoolers to abuse. I figured he had a gig at the shore, but Pietro was looking far from tan.

How did he know where I live? Took me a moment to remember I had invited him over for my new year’s party. He showed up late and left early since he was covering work that night.

God, he looked yummy. We had started grabbing quickies in the back during restocking; hence inviting him over for a party.

God, he looked awful. I knew I was staring at the shorter man, but he had knocked and I still didn’t know why he was here. I didn’t remember it raining, so why was his hair soaked?

Then a drop of liquid fell from his hair to his white T and formed a bright red spot. My eyes suddenly saw his shirt was covered in the red dots and his denim jeans were more black than blue from something other than dye.

I took a step back to close the door when suddenly he was through it, his bloody hand covering my mouth.

“Shush, shush, shush. I am so sorry. I really am. I am sorry.” He muttered using his foot to close the door behind him. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go and the sun is up. Hell, I am so sorry.”

The squeaky toy kind nearly wrecked the ominous mood; Pietro grimaced as he glanced down. Well, may have wrecked what he was creating – but it added a whole other level of fear to me. I tried to take advantage of the broken eye contact to move away, get his hand off my mouth. Anything so I could scream or fight.

“Quiet.” He said and the word echoed through my head cutting off my voice just as the scream was about to break away. Looking again at the toy, he asked “Are they here?”

I nodded as tears rolled down my face. I kept trying to back away from him.

He slowly inhaled as he cornered me against the couch. How had I never noticed the man didn’t breathe? “Where will you like them to be taken?” he asked as he pushed my six foot frame onto the soft surface.

I refound my voice. “Don’t hurt them. Please don’t hurt them.”

“They will be safe. Where do you want them to go?”

God, I should have made a will. But a convenience store income isn’t exactly something you think about dividing. I forgot my most precious possessions also needed assignment. “Not their mother. Please keep them away from their mother.”

He looked at me in the eyes again, his pupils expanding to fill the white. “Any other family?”

I shook my head, unable to look away. His eyes were like a bird’s. A baby bird with its constant hunger, mouth gaping. An adult bird, who remembered that constant bone deep hunger. I wanted to feed it. I needed to feed it. I adjusted my legs as I grew hard. Looking into those black eyes, I knew much of the blood on him was his. He was hunger itself.

”Just take care of them.” I panted as he approached dragging his hand up my leg, over my boxers and finally to my neck. “And don’t ever let their mom have them.”

“I will do what I can.” He swore just before he bit down.

(words 624 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 11/25/2012 (photo for the prompt of unknown origin so not copied); republished in new blog format 11/26/2017)

Blog: Fail (Part 2)

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So my Fail. I failed the Bechdel Test. This test was developed in 1995 to measure movies for inclusion. It goes like this:

  1. The movie must have more than one woman in it.
  2. They have to talk to each other.
  3. And their talk has to be about something other than a man (male).

Honestly and Threshold Sanctuary (the short published in WeAreNotThis) both fail at the first step. I tried to console myself with, well, they are romances where the main activity is between the romantic leads thereby limiting the cast. Except for Honestly, I have Dewayne, Fred, and Boulder all talking to each other about something other than the opposite gender, and they are secondary characters!

Further, during my recent sociological studies, I ran into two more terms “The Smurfette Principle” (1991) and “Women in Refrigerators “(1999). In both of my published works I have only one female appearing on screen, Kassandra and the witch. And the only offscreen character to suffer created solely for character development of an onscreen character was a woman for the male’s background (Troy’s mom).

(expletives) I am completely a product of my society. Especially the entertainment biz.

Therefore I am going to do a writing exercise right now to figure out how bad I am doing.

WRITING EXERCISE: Go over your body of work using the Bechdel Test, the Smurfette Principle, and Women in Refrigerators. If you need to understand the Women in Refigerators better, the video from Feminist Frequency explains it well.

READING EXERCISE: Watch two movies which passes the Bechdel Test and Smurfette Principle – one movie using these two tests based on gender and once based on melanin. If you watch movies in theatre, the movie should be in theatre. If you are NetFlicks watcher, then NetFlicks and chill. If part of your mind goes, but “I don’t wanna watch a chick flick” clearly you need to work outside your comfort zone. People always tell writers they need to read outside their genre; approach it with this mindset if it helps. Also who said anything about a chick flick? For example “Hidden Figures” could cover either the gender or melanin portion of the exercise.

ME DOING THE WRITING EXERCISE:

Remember, the point of these tests is not if one of your works fails but to study systematic problems over a body of work – a consistency of issues. So really my failing the Bechdel Test and the Smurfette Principle in two publications of romance isn’t bad. I will have a problem if I look at a statistically significant body and still have the issue. So 2016 blogs here I come!

First the 2016 non-fiction blogs related to specific people: 9 book reviews, 12 author spotlights, 18 magical word posts, and 12 other blogs – total of 51. (The book review included three multi-author publications which I am not counting.) Melanin split – one immigrant and one foreigner. No one of color. If going by appropriate ratios for American demographics at least 7 blacks, 2 Asians, and 6 immigrants.  Gender split – 33 to 18 (65% to 35%) favoring women (several of the blogs were by more than one person) with the author spotlight and book reviews by design and conscious choice evenly split between male and female. I had been working to have the magical words and other blogs also being an even split, but women tend to blog more than men about writing so the pool to draw from curtailed my options. So Fail on the Melanin and a “D” on the Gender splits for non-fiction even when actively trying to address the know issues.

For my 2016 flashes I am not including the one appearing in the writing exercises, just the flashes – a total of 52. I am limiting myself to on-screen characters who are more than scenery; they do not need names, but they do need to have a level of agency. Gender Split – In 52 flashes, I had 118 characters – 60 male, 53 female and 5 unspecified – 50%, 45%, 5%. Not perfect but not bad – a “B” grade. For the Melanin split I end up with the clearly defined whites at 57%, blacks at 11%, Asians at 2% and undefined at 30%. I often deliberately choose to not clearly define skin color. In addition I have 2.5% clearly defined as Hispanic and 1.5% defined as immigrants – the immigrant is a gray area since not all the stories are set in America. Melanin is fine. Grade of an A-.

Now the two I am really scared of – the Betchel and Smurfette tests. Since flashes rarely have more than two characters, this limits the options. For the Betchel test I have only included flashes with two people if both are the same gender, otherwise 3 or more people are needed. Twenty-one flashes meet this requirement and only 7 pass the Betchel test. A higher ratio than big entertainment, but less than 50% pass. On the other hand, I should see if we just switch the gender on the Betchel test, how many would pass. Ordinarily it would not be necessary, but because flashes restrict interaction so much, a better comparison in this case is seeing of the 21 flashes the female to male Betchel test passes. How many times do just men talk to each other? In this case 9 pass vs. the 7 for women. In only one case does a flash pass for both the men and woman Betchel test. Again a “B” rating because they are close, but I still am showing an unconscious preference for the dialogue to center on man-to-man. I will need to look over the statistics again next year simply because the statistical pool for the Betchel test was low.

Now smurfette. With only 17 flashes with 3 or more people, the pool is even smaller than for the Betchel test. It takes three to create an outnumbered gender. In this case I have 7 times where the story only had one woman and 6 times where the story only had one male. I pass!

Final review – For 2016, I did not do perfect with the flashes and non-fiction, but the larger review does indicate for first fears after the review of my published works are manageable. I do need to work harder. And I should review this next year; this is something I should monitor if only because I love numbers and sociology and the easiest person to “experiment” on is myself. Right now I give myself a C with a “B” for the fiction area and a “D” on the non-fiction.

Your turn – comment below on your Writers and/or Reader’s exercises.

Blog: Fail (Part 1)

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have FAILED.

By trade I am a numbers person, but I dabble in sociology. Because of the interest in sociology, I often follow trends trying to understand why people think the way they do.

I, personally, grew up on what my town considered “the wrong side of the railroad tracks” and so my playground companions were a mix of colors and religions. I didn’t consider the skin color difference except when running through the sprinklers, since I had only a short window to play with my pale skin and others had a larger window. This difference was no more important to me than asking the taller kids to get something I couldn’t reach. My early experiences filtered through my mind and entrenched in my subconscious. It baffled me when I went off to college and discovered people attached socio-economic characteristics to skin color, and, to tell you the truth, this pre-judging based on melanin continues to be an issue in my social interactions. At some level, I just can’t and will never understand it, even when I observe these same behaviors based on my adult socialization in myself. Likewise I can’t really grasp judging skills based on visible gender, for instance the assumption of females and math (of which I am glaring example of how wrong that assumption is). Hence the ongoing studies in sociology.

I am just trying to understand humanity.

#AllLivesMatter is basic to how I live. But I know our American society has an imbalance. As of 2010, 50.8% of the United States of America was female, with the average actually higher among adults since more boys are born (by 0.05%) but more women survive – the changeover of more men to more women happening between 30 and 40 (Age and Sex Composition by US Census 2010 – – LINK broken as of 4/20/2022, likely replaced with a pdf related to the 2020 Census) – due to society’s encouragement of men practicing more dangerous behaviors and taking riskier occupations rather than a more equitable split of occupational risks.

Yet even with more women than men, viewing our society through our entertainment, you would think the ratio was closer to 4 males per 1 female.

Then there is the Melanin Split. I am not going to call it a racial split since only one race exists, the human race. I am going to call it what it actually is, a constructed split defined by how well we tan. In America we are 70% white, 15% black, 5% Asian with other mixes added in and 16% identifying as Hispanic. Growing up I didn’t notice a difference in Hispanic Melanin Split since the local white population included a high number of mid-eastern and Italians and they all tan about the same and had similar dark hair, which was all my child-self cared about. In addition one should consider a ratio of 15% of immigrants of all kinds into America, including Russian, Japanese, and English.

Well, the post is getting a little long, so I am going to break it into two parts. Find out about my big FAIL tomorrow.