Tag: Diverse Characters

Other Cool Blogs: Mythcreants – Female Characters

Erin Penn

Photo by Nicolas Ladino Silva on Unsplash

How can….???

Have you not lived among women your entire life!?

I mean over half the population of the world is women!!!

Oren Ashkenasi over at Mythcreants goes over “Eight Absurdities We Force on Female Characters” (posted Aug 4, 2018)

  1. Lone Representation – or what I call “Smurfette”. The only female in a full-length novel makes people angry, because as the sole representative – whatever she is is incomplete. (Likewise having only one person of color in a large cast makes no sense.)
  2. Special Women Fighting Styles – “The physics of murder don’t change based on gender.” — I LOVE this quote!
  3. Feisty – Yeah. Can’t even begin my reactions to this one.

The list of the absurdities goes one and definitely worth the read. Again the URL for the full article is: https://mythcreants.com/blog/eight-absurdities-we-force-on-female-characters/

Takeaway start each character from the baseline of human and go from there.

Flash: Ship’s Center (Beep Part 2)

Erin Penn

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

Julius drew back from the edge where they stood questioning if flying, for even a single moment, to be truly Sky-Born, would be worth the fall. Their father and the surviving elders of the Sky-Fallen, outcast from the stars, shrieked no with every angry-betrayed breath and sobbed yes with every grief-filled long stare. Last Ra-cycle had been worse than most after their parent woke screaming, shuddering for hours in their arms, whispering about the blacker than black of Q space when eyes invented shapes and colors just to see something, dust within the vacuum where emptiness was both an illusion and a harsher reality than can be conceived, planets with snow and moons where people can see their breath and dance in the twilight between days, and most of all, the Endless. Each of the Sky-Fallen had stood where Julius had been standing and witnessed the eternity of the universe.

Until they could witness it no more.

Again, the unnatural sound interrupted the silence of the coffin of failed dreams.

Unsure if the change would bring hope or further nightmares, Julius followed the periodic beep into the third inner circle of the ship. Uncaring true gravity mocked the orientation of artificial pathways made to operate with centrifugal force making the travel challenging and convoluted. They slid down ladders still lit after forty years with a red glow, and used others to cross gulfs of hallways running vertical on the grounded ship. Deeper in the ship the natural light from the twin stars disappeared, making Julius grateful for the lighting mechanisms meant to shine for the generations it would take to cross space.

The outermost layer of the ship was barely different from the surrounding world because First Homes had been built from scavenged paneling initially, but integral bulkheads eventually became more of a trial to dismantle than using the abundant natural woods and stones to build shelters.

They reached center of ancient ship after a backtrack to avoid a Growler’s nest. Outside, Ra should have given way to Raet by now, and Julius was overdue for their chores. After waiting another count of thirty-seven, they narrowed the source on the bridge to the communications module.

Running a hand over the module’s damaged entry panel, where someone long ago had beaten the panel into uselessness, Julius discovered long-forgotten neural pathways established during childhood training waking. Nanites created them during the second infusion: how to operate an escape pod, how to seal a hull breach, and how to operate the distress beacon. Things every person on board This Giant Leap needed to know.

Breathing out slowly, they moved around the sealed module, turning their head with each beep until they found the crack at the base of the module allowing the sound to carry throughout the ship. It looked like it went through the bulkhead. Another trip up to go down, then sideways brought them under the bridge and the communication module in what used to be the incubation chambers, the most protected area from interstellar radiation. Avoiding the empty equipment still attached walls, which had been floors when the ship used to rotate, Julius found the crack again, this time they could slip inside the pitch-black area.

They left some skin behind, but made it in. For once, their small size played in their favor.

The beep happened again and the programmed instinct took over, guiding their hands over equipment they never seen before and couldn’t see now. The beep was replaced with a hum.

Then a burnt smell.

And, finally, hologram lasers danced in the abandoned air.

(words 602; first published 9/25/2022 – I asked if anyone wanted one of the Facebook visual flash expanded to 500 words, and they asked for Beep.)

Beep Series
Beep (7/26/2020)
Ship’s Center (9/6/2020)

Flash: Three Losses (full-length)

Erin Penn

Last year about this time, Three Losses was published in the Dare to Write It ezine (7/9/2019). The short story competition I entered had a theme of “Loss” and a word limit of 500. Below is the full-length version of the story.

***

“Tina!” ripped from Brand’s throat as he watched his boss crumple into a loose pile of arms and legs when the amulet rays hit her. Her body flopped over, her glass eyes staring at the ceiling. Growling, his hands tightened on his machetes and turned toward the bastard wizard, readying to leap.

“Uh-huh. You could be next.” The graduate student wiggled the ancient Mayan medallion. Smirking. “Besides it is not like I killed her.”

Brand’s eyes roved over her limp body trying to figure out what was happening. Whiskey, Martini Martinez’s sister and tech for the monster hunter end of their lives, found this case from the police reports of female co-eds turning up on roadsides after disappearing for three days with no memory of the intervening time. Five of them, so far, over a six-week period. Glassy black eyes stared at the ceiling with her two long braids which normally hung passed her fine ass tangled with her arms which now reflected light like they were cloth, not skin. Her ceremonial athame, which she had used to cut half-ass spells the wizard had thrown, remained unchanged in her dominant left hand, but the gun in her right looked like a foam toy. Martini Martinez didn’t appear dead as much as a puppet with its strings cut.

“What did you do?”

“Turned her into a doll, a fuckable doll, all moist and warm. You can take her home. Do whatever you want. She’ll come back to herself in seventy-two hours.”

“Gotcha,” whispered in his earpiece.

“Turn her back now.” Brand demanded.

“No. You are going to allow me to escape. Going to give me time to pack up my shit. And let me go.” He wiggled the amulet again attached to the chain around his neck. “Or join her.”

“Mayan … golem-making,” Whiskey’s voice whispered in his ear. “Found it … yeah, gotcha, gotcha, those amulets only work on one person at a time.”

“Not going to happen.” Brand ran at the wizard wannabe and punched him with the knuckle guards around his machetes until the bastard fell unconscious. And then kicked him a couple times with his steel-toed boots until he felt a rib break. “Tell me we got a fix to get Tina back quick.” He said into the thin air, panting.

“Nope, those things are preset. The Mayans would transform their sacrifices, throwing them down the pyramids. As fabric golems, they would take no damage. Then they could take them back to their temples and play with them, pass them around.”

“So the gods wouldn’t get the sacrifice? Didn’t that piss them off?”

“No, because the soul of the person got transferred to the god-realm to be played with. The girls wouldn’t remember anything when returned to their bodies, just like the co-eds, but the damage to the soul would remain.”

“How much damage?” Brand asked.

Whiskey didn’t respond.

“How much damage?”

“You know two of the co-eds already committed suicide. And a third is in the hospital getting her stomach pumped and is little more than a vegetable after her attempt.” Whiskey’s voice got smaller. “The other two are the newest. It is just a matter of time.”

“Fuck.” Brand looked around the room. His eyes wanted to focus on Tina and also didn’t. So he focused on the black dagger in her left hand. “How do we get her soul back from the god-realm quickly?”

“You would have to go in and get it.”

“How?”

“Mayans weren’t the most blood-thirsty of the gods in the Americas, that prize goes to the Aztecs, but only human sacrifice opens their gate.”

“Right.” Securing his machetes in their scabbards, Brand strode over to his boss’s body and picked up the witch blade.

“No!” Whiskey yelled in his ear. “That’s black magic. Don’t kill Ryan.”

“Don’t worry. That isn’t the only sacrifice available here.” Brandon thrust the small blade into his belly. Knowing that wasn’t enough, he pulled upward, then sideways. “Hold on Tina, I’m coming.” He collapsed over her body, blood flowing out and soaking into the doll’s fabric skin.

(words 682; original work published Dare to Write It ezine 7/9/2019 – 500 word limit; full length published 8/2/2020)

Other Cool Blogs: Geeks of Color (4/6/2017) – Racebending

Erin Penn

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

Against the backdrop of COVID, cracks in American culture have broken wide – the most obvious being the racial divide of privilege.

Within the publishing industry, People of Color (PoC) have fought an uphill battle – most opportunities within writing and editing are available by networking. Networking happening at conventions – which require free time and excess money. Outside of conventions, networking happens among friendship circles based on where people live and how they meet up. Since the establishment for publishing is white since, like, forever, breaking-in means breaking through the white barrier of privilege – jumping historic redlining and the restricted availability of extra cash within a family structure.

The same is true for the other storytelling medium of movies. Portrayers of Characters (actors) must network – not only to get the job, but to get the RIGHT job for their body-type. Whitewashing is argued from the money-side – “we must choose (name actor) to get blockbuster cash”. Never mind that putting a new actor in the role, if the story is a good story and the actor is even better, will still create a blockbuster. The money-people don’t like depending on the story or unproven talent.

Doing research about culture and PoC, I ran across a Geeks of Color post from 4/9/2017 by Tevin Murphy “The Incomparable Differences between Whitewashing and Racebending”. I hadn’t run into the concept of Racebending under that name before, the deliberate choice of placing a PoC in a role which would normally be considered white.

From my time growing up in New Jersey my category for “white” skin color includes Hispanic, Italian, Indian, and mid-Eastern, as well as traditional Anglo-Saxon and Germanic and Slavic looks. For stories where the culture of the character is inherent to the character, I feel every effort should be made to match things up. But if the character is generic background, then color doesn’t matter and Racebending may be desired.

I’ve often talked about don’t do GENERIC. What I really should say is don’t do GENERIC by ACCIDENT. I have written several stories where I’ve deliberately omitted color and gender considerations to open up the story to a wider audience and let the reader place themselves within the character. Most of my character choices are wide-ranging in culture, and I try having personal attributes of those cultural differences feed aspects into the story. Porter (Porter Weaves) is deliberately created with kinky hair, and Escaleras de Muertos draws on Hispanic culture. But when I don’t indicate physical appearance, except for the shortest of stories where appearance doesn’t fit, my choice nearly always is deliberate.

Should any of my works ever make it off the page to a screen – I would be delighted to see Racebending occur. (bolded for emphasis)

Everyone should have the Privilege to see themselves in a book or on screen. The only way to heal the cracks of society is to cross the divides.

Flash: These Things Don’t Just Happen

Erin Penn

Photo by Muhammad Ruqiyaddin on Unsplash

“Really, really? How the …” Julia sputtered to a stop. “These things don’t just happen.”

Onighgah shook her head and turned away. “Maybe in your world.”

“What do you mean ‘my world’?” Confusion infused the words.

Running a quick hand over her headwrap, the black woman considered how to respond to her white friend. Nearly friend, someone from work who she lunched with when they sat in the cafeteria since they always were on break together and the room only had two tables. It would have been noticeably rude to sit at the other one. Unfortunately today she got a phone call to bail her brother out of jail which Julia had overheard and one thing led to another.

“In your world, walking down the street doesn’t end with someone questioning why you are in the neighborhood.”

Julia rolled her eyes.

“White privilege is a thing. A real thing, girl.” Onighgah continued.

After a quick puff of exasperation, Julia shook her head. “Blah, blah. Slavery. Oppression. Come on. That is ages ago. Get over it. This is America.” Julie swept her hand around the small room where the large store retail employees were required to take their breaks. “If you are failing, it is on you.”

Onighgah’s teeth ground.

“Whatever your brother did, he shouldn’t have been doing it.”

“He.was.walking.to.his.class.” Each word bit the air with frost. “The.one.he.teaches.at.the.high.school.”

“If that is all he was doing, the cops wouldn’t have bothered him.”

“You—“ The black woman cut herself off as her voice raised. “No, not going there.” After packing the balance of her lunch up in the brown paper bag she brought today, she stood. She crushed it between her hands, back and forth, kneading it like a baseball. “Come with me to bail him out.” She finally spat.

“What?”

“Tonight, after work, come with me to bail him out. We’ll do a little makeup, you got a dark Italian coloring, it won’t take much. Wrap one of my extra scarfs around your head.”

“Are you crazy?” Julia stared up at her co-worker.

“I dare you.”

(words 346; first published 4/19/2020)

 

 

P is for prejudice