STAR WARS ALPHABET || M Is For Maul

Writing x Characters When You Aren’t x, A Masterlist

x: a variable used to represent something unknown.

We’ve seen an influx of questions about how to write stories based around characters of color, disability, non-binary, etc. when the author does not fall into these categories. Rather than have these posts take over the site, we’ve decided to compile a list of resources to help our fellow writers become more educated about writing what they do not immediately know. However, this list is not the end-all-be-all of knowledge; one should always try to learn from someone with first hand experience in any topic. The world is constantly growing and changing, and because of that, there will always be more to learn. The admins at Plotline Hotline want to help writers form respectful, informed, and realistic characters that broaden the narrow range we see in literature today. 

*Be wary that some of the topics listed below contain sensitive material. Reader discretion is advised.* 

As always, the links I found to be especially apt will be in bold. Topics are listed alphabetically, excepting the “other” section.

Culture

Appropriate Cultural Appropriation

What is Cultural Appropriation? [1,2,3]

Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible

Voice Appropriation & Writing About Other Cultures

Diversity, Appropriation, and Writing the Other [List]

Disability

Writing Disibilities [1,2,3,4,5]

Guides to Writing Deaf or Hard of Hearding People

National Association of the Deaf - Resources [List]

World Federation of the Deaf

Using a Prosthetic Device

Prostehtic Limbs (Character Guide)

How NOT to Write Disabled Characters

A Guide to Disibility Rights Law (United States)

Timeline of Disibility Rights in the United States

Social Security Disability: List of Impairments, Medical Conditions, and Problems [List] (United States)

How to Write Disabled Characters: An Opinion Piece

Artificial Eye Resources [List][Various]

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Misconceptions and Myths About Blindness

Blind Characters: A Process of Awareness

Writing Blind Characters [List]

Types of Learning Disabilities [List]

Diversity

A Guide to Spotting and Growing Past Stereotypes

How to Prepare to Write a Diverse Book

The Diversity of Writing

Why Diversity Matters for Everyone

Writing a Driverse Book [1,2,3,4,5]

Diversity, Political Correctness and The Power of Language

Diversity Book List [List][Books]

Basic Tips To Write Subcultures & Minority Religions Better 

Basic Tips to Avoid Tokenism

Gender

GLAAD Media Reference Guide - Transgender

Creating Well-Written Trans Characters

A Few Things Writers Need To Know About Sexuality & Gender Expression

Trans (Character Guide & Bio Building)

A Non-Binary Person’s Guide to Invented Pronouns

Gender Neutral Writing [List]

Keeping a Trans* Person a Person  

Suggestions for Reducing Gendered Terms in Language [Photo]

How to Review a Trans Book as a Cis Person

Writing Characters of Different Genders [List]

Understanding Gender

Gender Spectrum Resources [List]

Gender History

Illness 

Writing Chronic Illness [1,2]

The Spoon Theory - Also pertains to disibility

About HIV/AIDS

Sexually Transmitted Diseases [List]

Sexually Transmitted Infections

Sex and Gender Differences in Health [Study]

All Chronic Illness Topics [List]

Coping with Chronic Illness

All Cancer Types

A Day in the Life of a Home Health Aide/Health Coach

Fiction Books With Chronically Ill Main Characters- Not Cancer [List][Books]

Neurotype (Including Mental Health)

Writing an Autistic Character When You Don’t Have Autism

Depression Resources [List]

What to Consider When Writing Mental Illness

Stanford Psychiatric Patient Care

Inpatient Psychiatric Questions and Tips

Don’t Call Me Crazy [Documentary]

(Avoid) Romanticizing Mental Illness [1,2]

A Day in the Life of a Mental Hospital Patient

State-run vs. Private Mental Hospitals

Mental Disorders

Mental Hospital Non-Fiction [List][Books]

National Institute of Mental Health - Mental Health Information [List]

Writing Autistic

What Causes PTSD?

Remember, Remember: The Basics of Writing Amnesia

ADHD Basic Information

What is a Learning Disability?

What is Neurotypical?

Race

Writing Race: A Checklist for Authors

Transracial Writing for the Sincere

Is my character “black enough”

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Challenge, Counter, Controvert: Subverting Expectations

Writing With Color: Blogs - Recs - Resources [List]

Writing People of Color (If you happen to be a person of another color)

7 Offensive Mistakes Well-Intentioned Writers Make

Description Guide - Words for Skin Tone

Religion

Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo?

How to Write a Fantasy Novel that Sells: The Religion

Writing About Faith And Religion

From Aladdin to Homeland: How Hollywood Can Reinforce Racial and Religious Stereotypes 

Sexuality

Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity [List]

Writing Gay Characters [1,2,3]

American Civil Liberties Union - LGBT+ Rights

LGBT+ Rights by Country or Territory

History of Gay Rights

Gay Rights Movement

LGBT+ Culture

Gay Myths and Stereotypes

LGBT+ Studies Web Sites [List]

LGBTQ Youth Issues

LGBTData.com

Overview of Gay and Lesbian Parenting, Adoption and Foster Care (United States)

Other

How Doctors’ Offices—and Queer Culture—Are Failing Autistic LGBTQ People

Five Traps and Tips for Character Development

Developing Realistic Characters

I hope that this list will provide topics a writer may not initially think to research when writing. If there are any resources that you think would be fitting for this list, please let us know! We want to have as many helpful sources as possible to maximize learning opportunities. 

Stay educated,

xx Sarah

Spotify Playlists - Transformers: Prime (Part 2 of 3: Decepticons)

✧ Megatron

✧ Starscream

✧ Soundwave

✧ Dreadwing

✧ Knockout

✧ Breakdown

✧ Shockwave

✧ Predaking

✧ Airachnid

Links to Part 1 (Autobots) and Part 3 (the kids)

How To Make Your Own Clown Doll ! (A Guide)

Hello good people !!

I have made a few clown dolls before, and someone submitted a question asking if I followed any guide for them or had a guide myself. I sorta made it up as I went for the first doll, but I have learned better methods of doing things since then!

Here is my guide on how to make some dudes for yourself!

You will need:

Fabric for the body - I used an off-white fleece for the torso and limbs for this one, but have previously used a thin off-white sorta cotton fabric, which works better if you want floppier/thinner limbs!

Fabric for the clothes - Use whatever you want, honestly! I used some cool stretchy silver-metallic fabric for mine but have previously used cotton and polyester patterned fabrics !

Polymer clay - I used Sculpey III for this one, but for my previous two I used some other kind of Sculpey that was very very light and airy, which made it hard to sculpt properly without squishing it! If you want to add any detail to the face shape, use some firm polymer clay !

Posca pens (optional) and acrylic paints - Acrylics are used for the base coat on the head. I used the paints for the details too previously, but used posca pens on this one which was much easier to do the face details with! Either works just fine, though : )

Faux fur - for hair! If you want a bald clown or one with just a hat without hair, you don't need this!

Decorative trims and such - I used some pink frilly elastic trim, blue dotted non-elastic trim, white elastic frilly mesh, buttons, a silver bell and some blue velvet ribbon for this guy! You can literally use whatever you want (ribbons, bows, pom-poms, lace, etc) to make your clown look cute!!

Varnish - Use spray varnish if you can! It'll help prevent the face paint from smudging (all 3 of mine have had this happen using varnish with a brush). It is possible to use varnish with a brush on them but be careful with it! I used sculpey gloss varnish.

Tin/aluminium foil

Basic sewing supplies (needles, thread, pins, scissors)

Steps

1. Make a ball out of the foil, a little smaller than the size you want the finished head.

2. Cover it in a layer of Sculpey and sculpt the face shape you want. Include a pretty thick neck with the base at the bottom WIDER than the rest of the neck. This will be how the head is anchored to the body!

3. Bake the clay, let it cool, and sand it down so that it is nice and even without any finger-prints!

4. Paint a base coat on it with acrylic paints!

5. Paint/draw on whatever face details you want using acrylics or posca pens! Let your creativity flow!!

6. Varnish it!

7. Draw out the body pieces (torso and limbs) on your body fabric. You'll need two torso pieces, four leg pieces and four arm pieces. Honestly there's no method to what shape to draw, just draw what shapes you want them to be! (Remember to reverse each second piece though so that they match up when sewing them together). I used a rounded rectangle for the torso, and chose to make the legs on mine very long!

8. Cut out all the pieces and sew them together with the CORRECT sides facing INWARDS and the WRONG sides facing outwards. Once sewn, flip them inside out. MAKE SURE TO LEAVE THE TOP SIDE OF THE TORSO UN-SEWN TO INSERT THE HEAD!

9. Almost fully fill the body with plastic pellets, and only partially fill the limbs (I filled them about 1/4 full)! If you don't have those, use dry rice like I did (or dry lentils) or sand! If you use sand, ensure sure you make your stitches REALLY close together so sand doesn't come out of any gaps! If you want the limbs to be chunkier, fill them with more pellets OR stuff the rest of them with poly-fill or cotton wool!

10. Insert the neck into the torso and sew the opening tight around it, like this! The wide base of the neck stops the head from coming out : )

11. Sew on the limbs! The stitching doesn't have to be perfect here since the clothes will hide it!

12. Make the clothes! You can make whatever kind of clothing you like; I just made a baggy little jumpsuit sorta thing for my guy! To do this, I laid the clown out on the fabric and roughly drew the shape for clothes around him based on what I wanted! Flip it, lay it down in the fabric again and then trace this to get the second jumpsuit piece!

13. Use the same method of sewing the pieces together with the CORRECT sides facing each other so the WRONG sides are facing outwards. Then turn the clothes inside-out so that the eight sides are now facing outwards! MAKE SURE TO LEAVE OPENINGS FOR THE HEAD AND LIMBS TO COME OUT THROUGH!

14. Put the clothes on the clown!!

15. (Optional) Glue fake fur on the top of the head in the style you want it! I used hot glue because I didn't have anything else, but fabric glues and all-purpose glues would be good too! If you don't want hair, just skip this step!

16. (Optional) Hat!! Cut out a wide triangle shape, sew the opposite sides together and then sew a circle to the base if you want a pointy hat like my dude's one (I don't have photos of this sadly but I'm sure there's a tutorial out there of how to sew a cone)! Then glue the base to the top of the head.

16. And finally, add all the trims and extra bits you want to make them look super cute !!! I just sewed on some ribbon to the base of the hat and around the ankles, sewed some frilly elastic trims around the neck, added a little silver bell to the hat, sewed frilly trim around the wrists and ankles and then sewed two buttons onto the front of his clothes!

And then, your little clown is done !!!

I hope this comes in handy to anyone wanting to make their own clown dude!

I would appreciate any reblogs and such of this to help spread the clown joy !!

Have fun !!!

(Small note! I would appreciate if you didn't copy any of my clowns directly! Please use this as more of a guide than an exact tutorial to make this specific clown! Being creative with yours is much more fun!! :•D)

elon musk might actually buy twitter so i think we might need to bring back the new user guides

Me when I see my F/O

Reblog if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, transgender or a supporter.

This should be reblogged by everyone. Even if you’re straight, you should be a supporter.

very short clip in which meta knight drops the biggest mood ever

reblog this if you’re jewish or your blog is a safe space for jewish people

in light of recent events as well as a new rise in creating nazi ocs I think this post is an important one to have on your blog if you stand behind your jewish followers or are jewish yourself.

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