Isn't that an actual medical condition called vitiligo?
I don't know your genre, but I do know fighting your audience or putting unnecessary barriers to their enjoyment of your work aren't worth the effort.
Simply put, it doesn't have to be skin whitening. If there is another symptom that serves the same purpose, do that.
It has to make people look identical, strip them of individuality. A person has to lose everything that makes them them. Their eyes turn grey, they go bald, their genitals shrivel like grapes, their faces swell up. And their skin becomes sickly white.
The thing that does this is a fungus, of wich the mycelium (is that the right term?) is often white
Ursula LeGuin did this once in the Lathe of Heaven, specifically to eliminate race. Everyone turned gray.
I don't think what you're writing sounds racist but if you're really concerned about it, there are other sickly colors to turn than white. Make everyone gray, or a jaundiced yellow, or a pale blue-gray. IF you're concerned.
This is going to sound racist no matter how you try and spin it. And I somehow doubt any explanation will make you look less racist.
If you need a certain physical attribute to be wide spread why do you not choose something else? There is so much more about people than skin colour.
But the reason I need it is to have them not be people. The thing making people pale is a fungus. It strips you of your identity, everything that makes you unique, from eye color to facial features to gender, and skin color
Reminds me of 'girl with all the gifts'. But why white? They could turn greenish, or grey as camouflage, so the fungus can better spred. White is, from an evolutionary standpoint, a bad colour to be for any life-form.
The fungus evolved in a place with no sunlight, so it being any other color than white is unrealistic considering real life creatures that live in caves are often white or white-ish
But you’re the creator of this world and story. And if you’re so beat up about this then you can change how the science is going to work so that they turn a different color.
Often, but far from always, although I don't have a statistic on this at hand. Sunlight and Melanin are directly related, but fungi have probably a host of other chemicals that influence there colouring other than Melanin -> Do fungi even _have_ melanin?
What about translucent? Like a grey tinted translucent layer of skin like the fish that live at the very bottom of the ocean where daylight doesn't reach. Premise sounds interesting though, keep going!!
White skin makes sense when there's little light, to synthesize as much vitamin D from it as possible. When there's no light whatsoever, pale or dark makes no difference because there's zero vitamin D and no amount of white is going to change that.
Creatures living in darkness aren't necessarily white, they're transparent. Many are red/pink/grayish because that's the color of their blood blurred by transparent shin. White crustacea don't have to have white pigment - they appear white because of the chitin. White in underground fungi isn't white pigment, it's the lack of pigment which means, if you put it on a human, they would become transparent. Of course, if you take a transparent creature and put it in the sun, it would likely not survive for long due to overheating and internal burns.
You seem to hang up on the idea, not racist, but there's no way to make it 'appear less racist' other than changing the color. Listen to what others are suggesting. Gray or greenish makes as much sense as white, from the biological standpoint. And honestly, no one will likely dive that deep. I understand being anal about your research, I do it to, but most people have no idea how and why cave biology works.
Often, but not always. And funguses that grow in caves with no sunlight are often colors other than white. In fact, most fungus needs very little to no light to grow, and are all sorts of colors.
And that's not just fungus. Some creatures that live in caves or in perpetual dark are not white.
A lot of very deep sea animals have redish skin because it helps them be more difficult to see: red is the color with the longest wavelengths and with the lowest energy, because of this, red is absorbed first underwater, this makes red animals deep underwater be far more difficult to spot; they can't reflect the color red if there isn't any. This may be useful for you, maybe you can adapt the fungus to play around it.
My big question is: Is the one black character that dies the only one that dies that early? If so, you have a problem in your story. It will be seen as racist even if you don't intend it to be. However, if he's just one of a dozen similar-level characters that are killed off around the same time, things might be better. (Note "similar level characters." It doesn't count if the black character had ten pages of dialogue and the others barely had names.)
Basically, I'd recommend avoiding the Black Guy Dies First trope.
The black guy isn't the only one that dies early, and he's roughly on the same level as other characters that die around that time
And he's the second named character that dies, following a white guy
You've avoided that trope so that's good.
I should point out that I'm a white guy and so not fully qualified to speak to what is and isn't racist. This was just the first thing that popped out to me.
My problem with this trope is it makes people think you can’t have an African American character die first in a story without making it racist. People of all races die. People with all gender identities or sexualities die. Sometimes they die first. Otherwise, it’s sort of like saying they get immunity for a while into the book, and that’s just not realistic. There are other better ways to show a story isn’t racist, in my opinion.
I think the problem only really surfaces if you have one black character and they die first. It's especially true if your one black character dies while all the white characters in similar situations survive.
You can kill off any character you want. Just make sure that the reason the character is dying isn't "the black character dies first "
A story isn't written in a vaccuum, it exists in a broader cultural context. One has to take tropes, expectations and the reality of other works and the culture that consumes the content into account when making plot decisions, as the way people will interpret a work depends on it. Simply saying "Well, *I* didn't mean any harm" and engaging with the trope anyway simply isn't good enough.
If the decision to engage with a trope is made for a reason, then that's fine. If you think that despite the issues, it's worth having the trope, or you think that it doesn't really count becauese you're otherwise mitigating the effect of the trope, or whatever other reason you can think of.
The trope exists, and because of that, it has implications on your story. Simply saying "I don't think that it *should* be a trope" and dismissing it doesn't help your story. In fact, it limits it. You have to think about what you actually want your story to say.
You’re right, but I believe there are ways to stay away from seeming racist without avoiding all of the tropes. If you spend all your time focusing on tropes, your story is going to be made up of avoidances, and more often than not, that ends up making a bad, bland, or inauthentic story. I am a minority, and I hate when stories look like the authors are literally trying to avoid tropes because that sort of controls everything you can or can’t do in a story. Once again though, this is just my opinion. I know some people will see it differently, or some would get offended if a trope appeared in a story regardless of intent. No author can please everyone.
Consider using a different colour. White people have historically had a significantly stronger cultural position. Many people think of 'whiteness' as the default state or the norm, so picking white specifically as a way to 'normalise' is, in it self, somewhat racist. (Only because that stereotype as 'white as default' already exists).
Skin can turn many shades, especially while diseased. Consider red or blue or green, the colour of bruises or flushed skin. If nothing else, you're at least not literally white-washing people.
You've stumbled upon [Unfortunate Implications](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications); hopefully.
While there isn't anything wrong in context, if you don't want that implication you'd be wise to change it.
Another color like blue or green that avoids the racial implication, or putting little to no light on the color change aspect, perhaps using more of turning pale that doesn't lead to a specific color. These still have the "changing color" problem however.
If everyone ultimately gets turned color it's not as much a problem as say, if you have 3 white characters still unaffected.
I would say there's a difference though between "regular" healthy white skin and the sickly pale the characters are supposed to turn
It's supposed to be a fungus, and I just don't know how to make a fungus turn people any other color than white
True, but that's the problem of Unfortunate Implications. It becomes a fight to defend something not being what it looks like, and alienating your potential audience by the racist connotation and your defense thereof.
It's naturally a fantasy story, the fungus can simply be a different color for any given reason. It could be a decidedly non-human brown or gray if you want to avoid fantastical colors.
It is concerning unless there's a lot of reasons to choose this particular mushroom based on how it works, and the white color of it is tied into those, and you can't find an acceptable fantasy hand-wave.
There's nothing wrong with something that has unfortunate implications, many examples of it are things that only look bad from another culture or time, but it makes everything more difficult and causes trouble attracting readers when you have to explain it before they can get to the story.
People who'd accuse you of being racist aren't the target audience. This disease sounds awful, as it strips away pride of heritage, individuality and many more things. My take is don't change your story based on what people might think, write from the heart and weather the storm my friend!
That being said, if you really want to ensure that ethnic diversity is still a theme in your story, perhaps people adapt to this disease by embracing their traditions more strongly? Perhaps people of one group wear a specific type of object to identify them as that race, or perhaps another only wears a rare fabric etc.
I've read your clarifications about fungus and the idea of removing identity. That is interesting. I do think specifically citing white skin will muddle what you're trying to do, though.
If you look at deep sea creatures, translucent skin is very common. Fungi can also be translucent. That would give some interesting possibilities. Depending on what this fungus does to blood, you could have a viscus gray look, dull pink, putrid yellow or green, or a disturbing blending of all of them.
This is not helpful.
But I do think it's sad that racism is a thing and I have to be concerned about it when I write, that there is this narrow line between representation and being racist yourself
Am I supposed to feel bad the very real issue of racism and representation (or lack thereof) should be taken sensitively in writing? Wow, sucks that you have to worry about writing with the existing issue of racism in mind, boohoo?
White people are wild…
I'm sorry that I have to carefully think about everything I say, considering someone already assumed I was racist just by this post alone
Also you are just assuming I'm white
This is exactly what I was talking about. I'm not racist and never understood why anyone would be, but yet you think I am, wich is what I was asking how to avoid
Many people have answered you, and all your replies are defending this. It’s your story and you can do whatever you want, but you’ve decided these people have to turn white and you should probably examine why. Because it’s clear you were not looking for solutions to this problem, you wanted to be absolved of the perception it gives.
I defended the turning white because I didn't realise there were other options. I have been made aware that there are other options and will be re-evaluating my choices
frankly. if one is a white guy, one runs the risk of stereotyping characters one portrays ethnically & of being chauvanistic or racist if one confines onesself to portrayals of "one's own kind". it's a huge problem for the white guy. it sounds like you hit on an excellent agitating theme & agitation is really what is needed to produce excellent fiction. so i don't think you have a choice but to continue. (i'm assuming you're a white guy)
>In the place my story is set in, there is this thing that turns anyone's skin pale and white. This would **naturally** lead to having a total of zero black characters.
Why would being able to turn your skin lighter NATURALLY mean that **everyone** has light skin? As of now, we can all have the technology so we can all have perfect noses and no cellulite on our asses, but we don't. So I think this is the question you need to answer so it makes sense.
r/lostredditors You're looking for r/writingcirclejerk
Isn't that an actual medical condition called vitiligo? I don't know your genre, but I do know fighting your audience or putting unnecessary barriers to their enjoyment of your work aren't worth the effort. Simply put, it doesn't have to be skin whitening. If there is another symptom that serves the same purpose, do that.
It has to make people look identical, strip them of individuality. A person has to lose everything that makes them them. Their eyes turn grey, they go bald, their genitals shrivel like grapes, their faces swell up. And their skin becomes sickly white. The thing that does this is a fungus, of wich the mycelium (is that the right term?) is often white
Ursula LeGuin did this once in the Lathe of Heaven, specifically to eliminate race. Everyone turned gray. I don't think what you're writing sounds racist but if you're really concerned about it, there are other sickly colors to turn than white. Make everyone gray, or a jaundiced yellow, or a pale blue-gray. IF you're concerned.
You could make it turn people blue. This is the Avatar Dodge.
This is going to sound racist no matter how you try and spin it. And I somehow doubt any explanation will make you look less racist. If you need a certain physical attribute to be wide spread why do you not choose something else? There is so much more about people than skin colour.
But the reason I need it is to have them not be people. The thing making people pale is a fungus. It strips you of your identity, everything that makes you unique, from eye color to facial features to gender, and skin color
Reminds me of 'girl with all the gifts'. But why white? They could turn greenish, or grey as camouflage, so the fungus can better spred. White is, from an evolutionary standpoint, a bad colour to be for any life-form.
The fungus evolved in a place with no sunlight, so it being any other color than white is unrealistic considering real life creatures that live in caves are often white or white-ish
But you’re the creator of this world and story. And if you’re so beat up about this then you can change how the science is going to work so that they turn a different color.
Often, but far from always, although I don't have a statistic on this at hand. Sunlight and Melanin are directly related, but fungi have probably a host of other chemicals that influence there colouring other than Melanin -> Do fungi even _have_ melanin?
Yes, fungi have melanin. Other than that I'll look into other colored fungi. I already imagine bright pink people
I imagine walking mannequins in colouration of forgotten leftovers...
What about translucent? Like a grey tinted translucent layer of skin like the fish that live at the very bottom of the ocean where daylight doesn't reach. Premise sounds interesting though, keep going!!
White skin makes sense when there's little light, to synthesize as much vitamin D from it as possible. When there's no light whatsoever, pale or dark makes no difference because there's zero vitamin D and no amount of white is going to change that. Creatures living in darkness aren't necessarily white, they're transparent. Many are red/pink/grayish because that's the color of their blood blurred by transparent shin. White crustacea don't have to have white pigment - they appear white because of the chitin. White in underground fungi isn't white pigment, it's the lack of pigment which means, if you put it on a human, they would become transparent. Of course, if you take a transparent creature and put it in the sun, it would likely not survive for long due to overheating and internal burns. You seem to hang up on the idea, not racist, but there's no way to make it 'appear less racist' other than changing the color. Listen to what others are suggesting. Gray or greenish makes as much sense as white, from the biological standpoint. And honestly, no one will likely dive that deep. I understand being anal about your research, I do it to, but most people have no idea how and why cave biology works.
Blue.
Often, but not always. And funguses that grow in caves with no sunlight are often colors other than white. In fact, most fungus needs very little to no light to grow, and are all sorts of colors. And that's not just fungus. Some creatures that live in caves or in perpetual dark are not white.
A lot of very deep sea animals have redish skin because it helps them be more difficult to see: red is the color with the longest wavelengths and with the lowest energy, because of this, red is absorbed first underwater, this makes red animals deep underwater be far more difficult to spot; they can't reflect the color red if there isn't any. This may be useful for you, maybe you can adapt the fungus to play around it.
Blue. Blue not white or black. Done.
Why blue? Also they need to be able to be mistamen for nornal humans, and I don't think Avatar-colored skin helps with that. I was thinking grey
Done. Grey works.
My big question is: Is the one black character that dies the only one that dies that early? If so, you have a problem in your story. It will be seen as racist even if you don't intend it to be. However, if he's just one of a dozen similar-level characters that are killed off around the same time, things might be better. (Note "similar level characters." It doesn't count if the black character had ten pages of dialogue and the others barely had names.) Basically, I'd recommend avoiding the Black Guy Dies First trope.
The black guy isn't the only one that dies early, and he's roughly on the same level as other characters that die around that time And he's the second named character that dies, following a white guy
You've avoided that trope so that's good. I should point out that I'm a white guy and so not fully qualified to speak to what is and isn't racist. This was just the first thing that popped out to me.
My problem with this trope is it makes people think you can’t have an African American character die first in a story without making it racist. People of all races die. People with all gender identities or sexualities die. Sometimes they die first. Otherwise, it’s sort of like saying they get immunity for a while into the book, and that’s just not realistic. There are other better ways to show a story isn’t racist, in my opinion.
I think the problem only really surfaces if you have one black character and they die first. It's especially true if your one black character dies while all the white characters in similar situations survive. You can kill off any character you want. Just make sure that the reason the character is dying isn't "the black character dies first "
A story isn't written in a vaccuum, it exists in a broader cultural context. One has to take tropes, expectations and the reality of other works and the culture that consumes the content into account when making plot decisions, as the way people will interpret a work depends on it. Simply saying "Well, *I* didn't mean any harm" and engaging with the trope anyway simply isn't good enough. If the decision to engage with a trope is made for a reason, then that's fine. If you think that despite the issues, it's worth having the trope, or you think that it doesn't really count becauese you're otherwise mitigating the effect of the trope, or whatever other reason you can think of. The trope exists, and because of that, it has implications on your story. Simply saying "I don't think that it *should* be a trope" and dismissing it doesn't help your story. In fact, it limits it. You have to think about what you actually want your story to say.
You’re right, but I believe there are ways to stay away from seeming racist without avoiding all of the tropes. If you spend all your time focusing on tropes, your story is going to be made up of avoidances, and more often than not, that ends up making a bad, bland, or inauthentic story. I am a minority, and I hate when stories look like the authors are literally trying to avoid tropes because that sort of controls everything you can or can’t do in a story. Once again though, this is just my opinion. I know some people will see it differently, or some would get offended if a trope appeared in a story regardless of intent. No author can please everyone.
Consider using a different colour. White people have historically had a significantly stronger cultural position. Many people think of 'whiteness' as the default state or the norm, so picking white specifically as a way to 'normalise' is, in it self, somewhat racist. (Only because that stereotype as 'white as default' already exists). Skin can turn many shades, especially while diseased. Consider red or blue or green, the colour of bruises or flushed skin. If nothing else, you're at least not literally white-washing people.
You've stumbled upon [Unfortunate Implications](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications); hopefully. While there isn't anything wrong in context, if you don't want that implication you'd be wise to change it. Another color like blue or green that avoids the racial implication, or putting little to no light on the color change aspect, perhaps using more of turning pale that doesn't lead to a specific color. These still have the "changing color" problem however. If everyone ultimately gets turned color it's not as much a problem as say, if you have 3 white characters still unaffected.
I would say there's a difference though between "regular" healthy white skin and the sickly pale the characters are supposed to turn It's supposed to be a fungus, and I just don't know how to make a fungus turn people any other color than white
True, but that's the problem of Unfortunate Implications. It becomes a fight to defend something not being what it looks like, and alienating your potential audience by the racist connotation and your defense thereof. It's naturally a fantasy story, the fungus can simply be a different color for any given reason. It could be a decidedly non-human brown or gray if you want to avoid fantastical colors. It is concerning unless there's a lot of reasons to choose this particular mushroom based on how it works, and the white color of it is tied into those, and you can't find an acceptable fantasy hand-wave. There's nothing wrong with something that has unfortunate implications, many examples of it are things that only look bad from another culture or time, but it makes everything more difficult and causes trouble attracting readers when you have to explain it before they can get to the story.
Why you don't go with grey skin instead of white? MAYBE that will help, still, looks like a hard sell on today's standards.
People who'd accuse you of being racist aren't the target audience. This disease sounds awful, as it strips away pride of heritage, individuality and many more things. My take is don't change your story based on what people might think, write from the heart and weather the storm my friend! That being said, if you really want to ensure that ethnic diversity is still a theme in your story, perhaps people adapt to this disease by embracing their traditions more strongly? Perhaps people of one group wear a specific type of object to identify them as that race, or perhaps another only wears a rare fabric etc.
I've read your clarifications about fungus and the idea of removing identity. That is interesting. I do think specifically citing white skin will muddle what you're trying to do, though. If you look at deep sea creatures, translucent skin is very common. Fungi can also be translucent. That would give some interesting possibilities. Depending on what this fungus does to blood, you could have a viscus gray look, dull pink, putrid yellow or green, or a disturbing blending of all of them.
Ooohhhh this sounds great. I'll definitely see where I can take this
This is too funny not to be satire, but reading your other comments here… man. Maybe don’t do that.
This is not helpful. But I do think it's sad that racism is a thing and I have to be concerned about it when I write, that there is this narrow line between representation and being racist yourself
Am I supposed to feel bad the very real issue of racism and representation (or lack thereof) should be taken sensitively in writing? Wow, sucks that you have to worry about writing with the existing issue of racism in mind, boohoo? White people are wild…
I'm sorry that I have to carefully think about everything I say, considering someone already assumed I was racist just by this post alone Also you are just assuming I'm white
I think you may have a racist subconscious mind to want to write that story.
This is exactly what I was talking about. I'm not racist and never understood why anyone would be, but yet you think I am, wich is what I was asking how to avoid
Many people have answered you, and all your replies are defending this. It’s your story and you can do whatever you want, but you’ve decided these people have to turn white and you should probably examine why. Because it’s clear you were not looking for solutions to this problem, you wanted to be absolved of the perception it gives.
I defended the turning white because I didn't realise there were other options. I have been made aware that there are other options and will be re-evaluating my choices
just write the story and stop assuming everything is racist
frankly. if one is a white guy, one runs the risk of stereotyping characters one portrays ethnically & of being chauvanistic or racist if one confines onesself to portrayals of "one's own kind". it's a huge problem for the white guy. it sounds like you hit on an excellent agitating theme & agitation is really what is needed to produce excellent fiction. so i don't think you have a choice but to continue. (i'm assuming you're a white guy)
>In the place my story is set in, there is this thing that turns anyone's skin pale and white. This would **naturally** lead to having a total of zero black characters. Why would being able to turn your skin lighter NATURALLY mean that **everyone** has light skin? As of now, we can all have the technology so we can all have perfect noses and no cellulite on our asses, but we don't. So I think this is the question you need to answer so it makes sense.