I'm writing a character with large, nasty, and veey noticeable burn scars on one part of his face. Any tips on things I should include?
this is what the scars look like
[image description: sketch of a character from the shoulders up with a burn scar on the left side of his face, ear, neck, and shoulder. end image description]
Hello,
I'm not a burn survivor myself so I'll talk about facial differences in general and link some stuff that might be more specific to your question.
First thing that I noticed about this ask is the wording - calling a facial difference "nasty". Which some people do say about themselves, but I discourage authors who aren't part of the FD community to use that in a neutral setting because it's not a neutral term. Facial differences, including scars, burns, craniofacial conditions, and every other difference aren't ugly, gross, or anything of that sort. Your character does have a large and noticeable burn, true! But he doesn't have anything "nasty" on his face. Neither do real life people with FD who might not want to read about a character looking like them or people from their community being referred to as "nasty" as a state-of-fact neutral descriptor.
To know what to include, you should research the medical side of burns; what kind of burn it is (chemical/thermal/electrical/other? they can cause different symptoms), what exactly is affected and how much (feeling, mobility) and how to care for burns long term (like preventing infections, pain management or physical/occupational therapy). Knowing how burns work outside of being a visual difference will make it more realistic. Researching (referencing) images of actual burn survivors might also be helpful to see how the skin might look like and interact with the rest of the person's face outside just being a different color (compare: a flat port wine stain and a burn scar).
Here is a post about drawing and writing burn survivors specifically. You can also read this post that I made that talks about facial differences in general. It's long but I've heard that it's informative :-) (smiley face)
As always, I heavily encourage anyone making a character with a facial difference to research face equality, as it's vital to making positive representation. I've written more about it in the links above.
I also encourage anyone sending an image to include a description of it so that those of us who use a screenreader can access it as well.
mod Sasza
121 notes
·
View notes
so i was going through the entirety of prime defenders again and bizly had asked the boys what kind of music their characters would listen to, and condi (unless I'm misreading it) basically said that vyncent wouldn't really have an opinion on the music of prime, and that got me thinking 🤔
i imagine in the early days, the boys having the music talk, about what they like and shit as a means to try to get closer. and when vynce says that he doesn't listen to music??? dakota and william are baffled. astounded. blindsighted, even. william had at least assumed that vyncent would bring up the music of his home world, but he just,,, didnt.
"you really just have those headphones to cover your elf ears at school?" dakota asks.
"you mean my earmuffs?" vyncent responds. "i didn't know they did anything other than cover your ears."
so the other two make it their mission to find the music that vyncent likes. subtly playing songs that they like in their rooms, just loud enough to be heard through the paper thin walls of the base. when they're in the car together, they take note of which songs he smiles at and bobs his head to, and they add it to the playlist that they're trying to make for him. they send him links of specific ones, and if he responds positively to it, they add those too.
eventually, this culminates into dakota and william exploring new genres in an effort to find vyncent's vibe. william starts finding more singer-songwriter and stripped back music he likes, and dakota finds out that he really vibes with dubstep and DNB.
after weeks of research and carefully gauging vyncent's reactions, dakota and william end up presenting the playlist they specifically curated for him, but it seems to be more of a mix of all of their tastes than any of them anticipated.
"should we show him now?" dakota asks william as they finish with the final songs.
"yeah, now's as good a time as any," he responds, looking down at his phone. the words prime defenders chaos are lit up on the screen, followed by an extensive tracklist.
they both walk up to vyncent's door and william knocks. after two seconds with no reply, dakota knocks again, a little too loud and a little too fast. he's clearly excited.
vyncent opens up to see his two friends looking at him suspiciously and quirks up an eyebrow. "uh, hello? wha-"
"we have something for you!" dakota interjects, practically bouncing as he waves his arms in front of him.
"yeah, we made something for you," william smiles, and vyncent waves them in.
they all sit on vyncent's bed, and william reaches to put a pair of headphones over vyncent's ears. he reels back and puts a hand up.
"just trust me," william assures.
the headphones go on and william presses play, and a familiar intro fills vyncent's ears. he smiles broadly at his friends.
"I REALLY LIKED THIS ONE," he shouts, not realizing that the other two can hear him just fine. they just laugh as vyncent starts to tap his foot and move his hands in time with the song.
they all end up just starting a listening party, laying down across vyncent's bed, all with their earbuds in and listening to the same playlist. no words could be spoken to express how much vyncent loved the gesture. the silly grin that wouldn't leave his face was confirmation enough to dakota and william that he was in heaven right now. his eyes close as he wiggles to the rhythms, holding his hands up to cup around the speakers of his headphones.
dakota nudges william, who opens his eyes to look at him. the redhead simply raises his fist and bumps it with his friend.
"mission accomplished," dakota mouths to william. the ghost boy simply nods as another song starts.
"OHMYGOD I REMEMBER THIS ONE TOO," vynce shouts as he shoots up, looking over to his friends.
seeing their warm expressions, he tackles them both into the bed in a big group hug. "THANK YOU SO MUCH."
thank the gods it was muffled by the blankets and their earpieces, or dakota and william would go deaf.
107 notes
·
View notes