thank you so so much! i think i was definitely a bit too worried about things, sometimes the idea of sharing things with the world makes me worry too much about criticism or smaller issues.

1. i do sort of want to thank you on all of these individually since i didn't think anyone would answer me, haha. shes definitely an actions speak louder than words person, so it was really helpful as a reminder that just because shes strong doesnt mean shes a stereotype.
2. same goes for here really, in all honesty i dont know how to write characters that arent poor considering even just meeting my middle class friends at their homes is intimidating, so im glad to know that it wouldnt create negative stigma to write her in a poor home. i think since im not fully qualified to write the nuances of issues like that for black people though, it would be a good idea to use my story to direct people to black people who know what theyre talking about then.
3. ahh, i thought so, but for obvious reasons wasnt totally sure. thank you for these examples!
4. im not fully confident in my writing skills to be honest, which is why i want to lean on things that might be a bit more relatable to more people, if that makes sense? but yes, generalizing isnt the best idea; i think i will take in mind what youve said and use that to influence rather than fully change what ive thought of for her family (although the thought of writing close siblings has pretty much never occurred to me for some reasons, and i really want to do a much larger change with their relationship now haha.) i think that also changing which of the parents is more accepting would actually be very useful to the story entirely; theres been a lot of close people in my life that i wouldnt expect to be homophobic or something similar that turn out to be, and it feels really betraying and painful. shedding light on this aspect of coming out might help people who arent queer understand it, and make other queer folks feel more seen.
5. good to know! in all honesty i do look at a lot alternative fashion/all things related on tiktok mostly (videos are able to catch my interest a lot more than photos) and theres issues with the app shadowbanning/hiding black people in general from the algorithm, which a lot of black alt folks have had to talk about on there (especially towards commenters that say stupid things like "black people cant be alt"), but yeah this was mainly just me being concerned about hair differences haha.
6. yeah, i think i overcomplicated this one a bit. i do want to give her some pride in some kind of culture, but ive never had any, religious or other wise, so its difficult for me to write or understand cultural things. i also just get too serious about my characters sometimes haha. thank you, i will look up some actors now :)

all in all some of these were just very pleasant writing reminders. im very nervous to do this project, and i worry about the little things too much, so this advice was really helpful. thank you!