Diversity in Comics/Novels

[Lady_T_Musings]

YOOOOOO your cast looks gorgeous I'm here for all of these beautifully diverse people and Mer's hair, ahhh I'm in love with that thickness! But real talk they all have such beautifully unique features to them that shows you have done some homework and that's what's up

That's what's up, drawing from the diversity around you is such a beautiful thing and I totally love it when artist do that <3. I take a lot of inspo from my friend group as well since I have friends of many different races and cultures too and drawing from them helps me to continuously develop as an artist and storyteller. You that's the beautiful thing about fantasy worlds that you create. When it comes to cultures, everyone follows the systems that exist in the area they reside. I can understand not wanting to mess up when it comes to illustrating cultures that are from real-life for sure, but being respectful of your inspirations, keeping track of your resources in research if you are being very specific can also be helpful as well. When making the rules and cultures that govern the characters in your stories, just continue to apply them to all your characters no matter the race if they share the same ethnicity, bc that would make sense for the world you've made. From what you described though, you sound like you are doing fine in your world building.

Yasssss represent that rainbow too, I love itttttttttt

Again, loving your character looks, keep up that beautifully diverse work!

[Lady_T_Musings]

That's what's up Axl!! Be the force for representation you want to see in the world Mixed race people need that representation too! That sounds pretty awesome! Racially diverse casts are life and I'm happy to hear a fellow creator of color making it happen!

Ohhhhh Colorism, that's a whole nother bag of wigglies, but I'm happy to hear you are being conscious when creating your cast of characters and diversifying them.

Feel free to share a link of your story as well (should have been telling people to do that from the get go as this is a fantastic time to get some attention on stories featuring people of color.

He look fly and I'm loving them eye :D!

Thanks for sharing!

[Lady_T_Musings]

Yassss Joanne, come through and show out!!!! Your cast is so beautifully diverse and did I say beautiful bc they are and I'm here for it Feel free to turn all them bold titles into links to your stories because you are out here representing all kinds of beautiful people in your work

I love that you also have so many types of stories you're telling through multiple genres. That's so dang cool.

Yooooooooooooo them gladiators got me fanning myself. Ohhhhh look at me with their intense eyes, why yes and thank you ahhhhhh ha!

[blackorchid]

The art in here is beautiful and amazing, and I have much new stuff to read! <3

Funny enough, literally just had a conversation about this last night with my co-writer. It is exceedingly important to us that our characters are diverse. The both of us come from completely different backgrounds and I really love the types of things they and I can get into because we have such different experiences and perspectives.

Though, my personal mission is inclusion of 'disabilities' and otherwise glossed over. It's a deeply personal topic to me and something that I aim to have in every book I write.

We both grew up with multi-cultural friends so the idea of not having that felt absurd.

As far as cast goes, our current novel is a cornucopia. Because it is a fantasy setting, the real-world equivalents get a little muddled. But, the idea is that everything has pretty much been mixed together, and then genetics get real fun real fast. Also been fun researching eye-colors, so whoot! Because the city literally only has sunlight on one layer, the genetics of the lower levels gets interesting. The main character has albinism, and there are upcoming pirates who have various levels of vitilligo. Everyone else is blended because the noble families care more about your intelligence than anything else. Add in a few centuries and traders from the desert region and shake it up and well, you get the Vista.

I'm currently learning how to draw, but as it stands pinterest has been my go-to in picking out models.

[Lady_T_Musings]

Family trees are wild like that. I think it's awesome when folks are able to track their history back like that. I'd love to be able to someday just to see where I come from.

I like that you have taken a critical eye to the content you created in the past to now and are working to elevate what you already had going. It takes some reflection to get to this point for many of us and I'm glad to see it's something you have taken to heart. Seeing your character evolution for Espinard is a pretty freaking baller and I'm loving how you've adapted him overtime to get to where he is now (he handsome heh).

Also, you on it for including the details about his name. I know I like to abbreviate names and that's one I could see myself shortening and accidentally calling him something offensive out of ignorance, but thanks to you I know better in this instance. Show out Chalk because that was a great conscious decision you made on his name. Paying attention to details like that only makes us more conscious as creators and educates others on cultural aspects that folks not immersed in said culture would be aware of

He just trying to protect his homies, I feel it.

I'm rooting for you in the evolution of your work and getting your story back out there!!

[IndigoShirtProd]

I couldn't agree with you more about everything. "Forced diversity" wouldn't even an issue is studios and companies were more open minded when hiring creators. Because representation doesn't start on the screen, but behind thr scenes when hiring writers and artists.

[Lady_T_Musings]

Show up and show out

that's the beautiful evolution to conversations like this. The content that we create and see more of just is diverse and is natural to us as we all are to this earth. I love that you are drawing inspiration form your life and that you have caried sources to draw from too. I know that's something I need to work on more as well, and that's drawing older people. I love seeing them drawn, I just haven't drawn many myself (shameeeeee).

Yo that makes sense for your world so I totally get that! That's also what's up. I think we as artist should totally draw more things that challenge us a bit to expand out comfort zones.

Were definitely in a much more global society than we were la few decades ago, so I also like to be open too learning about other ethnicities and races as well.

[Lady_T_Musings]

Please do Babywolf! taking the steps to be more inclusive only adds to making the world a more inclusive place for all the beautiful diversity that exists within it :D! That sounds like it's going to be an epic and beautiful tale once you sit down to make it. Epic fantasies with diverse casts are something I grew up hungry for so I'm all about that <3!

[Lady_T_Musings]

I love that you have always had the self awareness to do so, bc unfortunately not all of us have. I love hearing when your response is the case!

Yoooo that's definitely a hot take that being exposed to multiple cultures can shine light on. I remember going to a sleep over of some white gal pals I had back in the day and the way they had fits towards their mom made my eyes buck out of my head bc if I said that to my mom....YOOOOO I would have time traveled to he next week and not even know how I got there bc momma (in my case aunty bc my mom didn't like spanking, but my aunty was serious about disrespecting your parents) would laid hands. It was wild to see for me to see this little white girl telling her grown mother to shut up. Culturally it was jut a different way of child rearing, so I can understand the shock when you learn we aren't all raised with the same guiding principles. It really does vary culturally, racially, and ethnically. That's defiantly not to say all white parents are down with that though, bc I've known some white parents that turned into an owl when their child sassed them back and they were grounded. It really depends, people are unique like that.

Yasssssssss delete that ish from your brain bc it is unnecessary and only serves to try an put you down. you are allowed and encourage to tell the stories you wish to tell with the characters you create. Self serving or not. SO. White folks do it all the time, so why can't you. You exist. You're a part of this world. You have a story to tell and experiences to share that have value and worth. Keep on fighting against that mindset and telling your stories Kura!

[Lady_T_Musings]

Preach Joanne !!! We are hear to do better and learn as creatives and grow!!

TYTY!

[babywolf121]

Well when I'm able to squeeze it into my schedule, I hope I'm able to make you proud with it ^_^

[Lady_T_Musings]

Thank you for sharing the process you take for creating the characters in you story!

I think it makes sense in the context of the story your are telling that the characters represented would look the way they do, but I defiantly appreciate and applaud the inclusion of multi ethnic folks existing in your story. Having the role of an everyday man paying witness to all the shenanigans that exists outside of the mafia is a great opportunity to inject diversity into a mono represented race and it looks like you've done it pretty naturally so that's what's up. That's a pretty neat perspective to have him in and again makes sense as a place to have him and fill a space in your world. He looks so sus of everyone around him, I love it haha.

Keep up the awesome work Inspector

[indagold]

As someone whose an ethnic minority, that sounds really stupid. I want to see people who never lived my experience tell a story for themselves and make it their own. It's a sign of a good writer and a willingness to put yourself in the shoes of others aka empathy

[IndigoShirtProd]

Have to agree with you there. As much as I want representation behind the scenes of a project, it's just as important for people who are not apart of that minority group to write and draw characters of a different group from them as a chance to learn and be inclusive.

[indagold]

True. I think it says something about a person putting so much effort into a story to write a viewpoint that isn't their own and doing it successfully. It speaks volumes about the human experience, that we all are really more alike than we think and can understand and sympathize with people we see as different.

[domisotto]

This is what I heard this year, and it was such a heartbreaking, tragic one, so I felt it was the right thing for me. I read a lot of people talking about their experiences as BIPOC creators, and the feeling they have of white writers capitalizing on BIPOC material, displacing them, and that’s something that stuck with me.

Harmful tropes and roles discussions are also quite complex, and I wasn’t sure any more if the choice to make the entire cast non-white was an answer to the problem of type-casting and repeating stuff ad-nauseum, or too easy.

Prior to 2020, I had pretty much no white characters in my casts, driven by my desire to write anything but Eurocentric fantasy, but in 2020 my books were white-casted, except for the love interest in one book, but I have read as many books by the BiPOC authors as I could, widening my experience as much as possible.

Maybe it’s wrong or stupid, but I really want to listen and think.

As a small creator, I have a lot of freedom of really doing whatever I want, and it is important to me to use that freedom to do what’s right.

People will always have different opinions, and that’s the one I chose to be led by in 2020. I had not decided on the direction to follow yet in the future.

[joannekwan]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the stance that white creators can't make BIPOC characters. Especially for indie creators.
It's nearing a censorship space that I don't like.

It's a bit muddier for big-name industry people of course. BIPOC voices should be uplifted. But when a big author already has an established place in the industry, one wonders if they can use their large platform to you know, throw some brown characters in every once in a while. Rick Riordan is great at this, his books are wildly popular and he includes kids from a plethora of backgrounds (blog listing it all).

Personally I don't care if a white person writes about an Asian person so long as they're respectful and get the facts straight.
Like Memoirs of a Geisha (1997) was written by a white guy who did interviews and research and the book was popular enough to get a Hollywood movie made in 2005. It raised awareness for Japanese culture in spaces where manga didn't touch lol. And if I recall, that was one of the first big movies made by westerners to star an all Asian cast, sure the actors weren't all Japanese, but that was a big step for Asian representation in Hollywood.

Even just a little representation in the form of acknowledging someone is such and such, even if it has no bearing on the story, is a good step.

[indagold]

if it bothers you so much, just buy media from bipoc creators then? Why stop other creators expanding their sensibilities to explore different subject matter, just support the creators you want to support. it's a free market, you choose who you want to promote. I see this argument why we need representation in giant monopolies like disney that doesn't care about it when its such a better thing to do is support indie creators and let these giant soulless corporations die out. I haven't spent money on a disney film in 5 years lol All I do now is support tiny creators and frankly I say its worth it.

[domisotto]

I love Rick Riordan, and read his every book pretty much to my kid, but I don’t want to be superficial. The books available to me on history and various regions of the globe are written from the white perspective, and I am not an outgoing person, so I simply do not have friends, period. A quick check on the Internet feels insufficient. I also want to get away from writing fantasy for a while, where you do have much more leeway than in RL settings. If I feel like I have read enough, and that I know I am doing something not harmful, I will certainly do it. Until then, I am going to listen.

[domisotto]

That’s precisely what I am doing, reading stuff by the BIPOC creators.

Edit: I wanted to add that as a tiny content creator, my choices do not really impact anything, but I want to be confident that I am doing the right thing.