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LOOKING AT WRITING BLACK CHARACTERS
A reflective zine on the concept of representation, black characters creation guide, what it means, being the quietest in a minority group, and the eternal discourse wheel's impact on entertainment media using popular media (Hazbin Hotel and Steven Universe)
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Development log
- "i'm white but-" (700+ readers <3)9 days ago
- + Typos for Addendum19 days ago
- BLACK MASCULINITY (BISMUTH AND KRONE)20 days ago
- NOW MOBILE OPTIMIZED31 days ago
- Fixes + THANKS32 days ago
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Recently discovered this post and decided to leave a comment (love the Ryukishio07 mention). The tumblr bit was interesting since i was too young to be on that website, Although i picked up some bits of information on amino (yes that amino) mentioning "what good representation is" and "what and wasnt apropriate character traits for black characters". I would often get anxious thoughts if the character i was making was offensive or that i was misusing my creativity as a kid since i enjoyed adding different colored hair, Personality traits, disabilities ect and not resulting to just one type of character trait/stereotype. Im hispanic so my experience is different and theres alot of dogshit rep out there but thats a whole different discussion lol.
I learned and gained insight and let go some of that anxiety behind. you've explained it better than i could and i respect that.
as someone who got brainwashed into the whole tumblrification "good rep" scheme when i was young, damn it still affects me every time i write a character. and i love making unlikable characters, but always in back of my mind, i feel as if im offending my own race by making them lowkey, highkey suck and be annoying and have actual flaws lol. (as i write, this reminds me of the circular discourse surrounding proud family, hmm) so i feel for this zine, felt justified in a way.
wasn't into steven universe, but am currently into hazbin as a fan in shades. (i like being mildly entertained by how bad it is lol) so i def felt the initial disconnect with velvette. it actually took me to the last episode of s2, for me to recognize that she's black, whoops.
also love the shoutout to canary, my fave girl. (still im dead that you called krone her copycat...like you aren't wrong, but.......) currently, my favorite black rep from nonblack work is Gachikacta--the black cast is shining through and through
but yeah, representation is and will always be messy but i will always love it when people give it a shot (and occasionally miss so badly you can't help but be entertain) thank you so much for this zine! as always, you give me plenty of think abt and love the conversation it stirred up
I am happy I was mostly disconnected from Tumblr discourse. I thought it was dumb—especially when people started saying all Black characters should have dark hair and dark eyes. Anime fan L. I felt like it was directly going against how I wanted people like "me" to be depicted! And everyone was just drawing us in such boring, generic ways for the sake of representation or realism, but it didn't even match the people I know or my own family’s appearance! In the end it's one reason I never got involved in fandom- the loudest people didn't want weird girls like me tobe acknowledged.
With Velvette, I realized when she was in the episode in her chair with Alastor, where she just has an afro, though I was curious before but never really knew but it left my mind quickly. Regarding HH, it's definitely not the best, lol. I have a hard time watching things I dislike, so I don't think I can confidently call it bad with my whole chest as if it was totally bad to me, I probably wouldn't watch it, but then I hear Vag say something like "I didn't know angels could be hurt," and I die a little inside.
I added Semiu and things in my afterthoughts because I haven't watched Gachiakuta yet, but honestly, the Black VAs in the English dub are why I haven't.. I usually watch things subbed, but Jabber’s VA is really good., but I dislike English direction for VA post 2015 a lot of the time.. So I haven't decided yet… <-- endless loop.
I hope to also read Ichi the Witch, but I've been waiting for it to be further along. I've heard it's good, and Descaras… I see her often in passing while browsing my manga scanlations, and she is so, so cute. We're getting a lot of random fun rep in manga and things lately which makes me happy, but I want more.. more.. (greed)
oh my gosh, yeah don't get me started on the appearance wars. i personally liked the natural look for my characters (tho the color pink takes over quite a lot lol) but never enjoyed when people make it out as ultimatiums, like boooo
soooo i have a bit of addiction in enjoying "trash" media lmao to the point where i do hate watch things, just for me build out cases. it's a problem ik lol. that line from vag tho.....kills me every single time.
lowkey relates to how im an avid dub watcher, lol. but! i do think english-dubbed media has found its place and Gachiakuta is like rly, rly solid. even the director/writer for the dub is a black man so lots of respect have been given and has allowed for plenty of black talent to shine even outside of the black characters. so! if you ever give it a shot, highly recommend!
and Ichi the Witch too! can't believe i almost forgot abt that. im a bit behind, but des is best girl. her design and persona def caught me off guard in the best way possible. its cool to see that the role they've given her could've led to stereotypes but how they fleshed her out was so well done, like it's rly a fun read!
but man, you're right! we are getting a revolution of sorts for reps aaa but yee we deserve more and more and more
god, as someone who used to be and still kinda is a huge fan of SU and HH, this zine is so damn good.Im not Black ofc but Peurto Rican , but online discourse 4 years rlly has annoyed meand u perfectly said it!!! so much representation is only based around being "non problematic" that a lot of characters do end up being written... rlly boring. ive liked a TON of different media that writes hispanic ppl HORRIBLY (HH included) and yet i still love it! bc hey theyre like me! idk what im rlly getting at, this esay was a rlly good read and im happy to see more nuanced opinions on stuff like hh or su instead of just black and white thinking that either is fully bad or fully good
Thank you!! Lol I didn't mention this because no room but Hispanics really won with HH I feel LOL. The way they're written and just super prominent in HH is really good. And yeah!! Idk I think a lot of media is good and bad in various ways which is why when I see the discourse wheel I just think everyone involved is silly LOL
ya unfortunantly even tho theres a ton of hispanic rep in HH none of it is that good lmao -~-
yeah it's not especially good much like the other rep in Hazbin but i thought it was interesting since in animation i feel like Spanish speakers usually aren't around in this capacity (despite Spanish being so common where a lot of the studios are lol). it was neat to me ^^
yeah i def get that! ig ive also watched a lot of media by other Hispanic ppl growing up, and ig just project on a lot of characters aha (i never even knew Amethyst was included as a Black character! i always veiwed her as Latina haha)But i was still pretty shocked watching Hazbin and realized there were multiple CLEAR Hispanic characters! and they actually spoke spanish (badly, but still).
yeah the spanish surprised me!! too bad it's bad haha! especially considering... it would not be that hard to not make not bad LOL.
and that's why i'm confused by amethyst being included in black history things- i saw everyone project onto amethyst at different times- viewing her as black, latino, asian, etc etc, so them lumping her into being black post the show's conclusion was honestly so weird!!
I don't know if I have any place to talk since I'm white as hell but I really agree like 98% I'm glad to see this
Really interesting zine, thank you for making it. I think we share a lot of the same media niches, so I can recognize a lot of the media you're talking about. I can understand to the frustration with finding characters that are central and active participants in the plot and ALSO black in these genres. Thank you for making art that you care about, and I hope you're able to find community in the indie creative communities
The rest of this is white yapping so feel free to stop reading here
While it's kinda straightforward to look up "fantasy books by black authors" and get a wide-ish pool to choose from (although they're mostly north american in mainstream book lists), it's a lot harder to find manga inspired, 2000s scene inspired (mostly thinking of hazbin and panty stocking here but idk the right term for that), and jrpgs that are made by black people and thus depict a black person's life accurately. You're filling a needed niche by being yourself and making what you like making
I've seen criticism of making a character with an anime face and not adding lip lines or a wider nose because it's lazy and doesn't look black, so it's interesting to see the perspective of someone that prefers it that way. I guess anime faces don't look much like any one person to begin with, so why start trying to be detailed with one single race?
Thanks for introducing me to a few more rpgmaker games to check out, and for making cool stuff. I just noticed you have a dress-up game and it's definitely going to consume my life for a few hours
Yeah, to be honest it's complicated cause of the entertainment industry and the diaspora (and the state of the entertainment industries in Africa itself which you know is where most black majority cultures are). There just aren't a lot of black studios able to make work centered on black people in comparison to like white studios or studios from majority cultures (like Japan, Korea, etc) and you know, there's probably like a small amount of black mangaka in Japan, a very tiny amount which means the diversity of storytelling is lower. There's actually like a lot of studies on it and you might be interested in the movie genre of blaxploitation (which sounds horrifying but it's cool LOL)
While there are black people making fiction and things that I read, every time I see another black person in these spaces, it's like "holy shit HI." Outside of that, most of the black dominated works I read are not in this sphere.. Though I still enjoy it and it influences my work even if I can't talk about with anime loving peers lol.
Mmmm. The face thing. There are plenty of black anime artists who draw the typical anime face or draw Everyone with wide noses, but I rarely see just one or the other so it makes me uncomfortable when it's just something that needs to be applied to us. It's creepy to me also because white and Asian people are drawn the same in anime (and often other brown people too honestly), so I just feel like it's dehumanizing when pushed as an absolute rule just for Black People. Like I never have seen my lips as being particularly larger than my nonblack peers. I have a wide nose but I don't think about it a lot and plenty of black people don't so it's strange.
i havent published anything but this is helping me think about what i'm trying to say/not say when making someones appearance. although i don't plan or writing anything heavily involving irl cultural stuff so i kinda just choose things like skin tone arbitrarily. how do you decide on stuff like that when making your games?
It's hard for me to figure out how to answer this admittedly. IRL culture is in every work and genre. It's just a lot of it is Western culture or medieval fantasy culture which is usually viewed as inherently white. I am attracted to Western settings so I put more effort into trying to make it clear white isn't the default in my worlds. I mention this but I also try to avoid a lot of ambiguous browness (though it is inevitable and sometimes i enjoy ambiguity. Sera from Meat Girl has a canon ethnicity in my mind lol, but I think it's kinda fun for people to draw her however).
To do this, I try write and design people with their relationships with their cultures and the cultures around them in mind even if I don't fully explore every aspect of it. It doesn't have to be IRL culture, but parallels to IRL culture tend to be in most work... A lot of my characters are also based on my friends from childhood and people I know now so I like to bother my friends and as I learn more about them, I end up learning about their culture usually inevitably which ends up being incorporated into my writing and designs (usually I end up bugging them too ahah).
One thing to keep in mind is not including IRL cultural aspects can block out the existence of certain people. IE, there are people who only wear cultural clothing, Indian women who always wear bindis, etc. It's something I try to keep in mind designing too which is why Aiyana wears more traditional clothing in small subsections of the What Is It Like to Taste. It's something she used to do even if she doesn't anymore and it goes hand in hand with other things said in story despite not directly bringing up her culture by mouth so it's easy to miss (which is fine for me since I don't need every writing/design decision to be picked up on by every single reader)
I found your zine interesting because I didn't expect it to still be so complicated to write black characters.
Personally, I think Desscaras from Ichi the Witch (manga), Neoma from High Spirits Neoma (webtoon), and Bridgette from This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union! (webtoon) are cool characters. I highly recommend the mangas.
It’s because of a long history of black people being humanized. those depictions influence other regions in how they depict us which is why it’s an issue everywhere (simplification obvi but)!!! I’ve been waiting for Ichi the Witch to be further along but I’d like to read it! I’ve liked Desscares’ design for a long time!! I can check out the other as well!!
This was a really thought provoking read. It was really nice to hear more of your perspective on these things, particularly in relation to things like Hazbin Hotel, which is definitely something I've seen a lot of discourse around. I really love your art and writing, so I'm glad I got the chance to read your thoughts and feelings about representation! Thank you for sharing your words, and I hope you're able to continue making the sorts of stories you want to see in the world <3
Thank you so much for reading this and enjoying my other works! It really means a lot!
this essay was sooo good ! exactly how i feel about fandom culture and why I barely partake in it. (tumblr 2016 was hell on earth as an african queer woman omggg)
i really hope people start letting go off the "good representation" idea, we lose so many cool concepts because of it and often have to accept black and brown characters that feel more like token characters in their own shows...
Craig of the Creek is probably the one mainstream media where I genuinely got to see every kind of black person and it was so good, would genuinely recommend it if you want to watch something cute and fun !
LONG LIVE INDIE PROJECTS !
Craig of the Creek originally had a section in this essay with art of the family and other concepts. It was included because I had a section dedicated to discourse around people not from minorities writing those minorites and how it affected Craig of the Creek in converssations online along with Craig of the Creek having some of the best depictions of black childhood I've ever seen while being fun.
I ended up removing it (somewhat regrettably) because there were other shows I felt like I wanted to mention by black and nonblack creators, but it all felt too tangential... but I love Craig of the Creek!
ooh would have loved to read that haha but yeah i get why you took it out, the discourse was very minor while using hazbin hotel and steven universe is probably the best example of discourse ending up silencing black people's voices since it's a much louder talk that people would know about. would love to read more of your essays ! keep up ^^
I love this essay, love, love it! It's so well written it healed my soul!
Despite not really being involved in discourse, I was very much falling for the “good representation” you criticize here, this gave me a lot to think and ponder on in a very great way. Going to be thinking a lot about it.
Thank you for making it and for such a great submission for the jam!
Thank you for reading!!