Decolonizing my own work...

When I drew a cat character back in high school, this was around the time I began to formulate characters for my Tabber the Red series. One of the more important female characters, a male student called her 'thunder thighs'. A male character 'looked gay'*.When working on characters for my scifi dog comic, one athletic-looking female character 'looked like a lesbian', as if one's body type determined one's orientation! 

I have gotten a lot of flack, criticism, and insults towards my OCs (original characters) since I could put pencil/pen to paper. And when people attack my characters, I feel as if they're attacking me. One particular hurtful comment was when a close friend and fellow artist told me to kill off my main female character because she wasn't 'good enough for the main male character', who happened to be a gangster! 

Now you probably noticed a pattern here. Most of the harshest critiques are towards my female or femme looking characters. We already know why this is and I can discuss it another time, but, the point of this post is to understand how important it is to me as an artist to show diversity even within my speculative fictional worlds. That's why even my anthro cat characters will have locs and braids. That's why I make sure that this October artist month, when I show my Tabber the Red fantasy-sword&sorcery characters who happened to be tattooed, scarred, or wearing mendhi and/or henna, I put a footnote that all those body markings have nothing to do with war or becoming a warrior and everything to do with cultural/ethnic/tribal/national identity. 

Since I pull inspiration from real-life beliefs and practices, the same respect I will accord to others, I will do so for my fictional people. To me, culture and ethnic identity is important and not to be appropriated as gimmick or 'trendy'. I'm doing my research. I'm speaking to others. I will learn, so that when my characters express themselves, the identity will be as seamless as the 'air they breathe'.

There will be more 'decolonizing' for my OCs and in my writings. Just you wait and see.

*That character that was called gay? It seems that even if that person meant it as an insult, I realized while writing the character that he is indeed QUILTBAG and I'm writing in his sexual identity and orientation into the story. So, I guess that long ago person did me a favor by 'outing' my cat character! 

It took two years, but...[*edited*]

It's been two years and four months since I finally completed my main character alien species, the Aturan. 

For those who haven't read my short stories yet, I have two short stories that appeared in Kyanite Press: The Journal of Speculative Fiction: THE HUMAN NETWORK and CATCHING FEELS.

To make a long story short(see what I did there?), my short story series takes place in a near-future New York City where an alien species known as Aturan live among us. Most of us don't know they exist because they are natural shape-shifters or polymorphs, to use a Star Trek term, and so can look like many other alien species, including us.

In April 2018, I started work on how these aliens would appear and was bored by the regular heteronormative binary that 'plagues' other aliens in other stories. Not only did I work on figuring out that my aliens defaulted as polysexual, but I wanted to use the term omnisexual, an ElfQuest series' term, to mean that my aliens were not only sexually and romantically attracted to other sexual identities and genders among their own, but that they could be romantically and/or sexually attracted to other aliens too.

Now in September 2020, I finally completed the last four identities. If you want to see them in their technicolor glory, head on over to my Instagram page: handdrawnbycarmenjr. I also have explanations for each of the identities but purposely remained vague. I want readers to learn more as they take in the stories. 

Lastly, I can count on one hand which science fiction writers heavily influenced me into writing complex alien characters. 

The first is Andre Norton. Her explanations on how aliens viewed and explained things to the humans in her novels and short fiction is nothing short of amazing. 

The next is Anne McCaffrey. She shows that aliens can often get along with humans and have their own senses of humor.

The next is C.J. Cherryh. I can't begin to tell you how often I read her stories over and over just to get a sense of her physical descriptions and biological explanations of aliens, their societies and even their history. Just the way they interact with humans and view things is something I rarely saw in most of the scifi I read.

And last is Octavia Butler. Yes, her aliens invading and changing humankind's destiny is nothing short of glorious. To see Black characters forging through and participating in said future is magnificent to read. And that she seamlessly weaves in racial injustice, oppression, and racism into the fabric of her hard-hitting stories is breathtaking.

Another day in self-quarantine

Been watching 90s TV shows, reading web comics, and the occasional writing. Also, working on different terms for sexual orientation and identities among four aliens species (human included) in the 49th century. 

Original journal date: 10/18/10

I've always been drawn to animal stories both in animation as well as in books. When I began to read mythology and saw what a huge role animals would play, and how complex their beings could be, impressed me to ancient peoples' wisdom in making the animal world as much a art of the human world (than how separate we are now). 

But when I picked up a book on Aesop's fables, that's when something 'clicked'. To use animals to bring to light humanity while revealing the innermost of that beast or creature is how I want to tell my stories.