Also I need more super close but strictly platonic friendships, especially between guys and girls.
Like, Victor absolutely loves Alice, but in a strictly platonic sense (although his dad would really like him to marry her because her family's rich and well-known). When he's having issues, he goes to Alice, when he and Claire need to go somewhere because their parents are fighting, they go to Alice.
And speaking of Alice, I want more unconventional families. Alice's parents are more distant, so she is stuck more or less raising Timothy (and to a lesser extent Theo and Erica, who are in their teens and can more or less fend for themselves), and Max tries his best to help, even if he's an awkward mess.
Henry's the youngest by a lot in his family, so he decided to move in with his grandparents at the start of high school so his parents, who were getting older, could travel the world like they wanted. His grandparents, specifically his grandma, are the most important relatives in his life.
I just want more families, found or biological, okay?
AND MIXED RACE/CULTURE FAMILIES! Tbh Spiderverse was great with that.
Blended by Sharon M. Draper is also really good with this aspect!
A mixed race girl (black and white) whose parents divorce and there's some racism happening at her school. It also deals with racial profiling (she and her stepbrother get stopped by a cop getting ice cream, she and a friend get harassed by the owner of a fancy store about being in there and 'not looking like you can afford anything', etc.) It was hard to read at times because the MC is a middle school girl but it was really good!
Bonus points for a super sweet sibling relationship!
On the one hand that’s great, but on the other I want more casual stuff if you get what I mean. So rarely touch on the race thing but have it casually existing. Like like the MCs best friend is a girl who is a Italian Indian splice.
Also handled pretty well by Spiderverse. It was obvious that Miles was Black/Mexican but it was never used for plot. It was just there. That’s what I want more of.
Yeah I agree, I definitely want to see more casual diversity in books. One of my MCs is a black girl with 2 moms (one black and one white) and it's just casual. Yeah, amy (the most wonderful woman in the world) has 2 moms. They're kinda strict. They're a CEO and a librarian. They both like books and are really good at math.
My girl Daniella is probably half Arab. But it might be Persian.
For my stories anyways, character's ethnicities are there but not central, mainly because I don't feel qualified to write a story about what it's like to be X in modern times because I'm white.
Their sexualities and mental illnesses/lack of them are what takes the forefront more because that's what I'm more qualified to write about.
I guess that makes sense.
I want more characters in fantasy books who are like…idk cryptid scholars or something. Not just knights and royalty.
I have a blacksmith! How original.
I also have a mentally impaired wizard.
On my most recent project the protagonist is a buff girl who earns money by brawling and working on the docks.
I have two orphanage workers, two hunters, two bartenders, a bookkeeper, a noblewoman, a woodcutter, and a handful of fae royals.
Oooh I have a lot of fun fantasy characters.
A farmer who becomes a blacksmith’s apprentice, a bartender, a city guard, a dragon caregiver, a dragon caregiver who loses his job and starts working at the tavern instead (he also researches dragons and writes on the side), a healer/field medic who also dabbles in making his own drugs, and a librarian who used to work alongside their father who is a fishmonger. I also have a princess and her retainer, but the story doesn’t center around them.
Cool! I’ll have to describe the jobs I have later.
I feel like my character jobs are kind of varied. In my main project I have a former pirate, a prince (very original, right?), a chimney sweep, a healer (who also does a lot of research on the side about the different types of powers and how they work).
I've got a blacksmith, fishmonger, general surgeon, tailor, Huntress, and a former miner/safecracker for the mafia.
A teacher, Elementalists, blacksmiths, butcher, apprentices, hunters, farmers, traders, fishermen, sailors, a witch, miners, ambassadors, an Emperor and that’s all I can think of at the moment.
hmmmm. Bounty hunter, Potter, Ambassador, Assassin, Healer, FBI Special Agents, mob enforcer, physician in a pleasure house, Voodoo Priestess, Tech Heiress/Genius, Mechanic, Med Student, Club Patron, Potions Master, Apothecary, and the like
Med student. Interesting.
HISTORICAL ERAS I NEED MORE BOOKS ABOUT:
~Vikings
~That One Time The Dutch Went Crazy Over Tulips
~Industrial Revolution
~Medieval Ages
~Russian Revolution
~The concept of blockade runners used during the Civil War.
Y’know I was thinking of having Japanese elements in Project the Great and Powerful.
FEUDAL JAPAN
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY TIED IN WITH SENGOKU JIDAI AND COMMON THEATRE PRACTICES?
Y’know I was thinking of having Japanese elements in Project the Great and Powerful.
slams 10 million notebooks of notes on Japanese culture on table.
I'm ready.
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