This is the art I received for my main character.

In a space-age afterlife where your body (and some relevant aspects of your mind) is determined by what your psyche wants, Chris Foster becomes a very young child again so they can deal with trauma. Here they choose the name “Solemn” and embark on their personal journey of self-discovery, mental health tools, and what it means to have real, loving family for the first time.

But when political activists kill off the seraphs (the afterlife’s demigod social workers and keepers of the peace) it is up to Solemn— who for non-convoluted reasons has become a seraph themself— and their newfound family and others who will fight to restore the compassion and dignity of this afterlife.

My novel is in its third draft and it’s super rich and I love to talk about it any chance I get. Ask questions or offer to look at the public draft, please! 💙

  •  memfree   ( @memfree@beehaw.org ) 
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    14 months ago

    It is good to hear that there are some non-whites in your story. Since there was no detail in your initial post, the art of an Aryan Angel did not inspire me to ask any question except, “Yet another blonde hero?” I get very tired of “white man’s burden” stories featuring white men picking themselves up and solving problems that ‘others’ could not overcome.

    It sounds like your hero strays from the archetype enough to be atypical, so hopefully s/he realizes some reliance on the vital contributions of ‘others’ along their journey, too. All I’m saying is that the initial art didn’t speak to of any of that. The only thing it said to me was ‘racist agitprop’ (though not of the historic/Russian variety).