How to support international stories coming out in English!
I've seen many English speakers ask when they see something not out in their language commenting "Will it ever come out in English?" "[…] Can't wait for for it to be available in English :) I bet it will be a success! 🎉" "I'm having a hard time finding these in English - are they available anywhere?" "I hope your books comes to the US! Looks cool!" "I've heard great things about your book! Is it translated to English? I was having trouble finding it, but I'd be interested in reading it ^_^"
Well, on their website Seven Seas Entertainment has a monthly survey where you can send in stories, this is seemingly the easiest way although you can only usually send in 4* a month/survey (which I won't link directly to as they are monthly and we are already at the end of April and I don't know when May's will show up, so just scroll down to it). So it can take a while, and preferably no repeats, so have a list you can check off those you have already requested. You can also ask people you know to fill it, or borrow their devices, maybe even use the computers at the library, airport, school, etc. You can also send in all the ones you are interested in to Dark Horse Comics for example, but in my experience are the ones replying to this email address on their Instagram account: contestATdarkhorseDOTcom to be much nicer although they don't really reply if they are considering the suggestions or not, nor do they appear to take regular novels which is a bummer.
There's also OniPress which are going to publish Snøkattprinsen, and Arctis who has published Ravneringene, and while claiming to bring the best from all over the world to the US have they mostly taken from their German branch's library (and seem to be mostly taking novels only, but you can try convincing them to broaden their horizons). There's Yen Press, which seems to be going pretty international or at the very least East Asian, as well as Scholastic and Penguin although the latter two might not take much comics/graphic novels compared to the comic and art book exclusive Dark Horse. Apparently these prefer suggestions done by tweeting at them, so this depends on you wanting to use twitter or not. But I'd avoid DC and Marvel as then the stories might have to become part of their established universes which might be difficult for the creators, and honestly unnecessary. There's also Tokyopop that was revived in English recently with Disney and GL&BL stuff, but with their history, do I not know if I want to trust them... Especially since they are proudly showing off the stories which rights they stole from their original underpaid creators...
Whichever you decide to go for, do I personally recommend pasting the urls from the links below or write them as "[story] by [author]" to make them easier for them to find, they are only human after all.
Picture from Alena Pons' Instagram
Want an inclusive story about a magical school that isn't written by a recist TERF? Or perhaps a comedy about monster children attending school and their shenanigans? Or about a non-binary ash elf and their dragon friend? Or about how a prophecy ruins the lives of the chosen ones as they have no choice how to live their lives? Then we have stories for you!
Arkin - Lysets Vokter 🗨️♿
Asynja📖
Born from Death 🗨️♿
El príncipe de la calamidad📖🗨️
Dinokid 🗨️🏳️🌈🖤
Dragens Øye🗨️♿🏳️🌈🤍
Donde los Árboles Cantan 📖
Krypto 🗨️🖤
Gryphoon 🗨️♿
Leyendas de Parva Terra🗨️
Mia Myhr og barna som forsvant 🗨️
MiniMonsters 🗨️♿
Mørkalven 🗨️♿
Mystical📖
Nidur🗨️
Nordlys 🗨️♿🖤
Oppfinneren 🗨️♿🖤
Phenomena 📖♿🤍🏳️🌈
Ragnarok 🗨️♿🤍
Royalty Witches📖🏳️🌈❤️
Strawberry Moon 📖❤️♿
Underbyen 🗨️
Under Regnbuen 🗨️🤍🏳️🌈
Urara🗨️♿
The Urban Legend 🗨️**
Valhalla🗨️♿
Ville Poter 🗨️♿
보지도 못하고 듣지도 못해도 사랑해🗨️❤️♿
외발로 살다🗨️🤍♿
Legend: 🗨️=comic/graphic novel, 📖=novel, 🏳️🌈=lgbtqia+ characters***, ❤️=romance is a central theme, 🤍=some romance but not the focus, 🖤=no romance what so ever, ♿=disabled character(s) in a good light (counts by @cannondisabledcharacters rules), (some may change the more I read or as the story continues).
Art by @cha-c-san
That thing from that country vs just another movie
So since 2012 has Innovasjon Norge where they gave money to fund an animation movie by a little unknown animation company known as Disney over a Norwegian series, that have continued doing that. So Norway's top 3 ways of making money are:
Oil
Tourism
Salmon
So because of the environment, they want to phase out the oil and find ✨𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔫𝔢𝔴 𝔬𝔦𝔩���✨. So first they tried increasing the salmon "farming", which led to fleas and birth defects. After the seemingly huge success of Frozen, they funded the side stuff and the sequel. Then they funded a Mission Impossible movie, to have a scene on Preikestolen, the scene was so brief and didn't really add anything to the movie so they had to beg so it wasn't cut. Then in one of the latest James Bond movies they funded it to pretend that a Norwegian mountain is in India. So why do they fund so many American productions? Well, to put it simply, tourism. If they sneak in a little of Norway into these, they hope people will want to go to Norway.
But not everyone watching know that Arendelle is based on Norway, and it goes over to being just another Disney movie doesn't it? The clip of Prekestolen, I haven't heard anyone mention that scene as standing out, honestly, I haven't heard anyone talking about that movie. The James Bond movie, they are told that beautiful mountain is in India, India has many beautiful mountains, but pretending that mountain is in India in-movie will increase tourism there, disappointed when they don't find it. So unless you read interviews or the credits closely, you probably wouldn't know that you were lied to. And if hopefully the pandemic taught them anything, do not rely on tourism too much!
So after a while they just become another movie among many others. But if they support a Norwegian story making it as big as they deserve, it'd be remembered among people as "that Norwegian thing" wouldn't it? This is why I want to support stories not only from my home country but also from others. Among the ✨𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔫𝔢𝔴 𝔬𝔦𝔩™✨ they've tried is timber, which Sweden is known for, and like oil, is finite. There's no end in creative people, and they deserve support. Here they get only 10% of what they poored their soul into while the publisher last time I checked get 70%. This the result of a print shop strike where as they only got 5%, where the boss took 90% of that and the actual workers got the remains. I don't blame the print shop workers, they deserved more. But that the publisher snuck in and took the hugest percentage, is just BS as they do the least (here at least, most authors have to advertise in their own free time themselves).
Vegetarian vampires done right, comic by David Ramírez
* This April one asked for at least 1 Manga from Japan exclusively, 2 Manga/Graphic novels/Comics from wherever, At least 1 light novel from Japan exclusively, and 2 any kind of novel from wherever. [edited in April: they want 1 manga from the 90s or older] [edited in by the end of January as they were asking for these specific genres then] For the manga and light novels from Japan: 1 fantasy/isekai manga and 1 light novel 🐉, 1 of each with lgbtqia+ topics, 1 of each with comedy🤣, romance, or drama🎭, 1oe action⚔️, horror👻, or supernaturalψ, 1oe with fanservice, smut, and stuff like that, 1oe from the 90s or older💾, 2oe Chinese (or Taiwanese or any other country they publish stories in Chinese probably), 1oe Korean 🇰🇷 (the two on the bottom of the previous list are Korean, will add some novels here), 1 Hiveworks Comic, 1 International web comic (will add some below the Korean novels), and 1oe international comic/graphic novel and novel.
If you don't read much manga but want to suggest any do I recommend (these have no "fan service") 五色の舟🗨️📖♿🏳️🌈🐉 (Goshiki no Fune , about a found family of Japanese disabled people during WW2 as they try to survive, none of the opposing forces are demonized and just they trying to live their lives), I S―男でも女でもない性🗨️♿🏳️🌈❤️ (IS - Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei, about different intersex people and their lives), 斉木楠雄のΨ難 (Saiki Kusuo no PSI Nan/The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. 🗨️♿🤍🤣ψ A comedy about a seemingly aroace guy with supernatural powers he takes all too seriously), 放浪息子🗨️🏳️🌈❤️ (Hourou Musuko, about trans children and their lives, not perfect but also sweet, had an English translation that was sadly dropped due to lack of sales), Ballad of a Shinigami 📖🤍♿ψ (one of the first light novels Seven Seas published, but was cancelled as it was in the years light novels and visual novels weren't taken as seriously in the west, hopefully we can uncancel it), もののけ草紙🗨️🤍♿👻 (Mononoke Soushi , well, it has some nudity but not pervy nudity. It's about a young girl Tenome growing up right before WW2 and as an adult during the war, it's a love craftian inspired horror manga with Japanese folklore and she's really badass, and even if you are a coward like me is the art, story, and characters stronger than the horror so you'd probably like it,
+アニマ🗨️🤍♿🐉(+Anima, a darkly cute series about children gaining animal powers, was officially in English once, but deserves more love again), Luck Stealer 📖⚔️🤍♿ψ by Hajime Kazu (story about an assassin taking lives by stealing their luck by coming near them, really satisfying and badass and understandable why he does it. There's one annoying character shoehorned in by an editor it feels like, but he doesn't appear much fortunately), 心霊探偵八雲📖🤍♿ψ (Shinrei Tantei Yakumo, a mystery series about a guy who can see ghosts, can get really dark), and finally 恋の神様 古味直志短編集🗨️❤️🤍🖤ψ🐉🤣 (Koi no Kamisama, a collection of Komi Naoshi one-shots before he went mainstream with Nisekoi, a collection of weird and kind of psychological one-shots that are a lot of fun within few pages). P.A. (プライベートアクトレス) ❤️💾♿🗨️🎭 about a "private actress", pretending to be people's lover, daughter, themselves, whatever is needed, seeing her act and grow as a person, not perfect and shows it age some places but mostly surprisingly accepting. アノニマス🤍🗨️🎭 (Anonymous, about some Japanese teens from the 20s, raised without names or purpose other than to follow orders, but they meet some other teens they to their surprise befriend and so they decide to live for themselves). 周刊少年Girl 🗨️🤣🤍ψ(Weekly Shounen Girl, an absurd and wacky manga that takes full use of it's medium, it's amazing). スミレ♡16歳!! 🗨️🤣(Sumire♡16 years old!! Weird manga about a puppet attending school and somehow getting friends. Oddly sweet).
These don't quite follow the rules but are 💾: F. Compo (weird trans manga from the 90s, a cis man's desperate attempt at being "accepting", interesting to look back at), クロノクルセイド(Chrono Crusade, has some unnecessary fan service but is still my favourite manga. Is about a nun and a demon hunting demons in USA in the 1920s), ストップ!! ひばりくん! (Stop!! Hibari-kun! I remember some problematic moments, but a impressively progressive trans manga from the 80s!).
The promised Korean novels:레지나레나 - 용서받지 못한 그대에게 📖❤️♿(Regina Rena: To the Unforgiven, has a webtoon on... Webtoon and a region locked translation of the novel), 필리아로제 - 가시왕관의 예언🗨️🤍♿(Philia Rosé: The Prophecy of the Crown of Thorns, the WebToon is translated but not the novel), 마땅한 살인📖🤍♿⚔️ (Justified Murder, novel about a doctor forced to kill the father of a patient in self defense when he doesn't want her to tell authorities that he abused the patient. Her cop husband helps her dispose of the body by drawing a lipstick heart on him, the signature of a serial killer only going after the worst, it works a little too well as the killer contacts her and recruits her as the killer is actually a group). International webcomics/WebToons (those i do not know where are from don't have flags, some are already in English): City Vamps 🇪🇸, Heartblood🇫🇮, I Want to Be A Cute Anime Girl, Born From Death 🇮🇩, @XXIII, Angel's Quest 🇪🇸, Watermelon 🇸🇦, Seed 🇹🇷 (I think), Love Advice From the Great Duke of Hell 🇨🇭, The Witch and the Bull 🇹🇼, Project Novos 🇦🇹, The World Where I Belong 🇹🇭(I think), and more. Remember that the ones further up are the ones struggling to come out in English.
** Self published, but has been looking for an official publisher forever according to interviews.
*** a work not marked with this still could have some later, is not clear enough, I haven't read enough yet to know, or I haven't asked the author. But even if one seemingly does not have any does it not mean that the author is phobic or not part of the lgbtqia+ themselves, and as far as I know, no one on this list are phobic as far as I've checked.
Feel free to reblog with stories from different countries that aren't translated into English. The ones I suggest here are in languages that I understand or have accessed by other means. Also, many thanks to @godteri-takk for encouraging me and @ittibittium for making this post (which is very much have been the reason the series came out look at slide 2) and inspiring me. If you have any questions about the stories I've included here, feel free to ask ^^. If you wonder why I didn't link to Phenomena, Mørkalven, Under Regnbuen, The Urban Legend, and Underbyen on the booksfromnorway website is it that they're simply not there, the publisher haven't added them. I'd also link to Norway Comics more often as the website looks good, but haven't been updated in about 2 years, maybe they started to give up? I don't know. Thank you for your time and hopefully we can give more than a few authors a cool gift before the end of the year.
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I'm working on writing a novel series set in a fantasy world. I'm trying to be as inclusive as I can be in terms of race as well as sexuality. There's an asexual character involved and there are multiple characters of color. It's a world of dragons and all dragons have a human form, their eye color is there scale color so anyone can have pretty much any eye color. For example, a black character has cobalt eyes while another of the same race has dark red eyes and another has black. Is this okay?
Dragons with eye color assigned by scale color
WWC Note: This fits into our criteria as a Rubber Stamp question, but because it came in before the official post, we’ll answer it anyway.
Different eye colors are more than fine. Please do not make your dark characters with solely black and dark overtones for eye color. That’s not going to have a positive response or impact. I love dragons and dragon-shapeshifters, but just reading these spells “not okay.”
Usually in the media, POC are given light hair and eyes to denote them as “good”. Having a variety of tones, rather than solely light or dark colors, can help you avoid the “Yikes’ bit of this.
My recommendation is to look at how The Dragon Prince handles race with fantasy creatures, dragons and all.
- Jaya
Seems okay to me, as long as it's made clear that they are POC (human forms) and not vaguely mentioned to be "golden skinned" or "tan" like in Sarah J. Maas's works.
While light eyes in characters of colour often have an underlying Western bias to them, your system seems largely random, based on scale colours, so it should be alright.
Make sure to have at least a few characters with brown and/or dark eyes, preferably among the leads.
Don't overemphasize light eyes while describing their beauty. Mention other features like their nose shapes, hair textures, facial markings etc.
Give distinct markers in their dragon forms which can identify them as a POC character when human, say, a certain kind of pattern on their wings or colour of fire.
Here is a helpful post on coding race in non human characters.
— Mod Mimi
The following answers, and the related links within, sum up my response to this. Check these out:
More reading:
PoC and Light-colored Eyes
Dark skinned Black people with blue eyes
~Mod Colette
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Get ready for one of the most useless posts on this website.
Alright, I saw a post a while ago about how it doesn't make sense to write Julian Bashir as "blushing" because he has a darker skin tone. Now, this isn't a call out and the information that the poster (I can't remember who it was) was trying to convey is describing Julian (or any dark-skinned character) as "flushing pink" doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. And that is true.
However, I wanted to very briefly talk about blushing with darker skin. I am a few shades darker than Julian, but I absolutely can blush. In part because blushing is a physiological response. If you're writing from a character of color's POV, obviously, we can feel blood rush to our cheeks.
But it also absolutely can be visible. It's true that I don't flush pink, but because of the blood flow to my cheeks on my darker skin, I do, in fact, change color. I am also a person who occasionally wears blush, and because of my skin, I do not pick pink shades.
To lightly demonstrate, I'm going to use my inner wrist (which is slightly closer to Julian's skin tone than the rest of my body). I have one picture of the color I use, one picture of the blush sampled on my skin, and one of the color when it's blended out. (Forgive my skinny little wrists)
As you can see, I pick darker shades and shades that have more reddish/orange undertones because that is what looks more natural on my skin.
But also, as you can see, it clearly shows up on my skin- even when it's blended out and more natural. Anyway - this isn't really anything, except that to allow some flexibility perhaps for writers. You absolutely can write darker-skinned characters with a blush; you just need to note that it probably won't look pink per se. It'll look redder or slightly more burnt orange. Go forth! Embarrass my boy accurately!
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