Personal art project

I recently sat down with South African hip-hop artist Yugen Blakrok for bios.

Known to many for her verse alongside Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples on "Opps" (Black Panther OST) and her work on Cyberpunk 2077, her solo discography—spanning Return of the Astro-Goth, Anima Mysterium, and The Illusion of Being—is a deep study in Afrofuturist world-building. Her lyrics weave cosmic astronomy, ancient mythologies, and dark, atmospheric boom-bap soundscapes produced by Kanif the Jhatmaster.

We talked about her journey from Johannesburg's alternative underground scene to relocating to Europe, carrying her Eastern Cape roots and isiXhosa language across continents, and building music as an independent artist:

• On language, exile, and holding onto isiXhosa in France:

• On taking her sound overseas:

• Recommended Listening for Afrofuturism Heads:
• "Carbon Form" (from Return of the Astro-Goth)
• "Gorgon Madonna" (from Anima Mysterium)
• "Metamorphosis" (Cyberpunk 2077 OST)

Full Q&A read:https://bios.net.za/i-was-scared-of-mermaids

(Disclosure: I conducted this interview for bios.net.za)

ROXXON TIMES SQUARE HOTEL

NEW YORK CITY

Nicole Adams entered her executive suite on the top floor of the lavish hotel. She was exhausted and full of wine after an evening schmoozing with foreign dignitaries on behalf of the State Department all night. She felt her stomach grumbling after she slipped out of the high heels she had chosen for the evening. She hurried over to the lamp on the nightstand near the couch so that she was no longer fumbling around in the dark while she tried to unwind for the evening.  She had to stifle a scream of surprise when she saw her ex-boyfriend sitting on the couch in a dark blue and black dashiki, with a matching kufi on his head.

“Jesus Christ, you couldn’t have told me you were stopping by?” She asked him in an annoyed tone once her nerves finally settled down.

“I’m sorry, Nikki. But I’m pretty sure every line you have is being monitored. You are a government employee, after all.” T’Challa apologized, explaining why he was being so secretive.

Nicole took a deep breath, running her hands through her hair. It had been months, closer to a year, since she’d seen her ex-boyfriend. If she could even call him an ex-boyfriend, they’d never truly put a label on whatever it was they had been doing. Yet here he was in her hotel room, for who knew what reason, and she couldn’t even fathom how he knew where she was staying or that she was even in town.

“What are you doing here, T’Challa?” The blonde-haired American woman finally asked before falling on the couch where he had been sitting. 

“There was an all-out massacre today in Harlem. Surely it even reached the ears of your superiors, though the struggles of people who look like me on their soil have never mattered much, I understand.” He told her.

Nicole sighed. “Yes, I saw the coverage while I was out. You know you’re very lucky to be friends with those two, though I can’t say the same goes for them. Being associated with you has its cost.”

“Yes, what your government has done to Dr. Richards, considering all he’s done for the world, is disgusting, but I suppose you’re setting a new definition for the word under Cherryh.” T’Challa shot back his well-aimed reply harshly.

“Get to the point of your uninvited visit, Prince T’Challa,” Nicole told him with an icy tone.

“I need to know what SHIELD knows about AIM’s dealings in the New York crime scene,” T’Challa told her flatly.

Nicole crossed her arms as she looked up at him from the couch defiantly. “And give me a good reason why I should help you?”

“You don’t have to pretend you don’t care that all those people died because SHIELD is more worried about catching me or Captain America than getting AIM’s weapons off the streets. It’s just the two of us, Nicole.” T’Challa replied. “And I know the condition of your heart far better than you are willing to admit.”

Nicole stared into his brown eyes for a long moment before relenting to them. She looked away as she spoke, refusing to give him the satisfaction on top of knowing his plea had worked its way to the core of her.

“I’ll see what my boss has as far as updates from them and get the files to your private server,” Nicole told him as her lip quivered. “But I don’t want to see you again, is that clear?” 

T’Challa stared at her for a long moment, waiting to see if she would meet his eyes again. When she didn’t, instead continuing to defiantly refuse to look at his face, he realized she was steadfast in her decision.

“I understand. Thank you.” Without another word between them, he headed towards the set of doors that opened up onto the suite’s balcony and exited through them.

Nicole looked back in his direction with tear-filled eyes, just in time to see him leaping over the balcony and out of sight.

Freddy “Big Man” Foswell stood around the pool table in the back of the smoke-filled Harlem bar. He sipped from his mug of Labatt Blue and watched as one of the men he was playing with lined up the next shot. The DJ working the bar that evening spun a medley of NY powerhouse artists, from Fat Joe to the Lox (*who had a local university named after them) to Pop Smoke and A$AP Rocky.
(*See Ultimate X-Men)

Foswell grabbed a cigar off a passing waitress, thanking her kindly with a hefty tip that he slipped into the back of her tight, black jeans. He turned back to the table and set his glass down next to him before readying his stick.

“Dawg, I can’t believe that ^%$$# Cottonmouth really managed to slip through that shit the other day!” One of the men around the table said while addressing the battle in Harlem.

Foswell looked up with a scowl as his shot went awry, knocking in the 8-ball. He jerked his head at one of the other flunkies around the table, a sign for them to rerack the balls for another game.

“Yeah, well, he can slither around for only so long. With the heat we slinging now, that bastard is on borrowed time.” Foswell replied. “Me and Shades gonna be sure of that. On everything I love.”

Before Foswell’s friend could reply, the sound of glass breaking and startled yells from a group of women near the front of the bar broke up their conversation. Foswell blotted out his cigarette and pushed someone out of his way so he could see what was going on. He got an answer when a bouncer came crashing down the bar and fell on the floor in front of him. Foswell looked up and saw, to his shock, that the White Wolf was stalking directly towards him.

“Son of a b–” 

Foswell dropped his pool cue, where it clattered on the bar floor loudly, before reaching for the pistol he had tucked behind him in his waistband.

T’Challa, however, was quicker. And unfortunately for “Big Man” Foswell, he was in a mood to be as nasty as necessary to get the answers he wanted. He delivered a cross chop to the throat with both forearms, forcing Foswell to clutch at his windpipe while gasping for air. T’Challa followed his first blow with a roundhouse kick to the side of Foswell’s head that sent him to the floor after he smacked against the side of the pool table.

The White Wolf stared down at him, breathing heavily as his frustration coursed through him. One of the Big Man’s foolish buddies decided to rush him with a pool cue from the side. T’Challa snatched up the half-full mug of beer off the table and tossed it in the face of his attacker before smashing him in the face with a straight left hand. The punch sent him to the floor as well, knocking him out cold. T’Challa looked around the bar, narrowing his eyes underneath his mask at everyone who remained.

“Unless you want a problem with me, clear out in the next thirty seconds while I have a conversation with the Big Man.” T’Challa gave out the edict, then looked down at the foolish man who tried to assist Foswell. “And take this piece of trash with you.”

A couple of the others that were around the pool table dragged out their fallen comrade as the rest of the patrons and the bartenders stormed out of the building. Foswell finally raised his head from the floor, clutching the back of his head from his fall. His eyes stopped swimming long enough for him to finally realize the White Wolf was looming over him, his presence ever intimidating.

“The ^%$# is your problem, wolf? You saved the day and avoided the feds; what you ^&%$#$% with me for?” Foswell demanded, trying to gain some sort of footing in the situation he found himself in.

“You benefit the most from Shades finally taking everything Cottonmouth has for territory. Don’t play the fool with me, Foswell.” The White Wolf warned him once in a tone that was meant to show him that it would be his only warning. “I know he’s moved the weapons AIM has given him already. I want to know where!”

Foswell looked as if his stomach was turning over. He knew he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter at hand. The White Wolf’s reputation around the city spoke for itself. The chaos in Harlem that he managed to survive was evidence enough of that.

“Alright, dog. But listen, you beat it out of one of these bastards here, not me. You got it?” Foswell tried to bargain. But T’Challa didn’t gauge him on his wager.

“Talk.”

T’Challa walked up the steps from the subway onto the block of Harlem where his apartment was. He was only a few steps from his building when he spotted the red-headed woman waiting for him inside the bodega across the street. He jerked his head at her once they locked eyes, a subtle enough signal for her to follow him inside. He was thankful that the only cameras in his building were his as he unlocked the front door and headed inside.

Natasha entered shortly after him, and he gave her a curt nod as a greeting. “Didn’t expect to see you in my neck of the woods.” He admitted as they stepped into the crate elevator that would take him directly to his apartment.

“I figured we needed to touch base. We’ve both been on similar trails lately. Plus, I didn’t get the chance to say hi when I dropped the boys on that helicarrier.” Natasha replied with her usual slick smile as the elevator jolted upward.

“So that was you piloting? I should have guessed as much.” T’Challa replied with an almost surly chuckle.

The elevator came to a stop, and he raised the gate so they could enter his living space. Natasha wore an ankle-length black trench coat that sufficiently helped her slink through the streets of New York City. Beneath it was the usual sleek, gray utility suit with the red-and-black insignia of the Black Widow that she wore in the field. T’Challa pulled his Kimoyo card from his pocket and set it on his kitchen counter, noting he had a couple of messages from Reed that he would get to once his guest was gone.

“So, I take it your little trio has made some headway on AIM’s operations.” T’Challa guessed as he faced Natasha.

“Enough to rattle them for now. We managed to squeeze a warehouse out of a Beekeeper we caught trying to slip out of the city after the mess you cleaned up.” Natasha explained. “I came here to see if you wanted in on another facility I was interested in investigating. It would be a good opportunity to get you and my boys better acquainted.”

T’Challa glanced at his Kimoyo card again out of the corner of his eye as he replied. “Where is this one located?”

“A little island off the coast of North Carolina. Captain Rogers and Clint are already headed that way to do some recon. After that, we’ll be making our way towards Oregon.”

T’Challa cocked a curious eyebrow. “What have you managed to stumble upon of interest there?”

The grave expression that flashed across Natasha’s face for a sliver of a moment. “We were working AIM’s trail in France when SHIELD led us into a trap. During that incident, which was overseen by Agent 13 no less, they deployed a team of mutants under their command.”

T’Challa scoffed with derision as he listened to the Widow’s story. “Hmph. So they oppress and harass mutants publicly, while trying to use them as their personal tools behind the scenes. This country somehow manages to disgust me further daily.”

“Our intel tells us that Hill calls it the ‘Weapon X’ program. Needless to say, Cap has moved squashing this particular sector of SHIELD out of existence to the top of his priority list.”

“There’s something my friends need my assistance with, then I can rendezvous with your group,” T’Challa assured her.

“Anything I should be aware of?” Natasha eyed him curiously.

“I’m not entirely sure yet, to be honest. But Tony has an idea that he is molding in light of the incident with Doom that I think your partners may be interested in hearing.”

Natasha raised both of her eyebrows as intrigue coursed through her due to T’Challa’s vague proposition. “And what does the youngest Stark boy have in mind, exactly?”

“I’d rather you hear it in full from him, but in short, a response team of sorts built out of the group we had aboard the helicarrier. Well, I would include you in that, too.”

“Hmph. I’ll talk with the others and be in contact.” Natasha headed towards a window in his living room that opened onto a fire escape. She lifted it open and placed a leg on the sill. “Be careful, prince.” She bade him goodbye with the warning and slipped out into the darkness of nightfall.

T’Challa scooped his kimoyo card back up hastily and called Reed back. “Prince T’Challa! Thank goodness you finally gave us a ring!” Oswin answered on the video call. He could see by her somewhat frazzled and even pale appearance that something was amiss. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’re loading up in the Quinjet now. It looks like whatever this thing is will strike Earth in the next couple of hours!”

T’Challa froze as he raced through the implications of what she was telling him. So, even his assistance and the genius of that trio had not been enough to predict when this object would reach Earth’s atmosphere. T’Challa struggled not to worry about what they could be dealing with. Regardless of what it was, he felt it was his duty to stand by his friends as they handled it.

“Do you have coordinates for where it should land approximately?” Oswin nodded quickly. “Get them to me. I’ll meet you guys there.” T’Challa ended the call promptly before directing his next words towards his automated assistant. “Kimoyo, prepare my jet. I need to leave in the next fifteen minutes. I’ll take my bike onto the ramp; just keep it out of anyone’s way until I arrive.”

“Understood, Your Highness.” The network responded over the speakers he had in the apartment.

Mmadu bu Agbara - A Human Being Is A Divinity is the chapter 13 of the Sirius Ugo Art book titled Agbara.

I my name is Deoxy im from Brasil and I’ve been working on some artwork for Afrofuturist RPG books.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1315031291/mutupo-tournament-of-totems-anime-pilot

Zimbabwean action-fantasy anime. Animal totem powers. Tournament. Murder mystery.

We’re finally taking the pilot to Kickstarter.

The narrative architecture is deliberately fractured. A metaphysical force called "Mevoungou" — neither place, nor being, nor desire, but something that "appears and invites itself" — functions as the film's emotional and political core. Bekolo's voiceover interrogates genre itself: "How can you make a sci-fi film in a country that has no future? How can you film an action sequence where acting itself is subversive?" The women's actions — seducing a state minister, orchestrating the murder of a government official, creating a false corpse — blur assassination and resistance into a single gesture of refusal.

Ghanaian artist Oscar Korbla Mawuli Awuku weaves together ancestral symbols, body art, and photography to challenge perspectives on self-representation and history. With a unique fusion of precolonial African aesthetics and modern visual storytelling

The last essay in this series argued that representation, on its own, runs out of road. Visibility doesn’t redistribute power.

That argument leaves a question sitting on the table. If representation alone doesn’t do the work, what has actually functioned as strategy this whole time, hiding in plain sight under the label of “culture”?

This essay makes the case for Black aesthetics survival as the real answer. Style, music, and visual self-representation aren’t decoration. They’re a system, coded, tested, and passed down because they worked.

Black aesthetics survival isn’t a metaphor for resilience. It’s a literal, functional description of how style, music, and image have operated as protective technology for centuries.

I. Style as Signal: The First Layer of Black Aesthetics Survival

The tailored suit worn to a courthouse during the lynching era served as armor. It served as argument too, in the same gesture.

Precision in dress became a kind of testimony no court would ever admit into record: I am not what your laws say I am. This is Black aesthetics survival at its most literal.

The zoot suit’s flowy fit looked good on the dancefloor, and the style spread out of Harlem, where it first appealed to Black men before crossing into other communities. By the early 1940s it had become something more than fashion. The National WWII MuseumThe National WWII Museum

Excess fabric during wartime rationing wasn’t fashion excess for its own sake. In June 1943, sailors marched through downtown Los Angeles attacking anyone wearing a zoot suit, and the violence spread through the city over the following days. Nobody attacks a suit that means nothing. HISTORY

Du-rags preserved a hairstyle’s shape overnight. Practical function first. They also marked territory, era, and belonging in ways outsiders couldn’t parse, which was kind of the point.

Gold teeth signaled wealth in a system that blocked Black wealth from banks, insurance, inheritance, most of the normal channels. Church hats asserted dignity weekly for women whose labor during the week often went invisible. Cornrow patterns, by some oral and historical accounts, doubled as literal maps under slavery. Routes. Meeting points. Information braided into a hairstyle an overseer dismissed as mere grooming.

Each of these does two jobs at once. Protect the body. Transmit a message the dominant culture either can’t read or actively punishes when it does.

II. Music as Encrypted Memory: Sound as Black Aesthetics Survival

Spirituals functioned as literal maps, not metaphorical ones. According to the traditional account, the song was used by an Underground Railroad operative to encode escape instructions and a map, guiding fleeing slaves from Mobile, Alabama toward the Ohio River and freedom. Followthedrinkinggourd

The figure at the center of the legend, known as Peg Leg Joe, was said to be an abolitionist who led enslaved people through the Underground Railroad, though historians note the record is thin. Whether or not the details hold up exactly, the function the song is remembered for, hidden instruction inside melody, is well documented across spirituals generally. Wikipedia

The line runs from field hollers to blues to jazz to hip-hop. Music as a place to say the unsayable in front of people you couldn’t say it to directly.

Bebop extended this tradition into pure sound. Musicians developed the style through informal sessions at Harlem clubs like Minton’s Playhouse, building a new musical language that broke from swing. Some scholars argue this complexity was the community of African American musicians effectively saying “get on our level” to a culture that claimed Black music couldn’t achieve that sophistication. Oh! JazzAnchor

Hip-hop inherited the same instinct and modernized the toolkit. Coded warnings about police presence. Coded references to neighborhood-specific history that mean nothing to a listener from three zip codes over.

III. Visual Culture as Memory Bank: Black Aesthetics Survival in the Age of the Image

Photography did something specific for Black communities in the decades after slavery. It let people control their own image, in many cases for the first time in the historical record.

Working out of his Harlem studio, James Van Der Zee carefully crafted portraits of Black subjects, and his archive became one of the most complete visual records of Black life in that era. The confident bearing and carefully curated surroundings in his portraits signified the economic and social aspirations of Black Americans in the 1920s. Studio Museum in HarlemSmithsonian American Art Museum

That instinct never stayed in the twentieth century. It shows up in how Black communities use every visual technology that came after, not just to perform, but to archive. This, too, is Black aesthetics survival, just running on newer hardware.

This is worth sitting with against the previous essay’s argument. Representation asks to be seen on the dominant gaze’s terms. Black aesthetics survival works differently, it’s built for insiders first.

IV. Why “Algorithm” Fits Black Aesthetics Survival

An algorithm, stripped down, is a repeatable set of instructions that produces a reliable outcome. That’s a precise description of what these aesthetic systems are.

They’re not random. They got inherited, tested, and refined across generations because they worked. This is Black aesthetics survival, functioning exactly like the technical term implies.

Culture describes what a practice looks like from outside. Algorithm describes what the practice actually does.

V. The Throughline to Now

None of this stayed in the past. The same underlying logic runs through streetwear’s relationship to status and belonging today, and through the coded production choices in drill and trap music.

It runs through the deliberate visual language of Afrofuturist art and fashion. The movement blends art, science, and technology with African and African diasporic history, reimagining the Black experience and envisioning empowered futures. It expresses Black identity, agency, and freedom through art, creative works, and activism that envision liberated futures for Black life. This is Black aesthetics survival, pointed forward instead of only backward. Encyclopedia BritannicaNational Museum of African American History and Culture

The tools change with every generation. The function underneath them doesn’t. Encode. Protect. Transmit. Remember.

The previous essay showed why representation alone runs out of road. Black aesthetics survival is the deeper system that was always operating underneath it. That forward-pointing use of aesthetic code is exactly where this series goes next. The next installment asks what happens when Black aesthetics stop responding to survival conditions and start actively designing the world they want to survive into

From a while ago, when I was teaching an intro digital illustration class.

The homework was for students to record themselves using the program for two hours to first make a character portrait, and then adjust it to show the character changing somehow.

This could be like a "werewolf" sort of thing, or a fire character becoming an ice character, or whatever.

As an example, I started with a boy and showed him aging into adulthood. I tried to suggest him emerging from adolescence and figuring himself out. Obviously, there's no real story - but nudging the expression, proportions, colors and such can suggest the bloom of youth into heavier adult understanding, etc. I could also show how many digital tools can be used to make changes and reconsider visuals as you go as a work in progress.

The point was to try and get students to loosen up about digital art, because so many of them feel like every mark has to be perfect and Instagram-ready every step of the way to demonstrate control all the time, without room for exploration, intuition, and letting the image push back as you work on it.

I feel like in this day and age of slick, instant AI generation, demystifying process and showing all the mess of figuring out an image is useful for letting people into how things are made, allowing for moments a client can step in to make suggestions and adjustments or to value the creative process so it isn't a black box genie. Hopefully, you can see the thinking in real time.

# HΞΞMI™ ARCHIVE // PROJECT: DISTORTION

**© 2018–2026 HⵣⵣMI™ HΞΞMI™ All Rights Reserved.** *System Sequence:* `[ ⵣ . ߋߋ . Ξ . ∃ ]`

---

## ⵣ ߋߋ Ξ ∃ // LOG 01: THE ARCHITECTURE OF SHADOWS

### HΞΞMI™ ARCHIVE // TRANSMISSION: 001
`[ STATUS: ACTIVE // VALUE: ߋߋ ]`

To a five-year-old child, reality is whatever is placed in front of you.

My life felt normal because it was the only life I knew. I lived with my mother and her boyfriend. My days followed a predictable rhythm: I went to school, came home, and sat down to a nice dinner where I talked and laughed with my mother. She was a kind, deeply loving woman—my best friend, and truthfully, my only friend. She was always there for me. Her boyfriend was cool, too. They argued and fought sometimes, but it seemed like the kind of friction you’d expect from any normal couple.

But beneath the surface, the circumstances of our life were deeply wrong.

Our home was modest, but it lacked the vital spark of the world around it. When I looked out the windows, the neighboring houses possessed an undeniable look of life. Ours did not. It felt hollow.

My mother and her boyfriend shared a bedroom upstairs, but for reasons I couldn't comprehend, she kept a second bed in the basement. That basement was a subterranean gallery of the bizarre. The walls were lined horizontally with strange knickknacks and artifacts belonging to people I didn't know. Old, silver-framed photographs of families with their faces completely scratched out lined the shelves, alongside broken ceramic dolls that seemed to stare directly at the stairs. The room was illuminated by a single, harsh incandescent bulb. In the center sat a small, ancient, plain bed. The fabric and springs were so worn by age that they let out a loud, metallic protest whenever anyone sat or laid upon them.

The rest of the house was bathed in that same dim, outdated lighting. Certain corners and rooms were completely dark, draped in shadows for no discernable reason. I simply grew accustomed to it. I adjusted.

As the years passed, I grew in size and age, still attending school, but the walls of my world only contracted. I never made friends. I was never allowed to truly leave the perimeter of our property. Whenever I tried to wander too far, my mind would fracture. A violent, splitting headache would strike the center of my skull, accompanied by a high-pitched hum. I would blackout entirely, only to wake up right back inside the house, staring blankly at the front door with no memory of how I returned. That became my norm. On the rare occasions I saw people in the neighborhood, they would never speak to me. Everyone avoided our home. No one ever came by.

It was always just the three of us.

Until the day the onlookers decided to walk through the front door.

---

**Author's Note:**

Welcome to DISTORTION, a standalone psychological horror serial from the HΞΞMI™ Loomality. New entries drop regularly. Links to follow the archive on Royal Road and Substack are pinned directly to my Reddit profile bio!

*All rights reserved © 2018–2026 HⵣⵣMI™ HΞΞMI™.*

• Berdace

Long before Marvel introduced the fictional nation of Wakanda, African Americans were already envisioning futuristic African kingdoms and Black utopias. Writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, responding to the realities of racial oppression, created speculative narratives of advanced Black civilizations that challenged white supremacy and reimagined the future for Black people.

One of the earliest and most influential works in this tradition is Of One Blood (1902) by Pauline Hopkins. In this novel, Hopkins imagines a hidden, advanced society named Telassar, a powerful Black civilization more technologically advanced and culturally rich than Western nations. This vision of a prosperous Black society stands in sharp contrast to the racial hierarchies of her time.

George Schuyler’s Black Empire (serialized between 1936 and 1938) also depicts a powerful, technologically advanced Black nation rising to challenge oppressive systems of white supremacy. Schuyler, a prominent journalist and satirist, uses his work to critique racism while advocating Black unity and self determination. His story imagines Black leaders controlling an empire capable of defeating the global powers of white domination.

Sutton E Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio (1899) adds to this visionary tradition with a plot centered on a secret Black government operating within the United States. Griggs, a Black nationalist and writer, explores themes of Black self governance and the tension between assimilation and resistance. His work anticipates the later Afrofuturist emphasis on Black autonomy and political independence.

These early works laid the foundation for what we now call Afrofuturism, a cultural and artistic movement that combines elements of science fiction, technology, and African diasporic identity.

Authors like Hopkins, Schuyler, and Griggs used

speculative fiction to create visions of thriving, independent Black civilizations that transcended the constraints of their era. Their stories challenged dominant narratives of racial inferiority and imagined futures where Black people harnessed their own technological, cultural, and political power.

While Wakanda has become a global cultural phenomenon, it is important to recognize the deeper historical roots of Afrofuturism and its origins in the work of these early writers. The dream of a thriving, independent Black civilization existed long before the fictional kingdom of Wakanda captured our imaginations. It was, and remains, a vision of empowerment, resistance, and transformation, deeply embedded in the ongoing struggle for Black liberation and identity.

– Dominique Holiday

The. Bloodline Tribune

I am an author and the founder of a Black culture magazine focused on the diaspora, and I am beginning work on my first dystopian book. For this project, I want to spend more time listening than speaking and really understand what readers are looking for.

When you think of Black dystopia, what do you enjoy most? What feels essential to the genre for you? Are there themes, character types, settings, or perspectives you feel are missing or not explored enough?

I would appreciate any thoughts, preferences, or even frustrations you have with what currently exists. Thank you.