Representation is important, actually.

I always hated being Scottish. I always denied my connection my country; I had a lot of internalised xenophobia, and thought that I was almost lesser than people from more ‘posh’ countries like England. I saw Scotland as a brutish, rude, undignified country and I hated our stereotypes and how we all acted. I like being posh, classy, dignified; I didn’t think that I could fully be that due to the fact that I wasn’t English. I didn’t like our poets, our culture, our kilts. I barely paid attention to my nationality and when I did it was in jealousy and hatred. 

And I felt that way until last year, when I discovered The Glass Scientists. Quite the mediocre comic inspired by Jekyll & Hyde, but I really liked it and still do (I have all 3 books in hardback.) The main character, Henry Jekyll of course, made me actually enjoy being Scottish. He was dignified, he was ‘posh’, and he was my nationality. He talked in Scots in college and he sung Scottish songs, and he had a little terrier pet. Since I liked him, it made me confront my own nationality. Slowly I started actually liking where I was from. He helped me see that being Scottish wasn’t actually that bad and is honestly very beautiful, and nowadays I’m very proud of where I’m from. 

There are some problems in that book — like how they called Jekyll speaking in another LANGUAGE (Scots) an ‘accent’ — but it overall did really help me. This isn’t meant to be some advertisement or cringe story or anything I just wanted to share my own experience with representation.

Other characters have helped me discover/accept myself too, like how Victor Frankenstein makes me feel better about my anxiety attacks and anemia, and Viktor from Arcane makes me feel better about my chronic leg pain. Representation is so important and if you’re making anything you are going to publish I beg of you to make a diverse set of characters. It helps a lot and it helps to normalise every group being equal.