Hoo boy. Okay. How do I really start this? I might as well be honest and clear my throat for posterity. Hello there. This is Zephyr-Mun, and when I created Zephyr, it was during time where I didn’t value representation as much as I do now. I’m a black and Cherokee cis gay man, and I drew mostly upon a Romani heritage for Zephyr. I figured, with the idea of Homo Magi as a thing in the DC Universe, that Zephyr would come from a blended family of a white father and a Romani mother, and I wouldn’t have to think about that too much, because I grew up with shows like Buffy and Charmed showing the struggles of pretty white people facing against the supernatural. I thought that Zephyr being mixed would be...enough, for lack of a better term. However, I realize as I have grown older and I wish to revamp the character, as it were, that it would be rather disingenuous to me as a roleplayer to not revamp Zephyr’s heritage.

I’ve spent the past few years playing queer people of color. I’ve found myself playing black characters, as that’s who I am, and that’s what I’ve found most comfortable to me. I’ve grown to a place where nearly all of my characters, whether on RPG streams or just playing regular games are black, because I’ve tried to get myself away from this idea that spaces of supernatural fiction are widely dominated by white people. The idea that you have to have a white majority cast in supernatural urban fiction to get any sort of traction, like Buffy or Angel or any of things that I grew up with.

When it comes to Zephyr, I had a bit of trouble with him. I added Romani heritage to give a little something that I didn’t fully understand, and I have found that one of my tropes when it comes to characters was having someone come from a blended Black and Romani family. I’ve portrayed that to the best of my ability on a RPG stream, and I’ve tried to do the same with Zephyr, as he came from a scripted audio series that I have been trying to reboot and develop.

Moving forward, I’m gonna change the icon that I use for Zephyr. I want him to be in this revamped space not because I want to be trendy with adding color to characters, but to feel more honest to how I envision him now. Time and experience changes you, and if there anything that I’ve done that insult any follower of mine that is a part of the cultures that Zephyr belongs to, I wholeheartedly apologize, because I don’t want to hurt any of you.

Thank you for joining me on this ride as I reconsider and reconcile a lot of things with this character, and I hope that this young mage that I portray still interests those who I’ve interacted with recently. I hope that this year can be a year for reflection, and revamping, if need be. Zephyr’s new look is below.