See, there's so much in D'WARD's 1890's that might seem racist or whatever, but really isn't meant to be. Quite the opposite. It's all about overturning stereotypes, mainly by playing into them, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Looking at Joe's trivia note, it seems a bit, I dunno, condescending or something, to say Joe and Peacie are best friends. It's not like I remember what I was thinking when I wrote that, but it seems natural, considering both characters had benefitted from Lucas Wayne's charity. And as much as I like to make this an anachronistic world, the truth is there was prejudice in the world I made up, and being a minority was the kind of thing that would possibly make charity more likely to be necessary. So I imagine they would have met through him, in some way. And of course, Joe and Peacie now both hold important positions on Wayne's local board of trustees.

Then, there's one of my perceived cliches, about blacksmiths being black. I dunno how much of a trend that actually is in fiction, but it certainly happened a fair amount (for example, Robert E from Dr. Quinn).

D'WARD's 1890's