Other Minority Representation in RPing?

[Pandaskel]

It’s kind of mind boggling to me that, even in RPs, white characters are the majority. Does this mean that most roleplayers are white, or most characters are white?

Do you write characters of races/ethnicities/nationalities that aren’t your own? Why or why not?

 

[rae2nerdy]

EDIT : Expanded my previous post on 2/27

I am a Latina (half-Puerto Rican) raised lily white. So I'm what most people would call "white passing". And when I make characters 99.9% of the time my characters are POC, unless their in a world where there are no human ethnicity period OR being a Caucasian person is relevant to the plot. I do this because as OP mentioned there is a sad lack of diversity and POC (who aren't asian) in roleplays. So I like to mix things up where I can.

I am also aromantic and pretty much all my characters are as well. I just find it an easy way to give my partners realistic expectations of romantic writing. As a lot of times if you tell them "I don't like to write characters falling in love" people act like you're either a romance hating prude or some kind of defective. But if you tell them hey I'm aromantic and I feel more comfortable writing romance from that perspective (provided you explain what aromantic means) they are usually pretty okay.

I will also write heterosexual and gay characters as well sometimes if I wanted to challenge myself (as long as my partner is okay with focusing on platonic relationships or just writing really stilted romance).

As to nationality since I primarily write fantasy stories it rarely comes up. As I'm mostly making up the culture/society from scratch. Even in my more "realistic" worlds (like HP fandoms OR superheroes) typically speaking the nationality isn't as important as whatever magical ability. That said I do tend to set the few roleplays I do in our world in America so I could probably work on expanding that a little

 

[Dark lord steel]

I don't, and it's really because I simply don't know hardly anything about other cultures. All my friends are white aside from one who is half Chinese but she's never been there, so my expose to other cultures there is limited. All my close family is white, so no help there. The internet has been a big help in exploring other cultures, but not to the point where I would kid myself I to thinking I know what it's like to live in those cultures.

My characters are (usually) a tad xenophobic, or they come from a xenophobic culture or background, simply because I find it interesting to develop this particular subject. (It also generally fits into their personality.) To see how they either grow out of this mindset or get further entrenched in it is (for me at least) a part of their character development.

I do however play both genders, but I have far more contact with the other gender than I do with other cultures, so I find this far easier. I often loosely base characters that aren't my gender on someone though to help me write them (this could be a real or fictional person).

My characters are all white and heterosexual, simply because it's what I'm most comfortable with writing. I don't know what it's like to be gay/transgender, and I don't know anyone that is part of that community, so it's not like I have an accurate (as I've often heard people say that the media representation of these groups is wrong) source to draw from.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I don't, and it's really because I simply don't know hardly anything about other cultures. All my friends are white aside from one who is half Chinese but she's never been there, so my expose to other cultures there is limited. All my close family is white, so no help there. The internet has been a big help in exploring other cultures, but not to the point where I would kid myself I to thinking I know what it's like to live in those cultures.

My characters are (usually) a tad xenophobic, or they come from a xenophobic culture or background, simply because I find it interesting to develop this particular subject. (It also generally fits into their personality.) To see how they either grow out of this mindset or get further entrenched in it is (for me at least) a part of their character development.

I do however play both genders, but I have far more contact with the other gender than I do with other cultures, so I find this far easier. I often loosely base characters that aren't my gender on someone though to help me write them (this could be a real or fictional person).

My characters are all white and heterosexual, simply because it's what I'm most comfortable with writing. I don't know what it's like to be gay/transgender, and I don't know anyone that is part of that community, so it's not like I have an accurate (as I've often heard people say that the media representation of these groups is wrong) source to draw from.

If you are interested in expanding your writing repertoire this site is extremely diverse and there are plenty of people who would be happy to give you pointers or their own perspectives. I know there are actually some really informative guides for writing gay characters written by gay individuals themselves online. I can try to find the links and send them in a PM to you if your interested. (I'm also aromantic and am happy to answer questions on that particular side of the LGBTQA community if your interested as well, just send me a pm and I'll do my best to answer your questions)

As for other cultures this is a multinational site so you can always post a thread asking for tips from people in that location on what life is like and some things to look out for culturally.

 

[Onmyoji]

If we're talking about realistic/modern and semi-realistic rp, I usually write characters of the cultures/ethnicities I'm more familiar with.
I'm white and from Europe and most of my characters are white and based on European cultures. I don't feel comfortable writing Americans because I'm not very familiar with way of life there.
Also since childhood I was kinda exposed to Chinese and later Japanese cultures. so *some* of my characters are based on Chinese or Japanese. However, I do find it hard to write some things that I'm not very familiar with - something related to daily life or school for example, as I haven't lived in that environment enough to know everything... Naturally, it makes me hug Wikipedia and other sources to look for specific things. While it's nice and educational, I don't want my hobby become as tedious as work where I need to read tons of materials to make my posts right, so... Yes, I write characters of those cultures but not as often.
And I wouldn't really write a character, let's say, from India or Korea, simply because I don't know much about life there. Yes, Wikipedia exists, but see above. I may try that as a challenge, but not sure it'll go well.

If it's some sort of a fantasy race - yes, I may give the characters features of various cultures. But as it's fantasy, they don't have to be accurate and can just pick whatever I like and blend. I like diversity, I go all out on my fantasy characters. If I want a dark-skinned Shinto priest from tropical jungle, so be it. I'll try to explain how that happened within the given fantasy world, but not with real-life reasons.

 

[Dark lord steel]

If you are interested in expanding your writing repertoire this site is extremely diverse and there are plenty of people who would be happy to give you pointers or their own perspectives. I know there are actually some really informative guides for writing gay characters written by gay individuals themselves online. I can try to find the links and send them in a PM to you if your interested.

As for other cultures this is a multinational site so you can always post a thread asking for tips from people in that location on what life is like and some things to look out for culturally.

I think I could probably learn to write these characters, and thanks for the offer. In all honesty though, I don't hold much interest in exploring these particular attributes for my characters, which is why I've never perused after it.

I like to feel that I can get inside my characters heads and know how they think, so consequently many of my characters share either traits I have or traits from well developed characters. It helps when I write for me to understand what it is to live the life of my characters, and I struggle to think how it must be to live life as an Lgbtqa individual. This is also partially because I am still not overly confident in role playing despite having done it for a while now, and I want my role play to be fun, not feel like a struggle where I find it difficult to relate to the characters.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I think I could probably learn to write these characters, and thanks for the offer. In all honesty though, I don't hold much interest in exploring these particular attributes for my characters, which is why I've never perused after it.

I like to feel that I can get inside my characters heads and know how they think, so consequently many of my characters share either traits I have or traits from well developed characters. It helps when I write for me to understand what it is to live the life of my characters, and I struggle to think how it must be to live life as an Lgbtqa individual. This is also partially because I am still not overly confident in role playing despite having done it for a while now, and I want my role play to be fun, not feel like a struggle where I find it difficult to relate to the characters.

So I see this come up a lot in other threads and if I might ask why do you think that a minority must have a different life experience to you? You said yourself that you have a minority friend in real life and that they don't have any life experiences that are different to your own. So it would follow that the same could be true of roleplay characters.

You can absolutely write a gay character or a character of color with the exact same personality and life experiences as a straight white character. Heck if you made the LGBTQA person bi you wouldn't even have to change the pronouns of their primary love interest. As you can absolutely be Bi and still end up in a loving relationship with a person of the opposite gender. All that would happen is maybe the character would make an off hand comment about finding X person of the same gender attractive as well.

For characters of color again think of your Chinese friend. You could absolutely make someone who is say black or Hispanic and treat them the same way as you would treat someone based on your Chinese friend. They were raised in a community where all they ever knew were white people and no one had a problem with their skin color so they act the same way as all their white friends.

If we're talking about realistic/modern and semi-realistic rp, I usually write characters of the cultures/ethnicities I'm more familiar with.
I'm white and from Europe and most of my characters are white and based on European cultures. I don't feel comfortable writing Americans because I'm not very familiar with way of life there.
Also since childhood I was kinda exposed to Chinese and later Japanese cultures. so *some* of my characters are based on Chinese or Japanese. However, I do find it hard to write some things that I'm not very familiar with - something related to daily life or school for example, as I haven't lived in that environment enough to know everything... Naturally, it makes me hug Wikipedia and other sources to look for specific things. While it's nice and educational, I don't want my hobby become as tedious as work where I need to read tons of materials to make my posts right, so... Yes, I write characters of those cultures but not as often.
And I wouldn't really write a character, let's say, from India or Korea, simply because I don't know much about life there. Yes, Wikipedia exists, but see above. I may try that as a challenge, but not sure it'll go well.

If it's some sort of a fantasy race - yes, I may give the characters features of various cultures. But as it's fantasy, they don't have to be accurate and can just pick whatever I like and blend. I like diversity, I go all out on my fantasy characters. If I want a dark-skinned Shinto priest from tropical jungle, so be it. I'll try to explain how that happened within the given fantasy world, but not with real-life reasons.

I actually made a whole cheat sheet about Japan years ago for a magical girl roleplay. It was so silly as it barely came up but it was fun to talk to different people who lived in Japan and research stuff in all the Japanese tourist websites. Learned a lot of fun new facts.

I think in general I do fantasy so the nationality stuff doesn't come up. But if I do use real world geography I almost always set stuff in America, although ironically usually even then the society is so different it honestly wouldn't make any difference. I just don't know the geography of say England nearly as well as I do of America.

 

[Melpomene]

This has always been confusing to me as well, but I have learned to just shrug it off.

I am half-black, half-white, though I identify as African American since the caucasian side of my family kind of just abandoned the other side and I pretty much look African American as well, haha.

I personally have characters of many races/ethnicities, mostly because that is the most fun to me. Actually, I think the characters I have the least of are the half-black, half-white variety, haha. I really love diversity in my characters, though, so that is why in my fantasy worlds I always try to make something other than the standard European White character. They've just grown old to me (no offence to anyone that writes them, I just mean they grew old to me as a writer of those characters). So, to answer the question, I write characters that are other races/ethnicities than my own and I do it because I find it fun and more invigorating than just keeping with the same old same old.

 

[koldun-noir]

Ah, I'm white but choose to write characters of all races, gender identities, etc.. I feel.. it's wrong not to and besides, I very much enjoy diversity! It would be incredibly dull if we were all the same. I'm a very open person, I also like to expand and try new things. I may not know tons about a certain racial or group culture but I'll do my research! Why? Because why not? I'm also an artist, and I absolutely love drawing different features! It is unfortunate the majority of characters appear white but- it's certainly not all! And for nationalities, accents are fun! So is culture!

 

[Pandaskel]

EDIT : Expanded my previous post on 2/27

I am a Latina (half-Puerto Rican) raised lily white. So I'm what most people would call "white passing". And when I make characters 99.9% of the time my characters are POC, unless their in a world where there are no human ethnicity period OR being a Caucasian person is relevant to the plot. I do this because as OP mentioned there is a sad lack of diversity and POC (who aren't asian) in roleplays. So I like to mix things up where I can.

I am also aromantic and pretty much all my characters are as well. I just find it an easy way to give my partners realistic expectations of romantic writing. As a lot of times if you tell them "I don't like to write characters falling in love" people act like you're either a romance hating prude or some kind of defective. But if you tell them hey I'm aromantic and I feel more comfortable writing romance from that perspective (provided you explain what aromantic means) they are usually pretty okay.

I will also write heterosexual and gay characters as well sometimes if I wanted to challenge myself (as long as my partner is okay with focusing on platonic relationships or just writing really stilted romance).

As to nationality since I primarily write fantasy stories it rarely comes up. As I'm mostly making up the culture/society from scratch. Even in my more "realistic" worlds (like HP fandoms OR superheroes) typically speaking the nationality isn't as important as whatever magical ability. That said I do tend to set the few roleplays I do in our world in America so I could probably work on expanding that a little

It seems pretty annoying that you have to go about not writing romance a specific way to avoid backlash. Then again, 1x1's are oversaturated with romantic plots so that's probably part of it.

I don't, and it's really because I simply don't know hardly anything about other cultures. All my friends are white aside from one who is half Chinese but she's never been there, so my expose to other cultures there is limited. All my close family is white, so no help there. The internet has been a big help in exploring other cultures, but not to the point where I would kid myself I to thinking I know what it's like to live in those cultures.

My characters are (usually) a tad xenophobic, or they come from a xenophobic culture or background, simply because I find it interesting to develop this particular subject. (It also generally fits into their personality.) To see how they either grow out of this mindset or get further entrenched in it is (for me at least) a part of their character development.

I do however play both genders, but I have far more contact with the other gender than I do with other cultures, so I find this far easier. I often loosely base characters that aren't my gender on someone though to help me write them (this could be a real or fictional person).

My characters are all white and heterosexual, simply because it's what I'm most comfortable with writing. I don't know what it's like to be gay/transgender, and I don't know anyone that is part of that community, so it's not like I have an accurate (as I've often heard people say that the media representation of these groups is wrong) source to draw from.

It's interesting that you don't write POC because you can't relate to them because they're not similar to you, but you do write xenophobic characters even though you're (presumably) not xenophobic.

If we're talking about realistic/modern and semi-realistic rp, I usually write characters of the cultures/ethnicities I'm more familiar with.
I'm white and from Europe and most of my characters are white and based on European cultures. I don't feel comfortable writing Americans because I'm not very familiar with way of life there.
Also since childhood I was kinda exposed to Chinese and later Japanese cultures. so *some* of my characters are based on Chinese or Japanese. However, I do find it hard to write some things that I'm not very familiar with - something related to daily life or school for example, as I haven't lived in that environment enough to know everything... Naturally, it makes me hug Wikipedia and other sources to look for specific things. While it's nice and educational, I don't want my hobby become as tedious as work where I need to read tons of materials to make my posts right, so... Yes, I write characters of those cultures but not as often.
And I wouldn't really write a character, let's say, from India or Korea, simply because I don't know much about life there. Yes, Wikipedia exists, but see above. I may try that as a challenge, but not sure it'll go well.

If it's some sort of a fantasy race - yes, I may give the characters features of various cultures. But as it's fantasy, they don't have to be accurate and can just pick whatever I like and blend. I like diversity, I go all out on my fantasy characters. If I want a dark-skinned Shinto priest from tropical jungle, so be it. I'll try to explain how that happened within the given fantasy world, but not with real-life reasons.

Familiarity definitely has to do with it, I'm glad you brought that up. Even if I personally am not a scuba diver and have never been scuba diving, familiarity with the topic can still allow me to write for a scuba diver comfortably and accurately.




I should probably answer my own questions as well. I'm Chicana and mostly play POC. I play mainly latino, east Asian (the other RP character majority race), black, and mixed race. I'm least familiar with Middle Eastern, south and southeast Asian, and European cultures, so I avoid writing them because I doubt I could do it tastefully and accurately. I could absolutely relate to them as characters, of course, the human experience is universal. I just want to be as respectful as possible. I also don't agree with diversity for diversity's sake. I believe we should be telling everybody's stories, not throwing in a Gay Best Friend to pander to an audience.

I remember once I was in a hospital RP and wasn't sure about what condition to give my character and someone suggested the equivalent of "Just make them depressed lol". As a suicide attempt survivor myself, fuck off. So yeah, just making your character black or making your character gay or making your character depressed for the heck of it without it really carrying any weight is just poor writing.

There's also the matter of "who tells your story". For example, Black Panther (the film) was written by black men. Crazy Rich Asians was written by an Asian lady. Moana was written, directed, and produced by white people. Regardless of how respectful, well done, or well researched something is, I strongly believe minorities should be telling their story instead of having a white guy tell it for them. That's just my personal belief. So I don't blame white RPers for not writing POC. Y'all are fine, don't worry about it.

 

[Dark lord steel]

So I see this come up a lot in other threads and if I might ask why do you think that a minority must have a different life experience to you? You said yourself that you have a minority friend in real life and that they don't have any life experiences that are different to your own. So it would follow that the same could be true of roleplay characters.

You can absolutely write a gay character or a character of color with the exact same personality and life experiences as a straight white character. Heck if you made the LGBTQA person bi you wouldn't even have to change the pronouns of their primary love interest. As you can absolutely be Bi and still end up in a loving relationship with a person of the opposite gender. All that would happen is maybe the character would make an off hand comment about finding X person of the same gender attractive as well.

For characters of color again think of your Chinese friend. You could absolutely make someone who is say black or Hispanic and treat them the same way as you would treat someone based on your Chinese friend. They were raised in a community where all they ever knew were white people and no one had a problem with their skin color so they act the same way as all their white friends.

I guess it seems kind of disrespectful to their community and culture to rush in as an outsider and say they don't have a different identity to us, that we're all the same and would all react the same to a situation.

My friend isn't really what I'd class as a minority (she doesn't either, she just says she's British). She's only been raised by her Irish parent and she looks a lot like him, so people don't look at her and immediately realise she's Chinese. Most people assume she's eastern European so no one really bats an eyelid at it, we also live in quite a calm neighbourhood. Neither of us have the slightest clue what it's like to live in China, what the culture is (aside from the basic outlines) or what the Chinese people as a whole are like.

I know these people aren't aliens, and we are still human, but could you seriously look at someone half way round the world and say you truly know what it's like to live in that society without having been there for any substantial amount of time? I know I couldn't, and it sort of seems insulting to say that every character would be the same default white European despite their actual background.

From what little I've seen of the LBGTQA culture (one of my old friends declared themselves trans and although our friendship dissolved soon after that, I was granted some insight into their experiences first) it is significantly different to the norm straight lifestyle. When I suggested to my old friend that they really weren't that different to us, they got pretty annoyed, and said they'd had completely different experiences to what the rest of the group had gone through, that it'd been much harder for them.

Also, why break a norm if it adds nothing new to the character? If they are going to be the same as the default character anyway, why make the change?

 

[koldun-noir]

If I might add to my post, I do not create POC OCs, mentally ill, or LGBT OCs just for the sake of it. It has nothing to do with their persona, it's just who I think they are. I will continue to learn more about things I'm unaware of in specific cultures, and do my best to remain respectful. I have a mental disorder myself and am part of the LGBT community, and while I have experience in that- being African American or Asian, I do not. But- I don't see why I can't write them, especially if I educate myself. I tend to not combine race/sexuality with persona again- that's just who they are.

 

[Dark lord steel]

It's interesting that you don't write POC because you can't relate to them because they're not similar to you, but you do write xenophobic characters even though you're (presumably) not xenophobic.

I don't write people of colour because I think they have rich and diverse cultures that I don't understand what it's like to be a part of. It seems demeaning to run in as an outsider and pretend to know what it's like to be a part of their culture or society when you're not. I find it interesting to write at least partially xenophobic characters because it allows for a chance to explore why they are wrong. My characters often start with very hypocritical viewpoints, which over time shift to be more reasonable and open minded as they realise the flaws in their logic.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Also, why break a norm if it adds nothing new to the character? If they are going to be the same as the default character anyway, why make the change?

I think there is a few different misunderstandings running in tandem here. Culture is not the same as Ethnicity. I am Hispanic. My father's family is from Puerto Rico. I have never been to Puerto Rico, did not grow up around any Hispanic people, and do not speak a lick of Spanish. I was raised in primarily white communities and have a fairly white life experience. That does not change the fact that my ethnicity is Hispanic. But it does mean that culturally speaking I'm pretty much white.

And that's not a magical unicorn scenario either. Plenty of people of a variety of ethnicity live outside the cultural centers of those ethnicity. You don't have to live in China to be Chinese. You don't have to live in Mexico to be Mexican.

That was the point I was trying to make. A lot of the time it's how/where your character was raised that determines their life experiences not the color of their skin and their sexuality. It's the same with gender. The degree to which men and women differ will depend on how their raised and the society they grew up in not necessarily the genitalia they were born with.

 

[Dark lord steel]

I think there is a few different misunderstandings running in tandem here. Culture is not the same as Ethnicity. I am hispanic. My father's family is from Puerto Rico. I have never been to Puerto Rico, did not grow up around any hispanic people, and do not speak a lick of spanish. I was raised in primarily white communities and have a fairly white life experience. That does not change the fact that my ethnicity is hispanic. But it does mean that culturally speaking I'm pretty much white.

And that's not a magical unicorn scenario either. Plenty of people of a variety of ethnicities live outside the cultural centers of those ethnicities. You don't have to live in China to be Chinese. You don't have to live in Mexico to be Mexican.

That was the point I was trying to wait. A lot of the time it's how/where your character was raised that determines their life experiences not the color of their skin and their sexuality. It's the same with gender. The degree to which men and women differ will depend on how thier raised and the society they grew up in not necessarily the genitalia they were born with.

You have a point, but it feels like an unnecessary thing to do. It's almost like getting a sign and waving it around, going "look how diverse I am, I have an ethnic/gay character". If it isn't going to effect that character, I can't help but feel it seems bolted on.

 

[koldun-noir]

You have a point, but it feels like an unnecessary thing to do. It's almost like getting a sign and waving it around, going "look how diverse I am, I have an ethnic/gay character". If it isn't going to effect that character, I can't help but feel it seems bolted on.

Not.. everybody represents their character(s) like that, and as I pointed out- it's just who they are. Why does there have to be some big reason behind someone's race or sexuality?

 

[rae2nerdy]

Not.. everybody represents their character(s) like that, and as I pointed out- it's just who they are. Why does there have to be some big reason behind someone's race or sexuality?

Bless you for saying what I was trying to say and so much more elegantly.

 

[Melpomene]

You have a point, but it feels like an unnecessary thing to do. It's almost like getting a sign and waving it around, going "look how diverse I am, I have an ethnic/gay character". If it isn't going to effect that character, I can't help but feel it seems bolted on.

Well, let me play devil's advocate and say: Then why not make them of color if it doesn't matter or add anything? There doesn't have to be a huge reason behind it. And it is completely okay if you want to only play white characters, that is just what I think about it.

 

[Dark lord steel]

Not.. everybody represents their character(s) like that, and as I pointed out- it's just who they are. Why does there have to be some big reason behind someone's race or sexuality?

It just feels kind of disrespectful to assume people from other cultures and sexualities would all be very similar, that's all.

 

[rae2nerdy]

You have a point, but it feels like an unnecessary thing to do. It's almost like getting a sign and waving it around, going "look how diverse I am, I have an ethnic/gay character". If it isn't going to effect that character, I can't help but feel it seems bolted on.

I wasn't arguing for you to change your characters. I was just trying to clarify I misunderstanding I think you have with what it means to be a different sexuality or ethnicity. You seem to think it means that the person is totally different in life experience to a straight white person. And I was merely trying to point out that doesn't have to be the case.

 

[koldun-noir]

Bless you for saying what I was trying to say and so much more.

Haha, sure. It's like.. I'm bi but- do I have a reason? No. It's just who I am!

Well, let me play devil's advocate and say: Then why not make them of color if it doesn't matter or add anything? There doesn't have to be a huge reason behind it. And it is completely okay if you want to only play white characters, that is just what I think about it.

I also agree with this, it's okay to play white characters but.. there shouldn't be a big reason to play somebody of color or etc..

It just feels kind of disrespectful to assume people from other cultures and sexualities would all be very similar, that's all.

How.. is it assuming? I already claimed I like to educate myself and don't tie persona with it.

 

[Dark lord steel]

I wasn't arguing for you to change your characters. I was just trying to clarify I misunderstanding I think you have with what it means to be a different sexuality or ethnicity. You seem to think it means that the person is totally different in life experience to a straight white person. And I was merely trying to point out that doesn't have to be the case.

I know it doesn't have to be the case, but it feels like a really kind of missed opportunity to explore something very deep if you're just going to make them the same as your white heterosexual characters.

 

[Pandaskel]

I think there is a few different misunderstandings running in tandem here. Culture is not the same as Ethnicity. I am Hispanic. My father's family is from Puerto Rico. I have never been to Puerto Rico, did not grow up around any Hispanic people, and do not speak a lick of Spanish. I was raised in primarily white communities and have a fairly white life experience. That does not change the fact that my ethnicity is Hispanic. But it does mean that culturally speaking I'm pretty much white.

And that's not a magical unicorn scenario either. Plenty of people of a variety of ethnicity live outside the cultural centers of those ethnicity. You don't have to live in China to be Chinese. You don't have to live in Mexico to be Mexican.

That was the point I was trying to make. A lot of the time it's how/where your character was raised that determines their life experiences not the color of their skin and their sexuality. It's the same with gender. The degree to which men and women differ will depend on how their raised and the society they grew up in not necessarily the genitalia they were born with.

I wish there was a way to highlight posts, I think this contribution is a huge part of the conversation.


Writing someone of a different skin color doesn't mean they will have a different experience to you. There are poor black people and poor white people. There are outdoorsy Mexicans and outdoorsy Armenians. There are Filipino-Americans who are fluent in Tagalog and English, and there are others who can only speak English.

Writing for a different skin-color is not the problem. It is writing for a different up-bringing.

 

[koldun-noir]

I know it doesn't have to be the case, but it feels like a really kind of missed opportunity to explore something very deep if you're just going to make them the same as your white heterosexual characters.

That's the point, you can be gay or a poc and be just like some other person that is not. Why does it have to be so different to be considered LGBT or poc?? If you are some snowflake with the sign screaming: "Look how gay my character is!" or "Look how black mine is!" That'd be different but- in the end.. it really doesn't need to matter so much!

 

[Pandaskel]

I know it doesn't have to be the case, but it feels like a really kind of missed opportunity to explore something very deep if you're just going to make them the same as your white heterosexual characters.

Here's the question: Why do you consider white straight characters the default?

That's not just a question for you and I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. It's actually a very common belief. Anytime a TV show or movie has a protagonist who is female, a POC, or LGBT, people automatically assume it's special, different, representational, or pandering. But that is based on an assumption that a straight white male is the normal default, making everyone else not normal.