Subject: Nesh beats strikethrough, it would appear. {= )
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Posted on: 2024-02-20 21:35:50 UTC

The point to highlighting the underrepresented is to make people who are often excluded feel seen. The value is in letting real people who have those characteristics know we proudly include them in our world where we can imagine anything. Those of us who are white, straight, and cis don't need help with that; you can't swing a cat without hitting one of us in media.

Well... yeah! I do not think this is in any way a bad thing! I happen to believe that people can and do relate to fictional characters, and "feel seen" (so to speak) for a wide variety of reasons, some of which may be related to intrinsic attributes. Being of a religious minority, I do think I can personally attest to the value that such a characteristic can have in helping one relate to a character and perhaps feel better about oneself. I don't think it's exclusive to the characteristics that you list, though I would say that it is due to people valuing those traits, insofar as it helps someone feel better about themselves. I personally feel no obligation to meet any specific quotas in my writing, mostly because I don't think it's possible to have an ideal representation of reality in fiction. That said, I certainly don't try to limit myself to characters that only match myself, because I am boring and that would be boring. [= )

I feel that "of Color" is rather more of an out-of-universe classification than going by a more specific categorization would be. And it would also be a bit more helpful if one wanted to find someone they would relate to personally, but I guess only 50 agents isn't much to work through, so... eh.

Wait, would Mina count as non-human? I... genuinely am not sure. Gah! This is certainly tricky.

--Ls does not throw cats, he pets them

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