"Diveristy" in writing - The 50/50 Rule and More

[DatBepisTho]

Ah, yes.

Spoiler

Janey Springs is another homosexual character. She's supposed to be a "black marketeer with a heart of gold", but it may as well be an afterthought to this walking social commentary of a character. Within the first five minutes of meeting her, she brings up and hammers in the fact that she's not into guys, and how a guy got really rude to her about it.

Granted, there are interesting things about her that I like, such how she got mauled by the creatures of the moon and lost someone close to her (presumably a girlfriend) to said creatures (I did enjoy the mission where you collect her echologs), but her intro just soured my opinion of her. If it weren't for that, the fact that she hits on every third female character (and ultimately starts dating one of them, Athena) would have been much less annoying.

And then there's that one mission where Torgue rants about how the concept of the "friendzone" is misogynistic...
At least he gets told to shut up.

Torque is great though and can get away with it. HIS CHEST IS HUGE.

Which reminds me; In our day and age of SJWisms and "diversity" checklists, I miss the fact that characters can't low-key comment on something without the terminology having a soured milk sjw-taste to the dialogue. Say, like an educated slave trying to get the others to rise up and join the Railroad with a Frederick Douglas-level speech of badass inspiration. Now? Comes across as hella preachy because of the same sjws that scream for the author's blood. (Because the privileged shitlord had the audacity to have implied that 1700s-1800s blacks were often poor, uneducated simpletons.)

 

[MW 002]

Honestly?

Fuck trying to diversify characters for the sake of appeasing the very people who most likely won't read your works. Unless you can be low key about it, you'll have SJWs bitch regardless if your cast is diverse or not. They're an impossible bunch to please and should not be catered to, just as the Ghostbusters film proved to us this summer.

Now there's nothing wrong with diversity in a story as long as it makes sense within the context of the story (for example, it would make sense if the story takes place in a multicultural setting- but makes relatively no sense in medival Europe unless you have the characters travelling the world for some reason).

 

[Hummingbird]

I was looking at a TMS article on the new Champions comic from Marvel (it's got an Arab Muslim, an Asian, a green and red android, a Hispanic and one white guy) in the comments there were two people that were asking where the gays were. They'll still want more.

 

[TyrannoNinja]

I think diversity in fictional media is something to incorporate if you earnestly want to do it yourself, not simply to please some click-bait ideologues out there. Besides, there are only so many marginalized groups you can include in a story, maybe even an infinite quality (because humans have a habit of marginalizing out-groups for various reasons).

 

[Ravenor]

Anyone who tries to force writers or artists to fill in a "diversity quota" in their work can fuck right off.

Yes, it's nice to have diverse characters, but that quickly falls apart when it's obvious that said characters only exist to pander to SJWs (who won't even read/support the work, anyway). These characters always end up uninteresting and soulless because their only characteristics are their gender/race/sexuality/whatever.

Good diversity happens when you don't add characters for diversity's sake. The way I see it, personality and characteristics should be thought of first, and then you can focus on things like race and sexuality. This is especially important if your story is set in a specific time period. Does it make sense to have an openly gay character in medieval Europe? Of course not.

I write purely for myself (fiction and non fiction ) as a hobby and I developed a rule for myself about sexuality unless it's a issue directly relating to a characters development don't fucking mention it, not because I can't write gay, etc from my personal experience unless your a tumblrite or involved in gender / sexual politics not everything relates to what's in your pant's, or who you want to shag 1.

I'm really into sci-fi and to be honest I hate it when you find a author who's willing to pander to this crowd even as a experiment (and this is somthing I have seen happen more and more) - There it's one thing to have a diverse cast hell it's fucking natural but it's another thing to cram in a Black, Lesbian, Scientist who happens to belong to a religion that's a Islam analog that's witty charming, and always on hand to provide the right answer or sarcastic quip at the right moment and when that kind of crap happens and they person doesn't seem to fit it stands out.

1 = I wrote a 2 page backstory for a 3rd grade technician who was brilliant but lazy as hell who in the final seconds of her life realised She could have been so much more if it wasn't so lazy and how not the drink, the drugs, multitude of sexual partners that had fucked up her life it was her lethargy, and that while her dyeing was a waste of a life it was a life not well spent - and before you ask she died in a industrial accident that could have been prevented by my anti hero who was getting trashed off alcohol brewed illicitly who was looking over her diary log's falling in love with her.

 

[50K Death March]

I think if you are writing a character and they naturally start to become something in your mind then it's fine to roll with that as it lets the character breath. If you're trying too hard to slam diversity into your writing you could actually stunt a really natural character coming out.

Granted I write only for myself and mostly for Pen and Paper but when I write back stories to flesh out my characters and give to the GM/ST. If it feels right for them to fall into the diversity spectrum while I'm researching or writing I'll think about how well I can portray that. I'll also thing about whether I can do it without falling into stereotypes or goofing up. I'd apply the same to any character though.

tl;dr If it feels right for them to be a trans-man space lizard, go ahead, if it feels contrived don't do it.