cookingwithroxy:

sindri42:

ikazon:

ironicallyxspiders:

when people defend the “Cis white guy is default” thing like “He’s meant to be an everyman we can all relate to and project on!” kindly remind them the largest ethnic group in the WORLD is Han Chinese and the highest gender percentage fluctuates so if you want an ACTUAL  “default” you want a 40 year old chinese person whose gender changes from year to year.  

#give us the middle-aged gender fluid Chinese protagonist that we can all relate to and project on (via @mr-and-mr-pavus)

Nobody is arguing that the character is supposed to represent the majority, or the statistical average. They’re saying that if you’re making an ‘everyman’ character, you cannot allow who/what they start their journey as to be the focus of the audience. And if writers made the protagonist black, or chinese, or gay, or trans, or even just female then people would act as if that was the sum total of the character and nothing else mattered.

Nathan Drake and Laura Croft do the exact same thing in the exact same circumstances, but in a conversation about Uncharted gender never comes up at all while in a conversation about Tomb Raider the first topic, for good or ill, is always going to be the fact that Laura is female. Guybrush Threepwood is allowed to be a moron who lucks his way through the hero business, but if he was anything other than a cis white man you’d be up in arms about how racist/misogynistic/transphobic the Monkey Island games are. Arthur Dent, Bilbo Baggins, Doctor Watson… none of them could ever be ‘just some guy’ in the mind of the reader if they started out with a single character trait outside of what is expected.

Don’t get me wrong, diverse characters and especially diverse protagonists and POV characters are super important and a good idea under most circumstances, but to put somebody under the “default” heading you actually have to meet incredibly strict requirements to avoid standing out at all.

The largest ethnic group in the world is Han Chinese, but that doesn’t mean much because the nonsense I write in english is not actually aimed at a GLOBAL audience.

Seriously? That argument has always been the WORST one I’ve ever fucking heard, because if ‘Oh you might as well make them an everyman on any global scale’ then guess what fucko, the ‘everyman/woman’ will NEVER be gay.

EVER.

But if I’m fucking well writing for a queer corner of tumblr nobody’s gonna fucking question my bi female protagonist because I’m writing for THAT SELECT AREA.

I am really goddamn tired of people going ‘well this wasn’t made for ME so I should have a right to complain!’ Because jesus fuck Rocky Horror said it best.