Quote Originally Posted by Copperdragon View Post
Far from what I say. I say you do not have to force every possible diversity into an fictitious work, this isn't denying diversity in D&D or saying everyone in any story must be "male, white, and straight".

I also know it wasn't stated explicitly by anyone, but I pondered "Where does this massive interest come from?" Especially as it started to go beyond "Where are the strong female leaders?" or "Females are underrepresented!"

And I think has something to do with what I wrote. Sure, people are always interested in all topics related to sexuality, but when I read this thread I had the impression it went a bit beyond it (no, I am not judging in any way). To that I replied as someone asked about "if it was that important".

Yes, I know this wasn't about people telling Rich stuff, but I think it was about the metalayer, about what stands behind this discussion. You cannot complain I missed what you said above as I was not talking about it, but if you want you can tell me it all isn't about what I just said (it's only complete in connection with the post you quoted).
now thats what i'm talking about. There shouldn't be any notion that wanting to or thinking there should be non-norm demographics in a story is deliberately putting them in.

You dont force brown people into a story, because there are brown people everywhere(unless they are far away), you dont force women into leadership positions in your story because unless your story has some cultural reason for there not to be they should be in leadership positions anyways. And you dont force gay people into a story because they where always there. And what i was saying with the "white person" metaphor is the fact that when certain demographics that should be occasionally apparent are noticeably absent it seems very odd. Like (like my example), how a world where people who naturally have dark skin dont exist would be weird. Especially in a fantasy world where entire continents of people are forced to be in the sun constantly and thus develop dark skin as a basis.


So yes, assuming you are saying that certain demographics shouldn't be forced into a story....I agree. Because baring some logical reason such as the world being different enough to not include a demographic (which is perfectly acceptable) then some things being non existent is weird.

This whole thing is really no different than people wanting people to write more realistically, with heroes with real flaws that act like normal people and go to the bathroom. And people notice when there are no toilets, when there are no children, when there is no rain except when a character is sad, when there is no dark skinned people in an ancient culture, no gay people when 1 in 5 people can be, when everyone only changes shirts every 2 years.