Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[Themrys]

Two events that have likely shaped my history on this issue:

1.) At one point in the past, I did a very short-lived comic for Wizards of the Coast called "Five Foot Steps." Unlike OOTS, it took place in the real world, among a group of D&D players. The cast consisted of two white men, two white females, a black man, and a brown-skinned man with non-specified ethnicity (who happened to also be in a wheelchair). Almost the exact same breakdown as the Order, if you happen to read V as female. Only one character, one of the white men, had any portion of their sexuality discussed during the comic's five-page run (and he was straight).

The reaction, universally, was that the cast was ham-handedly diverse; that obviously, Wizards had forced me to include people of color and the differently-abled because they were a huge corporation and had to be politically correct. This was not true—they gave me no input whatsoever on the content of the strip. But the very existence of a group of D&D players with three races in it was enough to confuse people.

That made me angry and annoyed, and I resolved to bring even greater racial balance to OOTS from that point on, just to prove the point. Unfortunately, I didn't have such a learning experience with LGBT inclusion. In fact, I had almost the opposite...

Shocking. It must be very disappointing to have people think one would not include differently coloured people and disabled people unless forced to do so.

Is there any reason why you refer to the female characters as "females", while referring to the male characters as "men"? You might want to change that, as some people think it's sexist.


@blauregen: So what? Let them have difficulties with identification.
As a straight woman, I could go "ewww, gay cooties!" every time the narrator describes a woman in sexual terms, or swoons for a woman, or kisses a woman, and so on and so forth.
However, I don't, and I expect the same from men.

Edit:

Actually, I like Miko, and don't get why people hate her so much. Sure, she did something evil, but so does Redcloak, not to mention Xykon. And Tarquin. And Malack.

And Miko didn't even want to do something evil, so ...