Which Franchise has the most Diversity?

[Flickerdart]

Well there weren't any white people in ancient Egypt either, and that hasn't stopped anyone yet.

We can't really say that for sure - Ancient Egyptians had seafaring vessels and geographic knowledge of Greece and Italy. They practiced both international trade and slavery. We can't say there were no white people at all in Ancient Egypt during the three thousand years of its history.

[shadow_archmagi]

We can't really say that for sure - Ancient Egyptians had seafaring vessels and geographic knowledge of Greece and Italy. They practiced both international trade and slavery. We can't say there were no white people at all in Ancient Egypt during the three thousand years of its history.

probably not their gods tho

[jere7my]

We can't really say that for sure - Ancient Egyptians had seafaring vessels and geographic knowledge of Greece and Italy. They practiced both international trade and slavery. We can't say there were no white people at all in Ancient Egypt during the three thousand years of its history.

Ancient Egypt was pretty diverse: full of Greeks, Persians, southern Africans, western Africans, Romans, and what-have-you, as traders, mercenaries, emissaries, slaves, etc. It's certainly possible to have stories that include any of them set in ancient Egypt, though of course the bulk of Egyptians were, well, Egyptian. Plenty of room for creativity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore..._ancient_Egypt

No Chinese people, as far as I know.

[Dienekes]

Ancient Egypt was pretty diverse: full of Greeks, Persians, southern Africans, western Africans, Romans, and what-have-you, as traders, mercenaries, emissaries, slaves, etc. It's certainly possible to have stories that include any of them set in ancient Egypt, though of course the bulk of Egyptians were, well, Egyptian. Plenty of room for creativity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore..._ancient_Egypt

No Chinese people, as far as I know.

How ancient we talking here? Because the Ptolemy family were Macedonians and their court was filled with Macedonians and Greeks. It'd make perfect sense to have a European filled court if you ever want to do a story about Cleopatra.

Sorry, I know this isn't really relevant. I just remember someone whining when in the tv show Rome the actress portraying Cleopatra wasn't African. Still makes me chuckle.

[Nerd-o-rama]

How ancient we talking here? Because the Ptolemy family were Macedonians and their court was filled with Macedonians and Greeks. It'd make perfect sense to have a European filled court if you ever want to do a story about Cleopatra.

Sorry, I know this isn't really relevant. I just remember someone whining when in the tv show Rome the actress portraying Cleopatra wasn't African. Still makes me chuckle.

Ancient Egypt and Hellenized Classical Egypt were two very different places, I'll agree with that. Post-Arabic Egypt even more so.

[Liquor Box]

GTA5 is very diverse - multiple ethnicities, plenty of females and some non-hetero characters.

[Serpentine]

Looking on my shelves for good ones, and getting a bit distressed by how little diversity there is even there other than Tamora Pierce. Hunger Games is okay, I think? I think Anne McCaffrey is reasonably good? At least she has a very strong mix of male and female characters. I know there was at least one prominent character in Dragon's Dawn who was explicitly of a Chinese background. By the time of the "present day" turns up, I'm not sure that there are any distinct ethnicities on Pern - I think the original colony was too small to maintain discrete populations. Could be wrong, though, anyone remember? I feel like there might've been a couple of gay and/or possibly asexual characters (and one explicitly asexual dragon).
Oh! John Marsden. He's pretty decent. At least as many female characters as male, and diversity within what sort of female characters. For example, the Tomorrow series has a kick-arse ****-kicking country girl; a conservative, moral, resolute religious girl; and a prissy girly-girl, all of whom contribute in their own ways. I'm pretty sure at least one character is Aboriginal, too, which is unusual, and I think one was Japanese and another possibly Lebanese or something like that, but I'm not sure. I can't remember whether he has any non-straight characters, but I'd actually be pretty surprised if he didn't. He does also have quite a lot of diversity in social class and wealth, though.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I don't know most of those, but Hunger Games is pretty well known for having an ethnically diverse cast which people then freaked out over being presented even partially accurately in the film versions (specifically the character of Rue).

GTA5 is very diverse - multiple ethnicities, plenty of females and some non-hetero characters.

I am wishing I had played GTA5 because I would like to know whether this is accurate or, like most earlier GTA games, it's a game filled with a rainbow cornucopia of ethnic and sexual stereotypes.

[Cristo Meyers]

I am wishing I had played GTA5 because I would like to know whether this is accurate or, like most earlier GTA games, it's a game filled with a rainbow cornucopia of ethnic and sexual stereotypes.

Little bit of both. Well, okay, one or two full characters and then the cornucopia comes in.

The black member of the PC Triad (CJ? Name escapes me...) is a pretty interesting character on his own, and some of the supporting cast in his personal arc are too, but then you start seeing the usual GTA over-the-top stereotypes.

Though I did stop playing when the game turned into a full-on torture sim, so maybe that changed further into the game.

[Psyren]

I'd have to say Sense8 as that is the whole point.

I'd really be interested in the answer to this question focused on anime myself. Bleach is pretty up there (ethnicity, gender, age, and sexuality even if it's only lesbians) and I can't think of too many other examples that come close, especially not mainstream ones.

Really why should we care?

You cared enough to post

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'd really be interested in the answer to this question focused on anime myself. Bleach is pretty up there (ethnicity, gender, age, and sexuality even if it's only lesbians) and I can't think of too many other examples that come close, especially not mainstream ones.

Black Lagoon's pretty good, I think?

A lot of sci fi anime also makes sure to grab people from a variety of ethnic and national backgrounds and then proceeds to draw all of them basically the same way. Gundam 00 was on point in some regards with its multinational protagonist team of Kurdish Guy, Asiatic Russian Guy, White Irish Guy (who dies), and Artificial Human...identifies as a Guy. The show also featured two great female commanders and one female enemy ace whose character didn't get ruined until the rest of the show did. Sexualities are largely up in the air whenever they're implied not to be straight, as is par for the course with anime. Main negative points here come from a lack of female protagonist pilots - especially since you could have told almost the same story with Feldt stepping up as Lockon's replacement rather than Suddenly Twin, and Somarie does all of nothing once she joins the good guys - and the overemphasis on the Season 2 bad guys' sexual ambiguity as a point of "alienness". EDIT: oh right, and dissociative identity disorder still doesn't work that way, fiction.

Also introducing a female character 3/4 of the way through the show just to have a tragic love story that gets wrapped up in one episode. I love you, Anew, but you're everything that's wrong with Gundam's treatment of women.

tl;dr you're more likely to get ethnic diversity in anime than non-exploitative treatment of women or minority sexualities.

[ben-zayb]

I'd really be interested in the answer to this question focused on anime myself. Bleach is pretty up there (ethnicity, gender, age, and sexuality even if it's only lesbians) and I can't think of too many other examples that come close, especially not mainstream ones.

Weren't Yumichika's and Charlotte's explictly stated? At least "Reina de Rosa" looks clear to me.

In terms of anime diversity but also relative to character depth, I'd give it to One Piece. While RL racial diversity isn't too much (but it's still more diverse compared to many mainstream anime), the fictional racial diversity and socio-economic caste are massive and even takes center-stage in issues of various plots, which is expected since the World Government with the status quo that it upholds is the antagonist for the most part. Age and body types are pretty diverse, too, even within just the main characters. Downsides were cases where homosexuality gets inserted to be played for laughs, although earlier in the story one of the most beloved "honorary" crewmate is an Okama.

[Gnoman]

Though I did stop playing when the game turned into a full-on torture sim, so maybe that changed further into the game.

It's important to note that this happened exactly once, while you're being forced to cooperate by a corrupt and villainous government agent, and the sequence can be mostly skipped if you just Google who you're supposed to shoot. It's a typical GTA ham-fisted political statement, but it is not a recurring element or played in any way as a good thing.

[TheThan]

Diversity is important because it is empowering to more people.

Soooo We’re supposed to be color blind, ethnicity blind, gender identity blind, sexual preference blind unless it has to do with making people feel better about themselves? That sounds hypocritical to me. I mean if we aren’t color/ethnic/gender identity/sexual preference blind any other time then we’re a bunch of racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes right?

Anyway I still think X-men wins. Off the top of my head we have

• Americans from all over the USA, including but not limited to Hawaii, Alaska, New York, New jersey, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, California, Louisiana, Arizona and Massachusetts.
• multiple American Ethnicities including but not limited to Cajun, African American, Jewish, Native American (Navajo, Cheyenne), Chinese American
• numerous races including but not limited to: African, Asian, Caucasian, Latino
• numerous nationalities including but not limited to: United States of America, Japan, Russia, Canadian, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, Vietnam, Brazil, Australia, Afghanistan
• various religious groups including but not limited to: Muslim, catholic, Jewish, vague mystics, straight up occult practitioners (magic users) and Christians (I assume, I don’t recall anyone being defined as such but it’s an easy default)
• LGBT characters including gay men and women, and even several gender fluid shapeshifters
• Aliens (from space)
• A dragon
• A clone
• at least one cyborg
• a robot (artificial intelligence)
• time travelers of all sorts
• dimension hoppers of all sorts
• disabled people

[digiman619]

Anyway I still think X-men wins. Off the top of my head we have

• Americans from all over the USA, including but not limited to Hawaii, Alaska, New York, New jersey, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, California, Louisiana, Arizona and Massachusetts.
• multiple American Ethnicities including but not limited to Cajun, African American, Jewish, Native American (Navajo, Cheyenne), Chinese American
• numerous races including but not limited to: African, Asian, Caucasian, Latino
• numerous nationalities including but not limited to: United States of America, Japan, Russia, Canadian, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, Vietnam, Brazil, Australia, Afghanistan
• various religious groups including but not limited to: Muslim, catholic, Jewish, vague mystics, straight up occult practitioners (magic users) and Christians (I assume, I don’t recall anyone being defined as such but it’s an easy default)
• LGBT characters including gay men and women, and even several gender fluid shapeshifters
• Aliens (from space)
• A dragon
• A clone
• at least one cyborg
• a robot (artificial intelligence)
• time travelers of all sorts
• dimension hoppers of all sorts
• disabled people

I think I know who most of those are based on those descriptions. Though if they're from after 2000 or so, I might not recognize them.

[ufo]

But did you think about that actually diversity is bad?!

Haha, I love the internet.

Sorry, I'm drunk.

[Kitten Champion]

Christians (I assume, I don’t recall anyone being defined as such but it’s an easy default)

Nightcrawler. Actually one of the better devoutly Christian characters in pop culture. I mean outside of the obvious irony of looking devilish but adhering to a strong Christian faith, he was often used pretty capably to express how his faith gave him strength in the face of monstrous hate without succumbing to hatred in return all without turning him into someone who's completely defined as the Christian character.

Of course, then the Ultimate universe reduced him to a myopic homophobe, because why not?

[digiman619]

Nightcrawler. Actually one of the better devoutly Christian characters in pop culture. I mean outside of the obvious irony of looking devilish but adhering to a strong Christian faith, he was often used pretty capably to express how his faith gave him strength in the face of monstrous hate without succumbing to hatred in return all without turning him into someone who's completely defined as the Christian character.

I mean, he's obviously a Christian character. That's why a supervillian had a plan to make him the Pope.

Yes, really. Uncanny X-Men #432-424, Look it up if you don't believe me.

[Kitten Champion]

I mean, he's obviously a Christian character. That's why a supervillian had a plan to make him the Pope.

Yes, really. Uncanny X-Men #432-424, Look it up if you don't believe me.

I don't believe you. Believing you would mean admitting Austen's run exists, and I'm not in a stage of my life where I'm ready to do that.

[TheThan]

I actually separated catholic and Christian faiths because, well, they are different. It doesn’t take a whole lot of research to figure that out. Anyway that’s a religious topic so it’s best suited elsewhere.

As for whether diversity is good or bad, really it doesn’t matter as long as that franchise makes money and continues and its audience is happy.

As for me, I prefer diversity to be a natural occurrence. I’d rather an interesting character that happens to be X,Y and Z than one that’s created just to appeal or pander to a specific audience. Those sorts of characters are usually one note characters that don’t last long because there’s not much substance to them to begin with.

[jere7my]

I actually separated catholic and Christian faiths because, well, they are different. It doesn’t take a whole lot of research to figure that out. Anyway that’s a religious topic so it’s best suited elsewhere.

The word you want is Protestant.

As for me, I prefer diversity to be a natural occurrence. I’d rather an interesting character that happens to be X,Y and Z than one that’s created just to appeal or pander to a specific audience.

That's great. Unfortunately, when creators put in characters who just happen to be gay, or black, or female, the internet erupts in full surround sound bigot-o-rama. The press asked J.J. Abrams at a party whether Star Wars would ever have any gay characters; he said "That'd be cool, sure"; thousands of Facebook comments erupted with "Why can't we keep sexuality out of Star Wars?" and "Why can't we keep Star Wars kid-friendly?" and "I'm boycotting future movies bargle glargle." Creating characters who just happen to not be straight white men is the ideal, but the world is full of people who are willing to fight tooth and nail against them.

[Serpentine]

Nightcrawler.
...
Of course, then the Ultimate universe reduced him to a myopic homophobe, because why not?

Oh no. Say it isn't so

P.S. The fact that straight cis white male characters get to have the luxury of feeling "natural", even when their presence is downright unnatural, without ever having to justify themselves, whereas every single freaking time someone wants to include a significant character that is literally anything other than a straight cis white man that decision has to be constantly defended and justified even though "those people exist" should be ample justification, is the whole problem. And the fact that you can't even have a simple thread asking about media that features characters other than straight cis white male characters without a bunch of people (who I assume, but admit I don't actually know, are straight cis white men) coming in and complaining about the very concept of media that features characters other than straight cis white men as a matter of principle, because any media that features characters other than straight cis white men is CLEARLY "created just to appeal or pander to a specific audience" (as opposed to straight cis white male characters created to appeal or pander to straight cis white male audiences) and "unnatural" and merely about "making people feel better about themselves" (because that's a terrible thing, unless it's making straight cis white men feel better about themselves, obviously) or that it "doesn't matter" (which is easy to say when things are in your favour) serves amply to demonstrate exactly why it's so important to push for more characters that aren't straight cis white men.
People who are not straight cis white men exist. That is literally the only justification ever needed for any media to include more characters that are not straight cis white men (more justification than is needed, really, considering everyone's cool with elves and half-dragons and other things that don't even have the advantage of existing). If you think that a story's hero being a black lesbian requires more justification or explanation or whatever in order to be "more natural" than the hero being a straight white guy, then congratulations, you've just demonstrated exactly why we need more stories featuring black lesbians. And you should be on board with that, too - the more diversity we have, the more "natural" that diversity will seem, and be.


Anyway, regarding the actual topic of the thread, how about fantasy novels? Aside from Tamora Pierce, are there any authors out there who don't just write pseudo-medieval Europe stuff (or who do, but incorporate the rest of the world as well)? I suppose there's the Percheron series by Fiona McIntosh. I've only read the first one, Odalisque, and it's set in what seems to be a Middle East-analogue culture, one of the main characters is a woman and another is a dwarf/little person.

[Kitten Champion]

Oh no. Say it isn't so

Well, kind of. Thing is, all I can remember about the Ultimate Nightcrawler character was Ultimate Colossus is gay but closeted for the most part and Nightcrawler - after being depicted as a kind of naive character before this - expressed his... disgust at how unnatural that is several time, much to Colossus' anxiety.

The intended irony was clear, with Nightcrawler being the poster-child for the Scary Unnatural Mutant Menace and subject to horrendous bigotry (which was waaaaay worse in the Ultimate Universe as you might imagine) is himself a bigot over something as banal as sexual preference. It upended what was essential and likeable about the character, just for that unsubtle bit of commentary.

Though, I'm not sure if that bit of his character was ever redeemed before they killed him off in Ultimatum, so perhaps he got better.

[Razade]

I actually separated catholic and Christian faiths because, well, they are different. It doesn’t take a whole lot of research to figure that out. Anyway that’s a religious topic so it’s best suited elsewhere.

I'd frankly love to have that conversation with you because this was the funniest thing I've read all day, and the day was a real pit of despair so even if you don't want to have that conversation I suppose feel good you said something that banished those dark clouds. Just laugh out loud hilarious man. 10/10, I'll be riding this high for at least another day or two.

As for whether diversity is good or bad, really it doesn’t matter as long as that franchise makes money and continues and its audience is happy.

Maybe from a market perspective but don't you think it's rather cynical to look at things just on how much money they make and how many focus groups are pleased? As an openly gay man I like seeing other gay people in media portrayed well and realistically. I prefer for them not to be token however, meaning if a character is gay I don't want that to be the only reason their character exists.

As for me, I prefer diversity to be a natural occurrence. I’d rather an interesting character that happens to be X,Y and Z than one that’s created just to appeal or pander to a specific audience. Those sorts of characters are usually one note characters that don’t last long because there’s not much substance to them to begin with.

Well, we agree on this at least. Maybe there's some hope after all.

That's great. Unfortunately, when creators put in characters who just happen to be gay, or black, or female, the internet erupts in full surround sound bigot-o-rama. The press asked J.J. Abrams at a party whether Star Wars would ever have any gay characters; he said "That'd be cool, sure"; thousands of Facebook comments erupted with "Why can't we keep sexuality out of Star Wars?" and "Why can't we keep Star Wars kid-friendly?" and "I'm boycotting future movies bargle glargle." Creating characters who just happen to not be straight white men is the ideal, but the world is full of people who are willing to fight tooth and nail against them.

Than is actually in the right mindset here honestly. If all you want a character to be is "The Gay One" or "The Black One" you're not making the medium better and you're not really giving equal and fair treatment to the minority in question. You're actually making the medium worse because painting by numbers for the sake of diversity is transparent and no one appreciates it. A black woman isn't a character, a trans-woman isn't a character. They're people and they're more than their skin color or sexual preference and all you do by presenting them as such by making them narrow check boxes so you're "being diverse" is further marginalizing them. Which obviously isn't the intent but it is what you're doing.

P.S. The fact that straight cis white male characters get to have the luxury of feeling "natural", even when their presence is downright unnatural, without ever having to justify themselves, whereas every single freaking time someone wants to include a significant character that is literally anything other than a straight cis white man that decision has to be constantly defended and justified even though "those people exist" should be ample justification, is the whole problem. And the fact that you can't even have a simple thread asking about media that features characters other than straight cis white male characters without a bunch of people (who I assume, but admit I don't actually know, are straight cis white men) coming in and complaining about the very concept of media that features characters other than straight cis white men as a matter of principle, because any media that features characters other than straight cis white men is CLEARLY "created just to appeal or pander to a specific audience" (as opposed to straight cis white male characters created to appeal or pander to straight cis white male audiences) and "unnatural" and merely about "making people feel better about themselves" (because that's a terrible thing, unless it's making straight cis white men feel better about themselves, obviously) or that it "doesn't matter" (which is easy to say when things are in your favour) serves amply to demonstrate exactly why it's so important to push for more characters that aren't straight cis white men.
People who are not straight cis white men exist. That is literally the only justification ever needed for any media to include more characters that are not straight cis white men (more justification than is needed, really, considering everyone's cool with elves and half-dragons and other things that don't even have the advantage of existing). If you think that a story's hero being a black lesbian requires more justification or explanation or whatever in order to be "more natural" than the hero being a straight white guy, then congratulations, you've just demonstrated exactly why we need more stories featuring black lesbians. And you should be on board with that, too - the more diversity we have, the more "natural" that diversity will seem, and be.


Anyway, regarding the actual topic of the thread, how about fantasy novels? Aside from Tamora Pierce, are there any authors out there who don't just write pseudo-medieval Europe stuff (or who do, but incorporate the rest of the world as well)? I suppose there's the Percheron series by Fiona McIntosh. I've only read the first one, Odalisque, and it's set in what seems to be a Middle East-analogue culture, one of the main characters is a woman and another is a dwarf/little person.

As a non-cis male I really wish people on both sides of the divide would stop using Cis-Gender in such a casual manner. It's become a slur just as nasty as the ones levied at "Non-Cis" people and every time I see it used by someone who otherwise has a perfectly valid point (like the quote above) makes me understand why straight men of any color resents the implication that they are somehow the root of the problem and need to just shut up and sit down because their turn to talk is over. Which is exactly the opposite of what the dialogue needs and is exactly the opposite of what (again the quoted) is actually saying. But each time the term Cis is thrown around...just another shovel of dirt thrown on the grave of multilateral discussion. The day we as a species move beyond the titles of gay, cis, trans etc and just look at each other as humans who are beautiful in their own way can't come soon enough, but no one trying to put others in boxes on either side is going to get us there faster.

[Serpentine]

Though, I'm not sure if that bit of his character was ever redeemed before they killed him off in Ultimatum, so perhaps he got better.

I hope so. Nightcrawler is my favourite

I prefer for them not to be token however, meaning if a character is gay I don't want that to be the only reason their character exists.

...

Than is actually in the right mindset here honestly. If all you want a character to be is "The Gay One" or "The Black One" you're not making the medium better and you're not really giving equal and fair treatment to the minority in question. You're actually making the medium worse because painting by numbers for the sake of diversity is transparent and no one appreciates it. A black woman isn't a character, a trans-woman isn't a character. They're people and they're more than their skin color or sexual preference and all you do by presenting them as such by making them narrow check boxes so you're "being diverse" is further marginalizing them. Which obviously isn't the intent but it is what you're doing.

And that's exactly why having lots of diversity, and diversity within that diversity, is so important. To take Tamora Pierce as the go-to example of gender diversity, having at least as many female characters as male characters means that no one of them is "the chick", the representative of all womankind. It means there's room for nuance and for all sorts of women to find someone to identify. There are tough, physical, angry, masculine women, and there are soft, gentle, domestic, feminine women, and then there are tough, masculine women who go out of their way to remind everyone that they are also feminine and that's not a bad thing, and they all have the room to demonstrate their own strengths and weaknesses, flaws and virtues, and be their own complete character - rather than "the woman". When you have "anyone can be any gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc", then you have more room for them all to be their own characters beyond those traits.

edit: Cis is descriptive, that's all. Literally all it means is "not trans", just like trans means "not cis". I'm a straight(ish) cis (mostly) white (probably completely) woman. Cis is meant to be no more pejorative in what I said than any other the descriptors I used. The only problem with any of those things is that they're the only things we're allowed to see (without it having to be justified, analysed and criticised right up the wazoo).

And here we are again, having to justify getting to see a bit of diversity in the media, literally anything but a monotonous sweep of cis straight white men, instead of just being allowed to talk about what media even has any presence of anything other than cis straight white men... Sure, there's lots of cis straight white male characters I absolutely adore, but even express an interest in characters who don't fit into that category and people start losing their minds.

[Razade]

And that's exactly why having lots of diversity, and diversity within that diversity, is so important. To take Tamora Pierce as the go-to example of gender diversity, having at least as many female characters as male characters means that no one of them is "the chick", the representative of all womankind. It means there's room for nuance and for all sorts of women to find someone to identify. There are tough, physical, angry, masculine women, and there are soft, gentle, domestic, feminine women, and then there are tough, masculine women who go out of their way to remind everyone that they are also feminine and that's not a bad thing, and they all have the room to demonstrate their own strengths and weaknesses, flaws and virtues, and be their own complete character - rather than "the woman". When you have "anyone can be any gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc", then you have more room for them all to be their own characters beyond those traits.

You can do that without them being the token minority however. In fact you have to. If you make a character whose only characterization is that they're a minority isn't just bad writing it strips any form of nuance away from the entire affair. I'm not actually sure what you're arguing against, we agree that there should be more diversity and that diversity should be done well. My issue wasn't with what you wrote about diversity, it was with the use of the term Cis because it's poison and otherwise turns people off from what were generally good points.

[Serpentine]

You can do that without them being the token minority however. In fact you have to. If you make a character whose only characterization is that they're a minority isn't just bad writing it strips any form of nuance away from the entire affair. I'm not actually sure what you're arguing against, we agree that there should be more diversity and that diversity should be done well.

Yes, that's the point. I was continuing on from your point, that what you said is exactly why MORE diversity is so important - more diversity = less tokenism.

My issue wasn't with what you wrote about diversity, it was with the use of the term Cis because it's poison and otherwise turns people off from what were generally good points.

Except it really, really isn't, no more than "trans" is - no more than calling someone heterosexual as opposed to homosexual or bisexual is "poison". It is literally just a handy descriptor for "person who do not fall under the trans umbrella". And since decent trans characters are even harder to come by than decent female, gay or non-white characters, it is definitely relevant to this discussion as much as those.

[Razade]

Except it really, really isn't, no more than "trans" is - no more than calling someone heterosexual as opposed to homosexual or bisexual is "poison". It is literally just a handy descriptor for "person who do not fall under the trans umbrella".

I understand you feel that way and I won't condescend to you that it's your right to feel it, you don't need me to tell you what you can or can't feel. If you think, however, that you're the one that gets to tell straight people what terms they're allowed to use however...don't know what more to tell you. I think you see the fault in it.

[Serpentine]

I understand you feel that way and I won't condescend to you that it's your right to feel it, you don't need me to tell you what you can or can't feel. If you think, however, that you're the one that gets to tell straight people what terms they're allowed to use however...don't know what more to tell you. I think you see the fault in it.

I don't know what you mean by "straight people" there, since if you're talking about straight as in heterosexual then I can't make sense of your post, and if you mean straight as in cis (or "not-trans") then you're using the word incorrectly, or at least non-standardly.
As I said, I am a heterosexual (or straight, if you had a problem with that term?) cis person. I'm not the one telling anyone what they are or are not allowed to call themselves. And in this context, the overwhelming majority of characters being cis (or, if you prefer, "non-trans") straight white men is as relevant as them being straight white men.

edit: For your reference, an example of general cis/trans usage, and another pairing. Literally all it means.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Soooo We’re supposed to be color blind, ethnicity blind, gender identity blind, sexual preference blind unless it has to do with making people feel better about themselves? That sounds hypocritical to me. I mean if we aren’t color/ethnic/gender identity/sexual preference blind any other time then we’re a bunch of racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes right?

Nobody in this thread has said that, and speaking only for myself here I don't appreciate other people putting words in my mouth. Especially insults.

I just...don't understand the idea that people want fiction to be less representative of the fullness and richness of reality than it could be. Why Fictional New York City - with all else being equal - should be a different color and sound and feeling from the real New York (smell's another matter, but that's not related to any particular people other than the sanitation union). Why Fictional Ancient Egypt should be populated by and ruled over by no one but received-pronunciation-affecting Anglo-Saxon men and one black guy. Why, in space, no one can hear you express your love unless it's for the opposite gender. I don't understand why.

Or I do, rather, but it's not an accusation I level lightly, or on this board.


That said, I do agree with you about X-Men. While the writing quality is as inconsistent as any other long-running comic, it's an ensemble work that goes out of its way to make it clear that anyone and everyone can be a hero, regardless of any qualifiers about race, sex, gender, sexuality, religion etc. Moreover, since almost the beginning, it's been a story about how marginalized groups have to fight constantly for their right to even exist, let alone do things like contribute to society or be represented in media. Fantastic series.

I actually separated catholic and Christian faiths because, well, they are different. It doesn’t take a whole lot of research to figure that out. Anyway that’s a religious topic so it’s best suited elsewhere.

On the other hand, yikes. I uh, really suggest for your safety you don't actually bring that up anywhere it can be argued. Literal wars have started over that sentiment, which also doesn't take a whole lot of research to figure out.