Portrayal (Patreon)

Underworlddare on FA (https://www.furaffinity.net/user/underworlddare/) asks: Do you feel any pressure to portray your gay characters a certain way due to lack of mainstream representation, or do you not take any mind to that?

The short answer is no, of course not, I’m a writer, I don’t worry about that stuff.

The still short answer is yes, Of course I do, how can I not?

The longer, probably not so simple, answer is that I do my best not to let outside pressure of any kind affect my writing, but I’m only … I kind of have to say human here, don’t I, since being a tiger doesn’t have the same connotation.

We are bombarded by outside pressures from the moment we are born, I doubt we will escape them before we die. Even when we recognize one of those pressures, adjusting out behavior to take it into account isn’t always easy.

Just today I realized that I coded a character as male basically as a reflex, when I knew them to be genderless. Pressure is simply that deep in us.

Underworlddare ask if I feel pressured to portray my gay characters in a certain way DUE to a lack off representation. The answer to that is no… or rather, it isn’t the lack of representation that causes me to portray my gay character in a certain way, but a rather constant way media had been representating gay over the years: as a caricature.

What endeavor to do is portray my gay characters (as well as all of them) as three dimensional beings not defined only by their trait of being gay, or even a flaming gay, or a bear, or an otter, or a tiger.

I think that as creators of characters and of stories if we start from the point of view of making our characters “humans” (generalized term used, applie which ever species is required here) we are in a good direction to fight outside pressures to portray anyone in any specific way.

And if you want to portray a character in a specific was as a response to such a pressure? More power to you. You are the creator. Just remember, as you are creating your character, you are creating a pressure someone else may feel a need to respond to.

Pressures are all around us. Some of them, you and I have created. Handle them with care.

And with that. I, will wish you a good day