it’s actually really easy to satisfy audiences with Good Representation. you can’t depict someone struggling with their Otherness because that portrays it in a bad light but you have to depict them struggling with their Otherness because if you don’t, then you’re romanticizing how hard it is to be Othered. be super careful not to depict anything that might be adjacent to a common stereotype but if you go too far to avoid all stereotypes, then you’re still building the characters around stereotypes, which is a stereotype in its own way. if your storyline uses tropes, then it’s cliche, but if it avoids tropes, then it’s inauthentic. if you lampshade any of this, then you’re speaking down to your audience but if you don’t acknowledge this, you’re also speaking down to your audience. this is all really easy stuff i don’t know why people don’t get it.
forgot The Most Important thing. you absolutely CANNOT make them perfect because that dehumanizes them, but if you give them flaws? hoooo boy…let’s just say, you do *not* want to give them flaws…
