I've so many thoughts on this, this may be a bit jumbled.
I know for myself I did this once I shook out after finding slash. That is to say, once I checked the shock I asked "is this the way this character would handle things?" and that took me to research and find the wide variety of historical and cultural constellations. I've changed how I think about things, and what I know about things, because of reading and writing.
I think of Star Trek and Man from U.N.C.L.E. here. I saw them first in syndication, things my mom had watched prime time and wanted to see again. Remember, this was a time when the world didn't look like what tv showed. TV was very white and very male. They also were hopeful, and the heroes won, not easily, sometimes they questioned. But they did it time after time.
And yes, practice is what makes it much faster to do the right thing when the time comes. There is a character in a Turtledove series, who becomes the first xenolinguistic expert, because he'd been reading the science-fiction magazines as he played minor league ball. (Like Steve, he was 4F. Lost all his teeth during the 1919 flu.) First step? Treat the lizards as people. Second and third are speak your language and listen to what they say.
It's not that race requires separate archetypes. But validating only X, that's going to alienate people. "I do what he does, slower." Sam didn't come out of a bottle. (Neither did Steve, not the part that is the hero.) Steve's MCU background, and the background he's accreted in the comics is radical. Think about it. He doesn't come from space, son of Important Scientist. He's not the heir to vast wealth. He's just a kid from Brooklyn, that wants to stop bullies even more than he wants to live through winter.
Characters aren't archetypes, but they are avatars, striding about showing how things work if Y is done. Well-done diversity gives more breadth of what is done and removes that 'doesn't look like me' bar.
no subject
I know for myself I did this once I shook out after finding slash. That is to say, once I checked the shock I asked "is this the way this character would handle things?" and that took me to research and find the wide variety of historical and cultural constellations. I've changed how I think about things, and what I know about things, because of reading and writing.
I think of Star Trek and Man from U.N.C.L.E. here. I saw them first in syndication, things my mom had watched prime time and wanted to see again. Remember, this was a time when the world didn't look like what tv showed. TV was very white and very male. They also were hopeful, and the heroes won, not easily, sometimes they questioned. But they did it time after time.
And yes, practice is what makes it much faster to do the right thing when the time comes. There is a character in a Turtledove series, who becomes the first xenolinguistic expert, because he'd been reading the science-fiction magazines as he played minor league ball. (Like Steve, he was 4F. Lost all his teeth during the 1919 flu.) First step? Treat the lizards as people. Second and third are speak your language and listen to what they say.
It's not that race requires separate archetypes. But validating only X, that's going to alienate people. "I do what he does, slower." Sam didn't come out of a bottle. (Neither did Steve, not the part that is the hero.) Steve's MCU background, and the background he's accreted in the comics is radical. Think about it. He doesn't come from space, son of Important Scientist. He's not the heir to vast wealth. He's just a kid from Brooklyn, that wants to stop bullies even more than he wants to live through winter.
Characters aren't archetypes, but they are avatars, striding about showing how things work if Y is done. Well-done diversity gives more breadth of what is done and removes that 'doesn't look like me' bar.