A colourful and peculiarly selected display of music, video games, human rights and inspiration, cinema, actors and writers, poetry, and, as one might imagine, my own inane musings. 
Reblogged from artsyneurotic
I play as females because I’m tired of men always being the heroes.
THIS
I play as females because I’m tired of men being the default in all of the stories.
Both of these but especially this.
*points up* What they said.
I play as females cause we’re prettier, and most of the time—but not all of the time—Bioware has better VAs for their female characters than for their male ones, IMO.
I play only women characters when they are given to me as a choice because I am tired of this notion that the default must always be a dude. I am tired of living in a society where cis, straight, white, men are the default everything and everything else must be an option like a stereo system or power steering in a new car.
It’s also my way of saying “hey, game companies that remember that women exist and also play games, thank you. Keep doing this, because I appreciate it and want to see more of it”.
^^^
I’ll take that a step further. I often play as female characters, but I also strive to make their designs look suitable to who they are as a person. My SWTOR Bounty Hunter looks hardened and badass with a lovely large scar across the left side of her face because she’s a gritty person, as are all good bounty hunters. No impeccable long flowing locks, no fucking movie star / porn makeup (cultural makeup/tattoos and such are ok), and no whitewashed appearance in general.
My largest pet peeve with characters is when someone does any of that.
Seven times out of ten, if I’m given a choice to play a female or male character in a game, I will select female. There are exceptions, of course - if I am trying to role-play one of my male OCs, for for instance, or playing a combat class I enjoy that comes only in a male flavour. Or if I just want to stomp around as an Orc or a Lizard-folk - sometimes I enjoy the voices and aesthetics of the male half of a species more than the female half, in terms of actually playing them myself.
However, in really solid adventures that take your player character into heavy consideration, I am almost always female. Fallout games, Fable games, Bioware games (with the exception of Neverwinter Nights). All female, because I could reflect little portions of myself through her narrative and was better able to make connections to the universe and the characters within it. It felt more natural, in many cases, to select a female hero for these stories.
My female characters have sort of sat in a variety of positions - they used to be less variable than they are now. Pale, red or white hair, green or blue eyes, slender. I’m afraid they all took their basis on a very old character, a sort of archetype I found attractive. While my Shepard retained her ghostly skin and short red hair (it just wouldn’t be the same any other way), I’m happy with setting my Skyrim character to a wonderful coffee mocha colour, different hair, different eyes, different personality. The nice thing about being able to play with the entire genetic and aesthetic makeup of a character is that it doesn’t have to be a direct reflection of you - hell, it doesn’t have to be a reflection of you at all. You can play as nearly anyone you imagine, which is beautiful - because there are far more varieties of people than you can possibly imagine who exist.
I will continue playing as wide a variety as I can cook up. I’ve played white haired, tawny skinned elven rogues, blue haired half-mer half-orcs, blonde viking vampires, evil overlords, naive strangers in new lands, hardasses that wouldn’t think twice to shoot you if you start to piss them off. I’ve also played a great many of these characters within a female narrative - and they didn’t have to fit any particular female archetype to do it. They didn’t have to be particularity pretty, even if some were. They didn’t have to wear hot coloured make-up, they didn’t have to have the bounciest tits or the firmest ass. They didn’t have to have any of these dull, oversexed attributes so often aflame in the media to become the heroes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just as realistic as you allow it to be.
