The #FemaleLinkJam encourages participants to make short games featuring Link, from Legend of Zelda, as a woman.

Our culture is inundated with reboots, retellings, and the dreaded sequel. It’s increasingly difficult to find original ideas in media, or when they occur, they’re more often than not overshadowed by the sixth Iron Man movie or another Call of Duty. I’m not going to try to argue that these are bad creations — some of the greatest creations of all time have been adaptations of preexisting works. In video games especially, the sequels are often considered greater than their parent titles. Generally, there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem is when people begin demanding changes in media, without offering anything in return. When we demand people create what we want by demanding they change what already exists.

Recently the #FemaleLinkJam has gotten a fair amount of attention. The idea is to encourage people to make a game featuring the titular Link, from Legend of Zelda, as a female character. The idea itself isn’t where I have a problem. I don’t care if fans toy with “What if” scenarios. There’s a reason writers say the best thing you can do to improve your craft is to read more. Playing “What it’s” with pre-existing scenarios is a good exercise in creativity. The problem is the Jam extends from and is being used to promote what I like to call “self-righteous time traveling”. A bitter resentment of popular characters who aren’t exactly what you want, so rather than create what you want, you insist they be changed to meet demand. This is beyond gender bending fanart — and it’s not doing anything for creativity.

Genderbent characters are nothing new, and not the problem — the problem is when you start demanding it from their original creators. (Art by David Stonecipher).

I have a significant problem with people who demand creators meet their desires when they themselves offer nothing in return. It becomes clear these people don’t fully understand creativity or what goes into thinking up a story, and seem to think you can make any character and shove them into a story. First of all, how insulting to think that a person’s race, gender and sexual identity is so unimportant that it can be changed at a moments notice. Imagine if you told a real person to just “change” characteristics they’re born with? That shouldn’t become okay with fictional characters — if it were, this wouldn’t even be a discussion. If the argument is that fictional characters be treated as though they have a significant impact on the world, then that means we can’t demand them to change.

This leads into my second point: there’s a massive disrespect to the creator when you demand this. I’m not much for fiction writing nor do my creations recieve anything close to popularity. But I still feel a personal attachment to the characters I create. They’re born in my mind, like metaphorical children. Their backfires, their smallest characteristics, they become real. If someone told me they needed to change, I’d be as offended as if someone told me personally to change. Maybe because I’m a sexual minority I’m more sensitive to this. It’s better now but for a while society loved telling gay and lesbian people to just stop being so gay.

I don’t want that for me. I don’t want that for my characters. I can’t just change the I base characteristics — that’s just how they are.

And my last point is, just why? Why demand already created characters change instead of creating something new? Why keep rehashing the same characters? I theorize there are two reasons. The first is, these characters are already popular, and people would rather capitalize on already well-known franchises than try to create something new. The second is simply a lack of creative thought in itself. The people making these criticisms don’t have the minds of creators and tend to see things in shades of only black and white. They don’t understand nuances in character creation and development. They assume it’s as easy as just changing a character on a whim. But if creating a character is so simple, then why not create one yourself.

Ori and the Blind Forest, from Moon Studios, is one of hundreds of indie games celebrating creative new stories and characters, and one of my new personal favorites in recent months.

This is a challenge to everyone — we should be embracing creation, we should be encouraging people to be inventive and contribute to media in a positive way, rather than simply trying to fix it to cater to their views. That is how you improve an atmosphere you feel is not inclusive. By involvement. And, equally so, people should celebrate new characters and creations and cheer on people who even make an attempt, no matter how amateur.

If you think the problem in media, be it film or books or video games or comics, is a lack of representation, then create representation. The beauty of media like this, especially video games and books, is in theory, anyone can enter into them. Anyone can make an indie game. Anyone can write a story. If you dedicate yourself to learning the skills or assembling the team through projects like GameDev.Life, you can create something fantastic. Pretty much all of my favorite games in the last year have been indie titles. There is so much untapped imagination there that take inspiration from what exists to make something new and bold and incredible. If we encouraged more people to take that route, we’d accomplish so much more than the current method.

Maybe we should be telling people to #CreateYourOwn, instead of forcing the hand of storytellers to meet our needs.