I hope I can come across a very detailed paper or blog post or something that gets into the nitty-gritty of this obsession with "relating" to characters. It's always so superficial and shallow, and never about something in-depth or personal.

"That person does not resemble me physically. That person does not have my same sexuality. That person does not repeat my personal political beliefs." What the fuck is this? I played the shit out of Spyro and Crash Bandicoot when I was a kid and I never had this "relatability" problem. Today I play 2B, dwarves, my FF14 Highlander lady, Saiyans, Warframes, Slime Rancher lady, and on and on. None of these people are copies of me, and yet I don't suffer this self-obsessed debilitating feeling of not being able to relaaaaaate to them.