people write dani as a repressed homosexual which makes sense since she’s straight, but i think diving into that part of manon would be interesting aswell since most people just write her as comfortable with being gay but i think it could go either way especially since she never came out and told us her sexuality. I feel like when it comes to manon everyone just puts her in one box, like before we all knew she was dating david there were many speculations she was lesbian which was funny since she’s talked about her attraction to men before but it had to take her having a whole boyfriend for people to realize she wasn’t lesbian, even now some people still think she could be bi, I honestly think anything is possible. If she were to announce she’s straight I wouldn’t be surprised and if she announce she was bi I also wouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes she does do things that look like she’s into women like that marzini live where said “I mean” when Lara said people think we’re lesbians” or the girl in red incident but I honestly don’t read too much into those situations cause they can honestly just be played as jokes. Like if dani never actually said she was straight I heavily think people would be thinking the same things about her too which is exactly why she had to say she was straight since people kept calling her gay so I think this could be the same for manon too. I think manon just likes to keep things private and for that to work she likes to throw people off so they’re always double guessing.
this ask is really interesting to me, thank you for sending.
i think falling into "putting manon in a box" isn't good, however, i do think there is a lot of information in the "text" (all the content we have access to) that makes people make that characterization choice in rpf (that she's queer / lesbian and comfortable with that part of herself). i obviously can't speak for any other authors, but i can talk about some of my own characterization for her.
there are so many reasons why i personally wrote manon the way that i did/do. i did originally hint at her being a lesbian in my series (you can see evidence of that in "i can't, i want it bad"). i'm not saying manon is a lesbian. i don't know manon lol. i'm just saying, there is sufficient evidence in what we do know to make the choice to characterize/write her that way (fictionally). here's some of that evidence:
sophie. sophie and manon are gay. sorry. and i'm not just talking about the kissing photots. i'm talking about their intense homoerotic vibe.
not talking about your sexuality because "it's private" is a very gay thing to do.
manon being self assured in general lends itself to her being somewhat self assured in her sexuality.
unlike dani, she isn't religious.
she's very open and supportive of lgbtq people, has queer friends, and seems super comfortable with the community.
talking about being attracted to men doesn't mean someone is attracted to men. comphet is very real.
manon posted a photo of the rainbow flag wrapped around herself on her instagram... of all of the photos she could have chosen for her photo dump of tour.
manon's dynamic with lara and megan (hey mamas jokes, fingering jokes, flirting so heavily and openly, cultural references, general extremely extremely gay vibes.)
manon's pre-dream academy social media footprint
sophie. i said that already but it warrants saying again.
manon pings the hell out of my gaydar.
sure, the girl in red moment + "i mean" after lara said "people really think we're both lesbians"
Any of these things in isolation is not evidence of queerness... all of them together is a very compelling story.
All of Manon's self assuredness does pose the question -- why wouldn't she come out, since she has evidence that lara and megan both did and were accepted? As I initially was writing Manon before David was in the picture, i made one of the other logical conclusion that was possible, that manon wasn't out because she wasn't queer, or bi, but a lesbian.
There's a difference in terms of the reception of a bi woman vs. lesbian, and so that was a choice i made with her characterization. Obviously now David exists, but i still think there is heavy evidence for characterizing her as queer and as somewhat self-assured/confident about that within herself, whereas with Dani, it's obviously different from a characterization perspective (for me anyways).
also of course this is all fiction, and the key premise of all of this rpf (for me) is that i am shipping them with each other, so naturally i have to find a way for them to all be interested in women, even if in real life they aren't.
i really enjoyed this ask because it reminded me of the manon characterization work i'd done way back at the beginning of writing my series and it made me nostalgic.
i can imagine a different characterization for manon, maybe one where manon is the kind of queer person who everyone knows is queer before she does, like, she says things like "i wish i was gay but i'm not" and is all sad about it, but keeps making out with women, and doing the gayest stuff on planet earth, and everyone is like wait what, girl, you are gay, what is going on, and her being "straight" is like the biggest confusion/frustration for the queer people in her life who are just waiting for her to catch up with the fact she is in fact queer as well.
obviously i'm not going to write manon as straight lol so even if she is that's not really any of my concern.
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