hi this is a lengthy infodump post about a couple of my ocs
the tldr/elevator pitch for these two is: trans and disabled vampire living on a massive off-world space station and nonbinary travelling environmental scientist/astronaut with an intense platonic relationship who very rarely see each other write letters to each other in their heads while apart. if this is of any interest to you, read on :]
so these two characters are named sol (she/xe/it; space vampire) and saturn (they/them; scientist). here is a bunch of information about them:
sol is very much the concept of vampirism as a disability/medical condition. she uses mobility aids (one or two arm crutches), needs to receive regular blood transfusions, and has a portable lvad to help her heart pump blood. she is unemployed and lives on the far-future space version of disability. it has a (very small) apartment in the massive off-world space station. her recollection of what happened before xe came to the space station is... blurry, to say the least. she was found as a young teen on an abandoned spacecraft, almost dead, and brought to one of the hospitals on the space station. no one knows what happened to xem or why she was there, but it probably has something to do with how she acquired her vampirism. she tries not to dwell on it too much. sol is, at xyr very core, trying her best - to be a good friend, to stay alive, to live a life that feels worth it - but xe can't escape the feeling that it's a black hole in the lives of those she cares about, something that only takes and takes and can never give back. she struggles a lot with feeling guilty about how much she cares about people - especially saturn. some songs i associate with her are i want things to be beautiful by devi mccallion, black hole fantasy by the crane wives, and blood from the concrete by the scary jokes.
saturn has a far-future space phd in astrobiology and environmental science and works as a field exobiologist exploring, documenting, and studying the ecosystems of various exoplanets and moons in the galaxy. they're frequently out on field missions doing just that, only returning to visit sol on the space station when they can take a bit of time off to see her. as much as saturn misses the people they love when they're off exploring the stars, they wouldn't give it up for the world. they wish they could show sol the amazing places they get to visit, but sol can't leave the space station because of her vampirism, so saturn tells xem about them instead. saturn is indigenous (coast salish), but has never known the land that them and their ancestors are indigenous to, having grown up on the space station where sol now lives. because of this, saturn has a bit of a complicated sense of identity. it's a theme they may spend the rest of their life detangling, but they do know that their culture and family are important to them, as is spending time in the many natural worlds they study through their work. songs i associate with them are in the aeroplane over the sea by neutral milk hotel, one of these days by camper van beethoven, and metal by the beths.
sol and saturn met in their early 20s when saturn was still in school and sol had only recently come out as trans and have been good friends ever since. these days they do not see each other often, nor can they really communicate through any technological means when saturn is in the middle of nowhere on distant planets and moons, but they are very important people to each other and have a tendency to haunt each other's lives in their absence. as mentioned in the elevator pitch, they write letters to each other in their heads with pen pal-like updates, personal musings, and all the things they can't bring themselves to say to the other out loud, like "i love you." someday i am going to actually write those as a little short story or novella but i have not gotten around to it yet. for now i just doodle them in my notes a lot.
and speaking of, here are some of said doodles + some other sketches and wips! sol is the one with the one long braid, saturn has the two braids and the cowboy hat
if you have made it this far, thank you for reading all of that. i hope you enjoyed your stay
