Returning after a few months to my aro OCs list with another batch of folks, this is Dan!
Dan Gibson (they/them)
Genre: sci-fi
Identity: aromantic asexual, nonbinary (agender)
Dan is the protagonist of Red Shift Blue Shift, a sci-fi story (in theory a webcomic) that @yourfriendlyneighborhoodenby and I have been working on together on and off for quite a few years now. They live in the space future, and work for an organisation that exists to protect the rights of and investigate crimes against robots and other sapient artificial intelligences, who (at least in theory) have been integrated into society on an equal standing to humans. Dan's particular speciality is investigative, and they're also a trained crisis negotiator and even spent several years when they were younger training as a doctor-for-robots (which we need to come up with a decent in-universe name for...) before they realised that so many of the things that hurt their patients were societal and switched careers to try and do something about that.
Their team, which they lead, is made up of both humans and bots, including a cheerful spaceship AI, a very old former combat bot and one very cranky trans android, and over the course of the story they start to uncover evidence of something much bigger and more sinister going on than the cases they usually deal with. (Which include things like rescuing an ancient generation ship AI that's developed sentience from unscrupulous scavengers, investigating disappearances on a combat bot retirement moon, and resolving a hostage situation between humans and bots on a remote colony world.) Something nasty is brewing alongside the pushback against robot rights in recent years, and even their own organisation isn't immune to growing prejudices that are forcing bots out of prominent positions and public life, and it's all definitely not a bit of an allegory for current attitudes towards trans people, no, not at all. There are groups springing up with dangerous attitudes and even more dangerous plans, and as they start to uncover evidence of one of those plans in particular, Dan is forced to confront what it might take to save the future they're trying to build...
Dan themself is trans (transmasc agender), aroace, autistic, and a double amputee after they lost their legs in what they like to euphemistically refer to as 'a workplace incident' because they think they're funny, and they might not be a bot themselves but they know what it's like to be an outsider. In terms of personality, they're chronically helpful, far too fond of dad jokes, determined in quite a self-sacrificing way, and much too tired for all of this nonsense but making it their problem anyway. They're a natural mentor and a good friend, and driven by a deep commitment to justice and a whole lot of compassion, but also they can be pragmatic, coldly logical, stubborn, and they're very good at justifying their own choices to themself. They contain multitudes.
They live in a future where a-spec identities are pretty normalised so that hasn't been a huge source of drama in their life, but in a modern context they're exactly the sort of person who would get accusations of being 'robot-like', which is exactly why they're the protagonist of a story about robots. Sometimes you get fed up with allegory.
Mini playlist, for extra vibes:
Fixer Upper - Grace Petrie - And maybe I'm delusional, but I think it could be beautiful / If we could only keep from losing heart / Then we might still / Have time to build something better from the parts
Good Friend - Cloud Cult - We are not broken ones / Just shattered pieces of the same bright sun / Trying to figure out which way to run / And we can't do this alone
Under Pressure - Queen, David Bowie - 'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word / And love dares you to care for / The people on the edge of the night / And love dares you to change our way of / Caring about ourselves
