Happy Pride Month from my OCs who are LGBTQIA+!
I know I should have more representation in my universe, and I’m adding it where it fits, but considering most of these characters were originally created when I was a clueless 15-year-old I’m pleased with what I have so far.
It’s funny because Abarok has clearly been on the ace spectrum (like me) from the beginning, but I didn’t know that was a thing at the time. I still had him oblivious to flirting going on right in front of him, impervious to a femme fatale character’s charms, etc. In later years when I learned about asexuality (and realized it described me) I looked back and was like, “Duh! Abarok is totally ace!” :)
Zalani being bi just sort of happened as the character developed. She used to be a more cliche “I’m drop-dead gorgeous so I can use that to get whatever I want” type of character (i.e. the femme fatale mentioned in the previous paragraph) but she’s since been fleshed out more to where she’s politically savvy, trying to navigate a world where her own culture is sexist and the culture she’s dealing with most is racist, so she can’t win no matter what she does. Which has nothing to do with her sexuality, I realize, but somewhere along the way as I delved into her motivations and viewpoints it just seemed to fit.
Hazervia (the empress’ executive secretary) was the first non-straight character in my universe. Even in high school, ignorant as I was about a lot of things, I knew at least one of my characters had to be LGBT, and she wasn’t involved in any romantic plots that would be impacted, so I waved my magic writer’s wand and was like, “Tada, you’re a lesbian now!” She’s married and has an adopted son.
(I hope I used the right flag. I know there’s some controversy about which lesbian flag to use, but this one was overwhelmingly the version that came up in Google image search.)
Zola is the most recent addition to the group. In a sequel that’s not even canon anymore she helps a relative’s widow to raise a child, and even at the time I wrote it (circa age 16-17) I thought, “Hmm, two women raising a kid together. Maybe...” So even though that plot isn’t canon anymore, I decided Zola is attracted to women. The other character (the widow) is someone I would like to work into the story somehow, and if/when I do she’s going to be bisexual. I don’t have a pixel sprite of her to put in the image above, though.
Anyway, I would like to work in more representation into my universe, (especially for gay men and trans people) but for now these characters are the ones celebrating Pride Month. :)
